Friday, July 14, 2017

Ranxerox (April - May 1984)

Ranxerox
by Liberatore
from the April and May 1984 issues of Heavy Metal magazine


This standalone Ranxerox story (not to be confused with the inaugural 'Ranxerox' story that debuted in Heavy Metal in September, 1983), which was serialized over the April and May 1984 issues of Heavy Metal, is one of the best strips ever to appear in the magazine. 



Ultraviolent, packed with satiric humor, and featuring a gang of homicidal, feral children who shoot squirtguns filled with acid (!), the plot shows a warped originality that is completely absent from modern-day comics.

Liberatore's artwork, which used Pantone markers to apply the colors, renders the seedy world of near-future Rome with the kind of prescient fidelity that is at once spot-on, but also a little disturbing......as if Liberatore had somehow traveled into the future and actually seen what the future Rome would (will ?!) look like in all its trashed, grafitti -strewn glory.............?!

Posted below in its entirety is 'Ranxerox.'















1 comment:

fred said...

While I thought this one could use more Ranxerox, Liberatore was sure good at depictions of urban decrepitude. "...you can almost hear cancer cells fester..." indeed. Liberatore was in Heavy Metal again just recently, "Ai Shiteru!" in #285.

thanks