Review: Heavy Metal 273

Metal!

I was glad to see my new issue in this month, and more pleased after reading it.  Marco Turini’s “Homage to Frazetta” is not as chunky and dynamic as the model, but certainly augured an authentic Heavy Metal. 

The height of this issue is, for me, Hugo and Geland’s “The Souvenir”.  Classic HM fare, a complete tale; weird, fantastic narrative with imaginative and highly individual design.  A great package from detailed landscapes to ship designs, character and costume. The Products of this world, clothing, weapons, instruments, seemed to match the materiality of the World of “The Souvenir”.  The Mariner comes to a poor end.  How could he not? Several full page panels, feats of design and a treat to see, create a sense of scale and support the pacing of panel to panel narrative.  A legible story and some real treats.  My only complaint is the typefaces; while they are certainly expressive of the characters, and lend a weird voice, they were not particularly easy to read. Tough call.

Like Hugo, Inki Bilal creates uniquely identifiable worlds.  But Bilal’s is idiosyncratic of his own personal medium.  While I still recognize lines from painted and inked-and-colored work, his medium has transformed. Now limiting himself to black, white, and the surface of the paper, he manages to create authentic worlds with minimal detail, worlds that seem always on the edge of unraveling. A post-apocalyptic dust storm. So, “Julia and Roem” is kind of the desert of “Animalz” aquatic setting. Dehydrated water, okay, but just because you deliver. Still obscure, but, that too, is in tradition for HM.

Erika Lewis and J K Woodward’s “The 49^th Key” delivers lush art that is effectively, if not spectacularly, rendered.  The narrative carries the plot clearly and deliberately, though the art is quite dark overall.  I would have liked to have been able to see more of it.  A pretty realistic approach for a near future.  I’ll be waiting to see the next installment.

I enjoyed the more refined control of Joseph Kelly’s “Ymir”.  Who doesn’t like Giants? I want to see more substantive stories with this artwork.  The joke ending kinda undercuts the craft.

“Aftermath: The Big Clean” has too little signal versus noise. I like the almost Bisley stylings, it’s big and heavy, but it’s too dark.  I want to see all the crazy-clown-funhouse-grotesquerie up close, and I want it to mean something. The story made me think of a Halloween candy bag of mythology of the “aftermath” and a mental bellyache.  I’ll read the next installment, but it better be good.

“Exile”, sorta science-fictional and mythopoetic, but the art did not particularly appeal to me.  It ended up looking like stills from a Pixar movie.  I liked the Ourobouros, the seahorse, the spiraling gyre, so, meh.

Both Gallery and Artists Studio were pretty piquing.  I would like to see pages and pages of story work by Abrar Ajmal. He obviously has the chops to do even hyper realistic artwork of fantastical subjects, which is really cool to look at. Myka Jelina’s big-eyed Lolita Goth girls are both adorable and transgressive.  Scary cute at worst, certainly printworthy images and great traditional coloring! Me likey.

Finally, M19 and Kristian Krank’s Dead Earth Comics.  I like these one page scripts and remember Jeffrey Jones’ I’Mage and Paul Kirchener’s The Bus.  Keep looking for more of these. I don’t get a belly laugh off M19, it’s probably too European for me, but, I get that something is there and I do want Heavy Metal to challenge my tastes with new genres, formats, and artists. Dead Earth Comics I love! The chunky, red, white, green, black and zip is so cool low-tech and sci-fi near future.  Love it. Are there any longer Dead Earth tales?

Thanks, Kev, et al, for a fun month.