Heavy Metal June 1979

Heavy Metal

June 1979

 

June, 1979, and in rotation on my local album-oriented rock (AOR) station WAAL, 'Dance Away,' from Roxy Music, is in rotation. It's a track from their 1979 LP Manifesto. In a year in which New Wave was dominating the early play lists, the Roxies, with their polish and romanticism, were something of an enigma, but they made really good music.

 

The June, 1979 issue of Heavy Metal magazine is on the newsstand. Angus McKie provides the front cover illustration: 'The Performer,' while for the back cover, we get a Betty Page tribute from Marcus Boas, titled 'What Happened to Betty.'

 

For the masthead, editors Sean Kelly and Valerie Marchant let us know, in their inevitably deadpan, too-hip-too-care way, what is going on in this latest issue.

 

Looking through this issue from perspective of 46 (!) years, I'm struck by how impactful it was to see comic art rendered in process color. Although Heavy Metal had been on the stands for over two years now, it was striking to see the color schemes displayed on the pages of a 'slick' magazine devoted to sci-fi and fantasy comics and graphics.

 

Look at the colors for the second installment of 'Alien: The Illustrated Story,' and the penultimate episode of Corben's 'New Tales of the Arabian Nights':

 

In 1979, this kind of reproduction was commonplace in the albums sold in Western Europe, but novel and exciting for comics published in the USA.

 

For an excerpt for the novel 'East Wind Coming,' by Arthur Byron Cover, the HM editors feature a full-page illustration by Bernie Wrightson. Had it been done in the CMYK 'spot color' print scheme then still in widespread use in comics, it would not have had the visual impact that it does when rendered in process color.

 

The major piece in the June issue is the complete saga of 'Captain Future,' by Serge Clerc, which first appeared in Metal Hurlant in 1978. Its deep blacks and finer lines are admirably displayed in the pages of HM, showing that it wasn't just color artwork that benefited from the 'slick' magazine printing process.

 

Captain Future is filled with little allusions to pop culture; one character, 'Stiv Budder,' the captain of a fleet of space pirates, is modeled on Steven John Bator, aka 'Stiv Bator,' lead singer for the Cleveland punk band the Dead Boys. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rolling Stone, May 4, 1978

 

 

Then we have two quintessential 'stoner' comics, from those early days of HM. 

 

First, there's ............'Pyloon,' by Ray Rue  and Leo Giroux, Jr. Several episodes appeared in the late seventies, all featuring cribbed artwork, brilliant colors, and deranged narratives. Deranged, that is, if you weren't stoned. If you were stoned, then it all made perfect sense.

 

And of course, we must have a look at the latest installment of McKie's 'So Beautiful and So Dangerous,' another comic that mandated process color reproduction, and the assistance of Cannabis sativa, to understand.

 

The June, 1979 issue of Heavy Metal is another of the better ones. Worth picking up if you can find it for $10 or less on the shelves of a used bookstore or antiques mall.