So, let's begin my Grand Experiment of my Heavy Metal Where I Read. Basically, for those who are unfamiliar with the concept, I'm going to read through an issue of Heavy Metal magazine, and give my impressions of each story and some notes about what take place within it.
Origins
We get a brief bit of "back-story", if you could call it that, about Metal Hurlant, and how it came to the United States and published by the same people who put out the National Lampoon no less. It kind of amuses me that Heavy Metal is still being published, while the National Lampoon only exists as a bunch of pathetic sex comedies.
Den by Richard Corben
Well, I think it's safe to say that probably most of us know Den. At the very least, those of us who have seen the Heavy Metal movie have some passing familiarity with Den. However, unlike the film Heavy Metal, we don't know anything about Den's back-story to start off. Frankly, we know precisely as much as Den does. We don't know who Den is, only that he is named Den. Den frankly doesn't know who he is either. We don't know where Den is (neither does Den). We don't know how he got there. We just know that he is Den, he's big, he's hairless, he's muscular.
He also has a big penis.
That's right - Den is completely nekkid for this chapter. In the film Den took some steps to preserve his modesty, though few to none of the women in the story took similar steps. Here, he has no thought of a nudity taboo - and frankly he shouldn't, as there is no one around him to be offended. We do get a brief look at Den's past life as he sleeps, and at the geek with glasses he once was.
And now he learns he's not alone. We have a Lizard man, and a woman who is naked except for some ornamentation. It's interesting that while Den remembers little about who he is, like Jason Bourne he's retained his soft-skills, though unlike Jason Bourne he's picked up some physical skills, and lost some psychological hangups aside from problems with nudity - he eats snake meat raw.
Also, the panel with Den in behind the boulder, especially considering the narration and images prior to this (a close up on the woman's naked breasts, a close up on her pelvis - with the vagina in the middle of the panel, and then a close up on a single nipple) is amusingly Freudian. I presume it's deliberate by Corben. Oh, and when I say narration, that's all the dialog in this story. If you were to animate this single chapter without adding voice over narration, there would be no dialog at all. Just the sound effects - trickle of water from a spring, footsteps, and the jingle of the naked woman's head-dress. Anyway, this one is To Be Continued...
Rut by Philippe Druillet
This is a semi-amusing one-shot story. Guy's space-ship gets humped by a giant space alien, which ends up *ahem* getting his sperm into the ship, which in turn ends up impregnating the ship's pilot. By semi-amusing, I mean not really.
Conquering Armies by Jean-Pierre Dionnet and Jean-Claude Gal
I like the art style on this. It's black and white with deep shadows, and interesting designs on the characters. The decorations on the army we see in this story remind me of the great civilizations of Latin America - the Aztec & the Maya. It actually kind of reminds me of Tekumel, or how I imagined it, come to think about it. It's also a fun creepy little story, and something to mine for an RPG campaign. Basically, an army "conquers" a city, and the city conquers the army by having the members of the army go native or disappear.
The Adventures of Yrris by Philippe Druillet and Dominique
This is more of a traditional Swords & Sorcery story, from right off the back.
I like how they show Yrris doing his casual pickpocketing without making a big deal about it. It's there, but you could miss it if you weren't paying attention (the same way his cut-pursing itself could slip by without being noticed). Of course, he gets caught and the shit hits the fan.
So, the town that Yrris has found himself in is a town full of cannibals. Lovely. So, he goes to make his escape. Rather a grisly turn for our hero at the end of this chapter though. No, nothing bad happens to him, but he does kill one of the locals and turn the skin from his skull into a mask. Eww. To be Continued...
Arzach by Mobius
This another one that might be familiar, if only because of the artist and not the story. The Arzach stories inspired the Taarna the Barbarian story at the end of the Heavy Metal movie. However, the main character of this story looks nothing like Taarna - neither does the woman in this story either. Anyway, the story is totally dialog free, both in terms of spoken dialog and narration. It's also actually moderately comic.
Selenia by Marre and Sergio Macedo
This is a science fiction story of a more serious bent than "Rut". If there's any comedy here, it's as a dark comedy of errors. Basically, some explorers on the moon find an underground base. One of their crew gets trapped, and in their attempt to free her, they kill the base's occupant. They discover that the base is a communications array just in time to be converted into robots to man the array. GMs, don't do this to your players. They'll force feed you your dice.
Preview of The Sword of Shannara
To hype us on the book that is, and I quote, "The biggest cult book since Tolkein" (their words, not mine), we get the first chapter of the book. I think we've all read the Sword of Shannara? We all agree that it's fairly derivative and not great? Good, let's move on. Okay, to be fair, the illustrations from the book, which are published here, are the first appearance of the Brothers Hildebrant in Heavy Metal. They'll appear again later.
Traumwatch: A Tale of Romantic Kitch by Mouchel, Pauline Pierson, and Alain Voss
This story is fairly tongue in cheek. We have dashing chivalrous knights riding Motorcycles, melodrama that would make Shakespeare go "okay, that's a bit much" and robots. This made no sense. I'm just gonna post a picture of a bunny with a pancake on it's head here.
Space Punks by Jean-Claude Mézières
So, the hero of our story was a no-good street punk in post-apocalyptic Canada, until he got busted and enlisted in the space marines. From there it's The Abridged Starship Troopers. No, really. He goes and un-ironically pacifies some low-tech rebels which are up to no good, and then once his tour is up he gets married and has a kid, and lives happily ever after. Bleh.
1996 by Chantal Montellier
As bad as it is now, it makes me feel a little better about things when I read science fiction stories like this one, where by now we'd technically have been in a fascist post-WWIII dystopia for the past 14 years, if we weren't already dead. That said, that's not the point of this strip. The point of this strip is to make a one page gag about, basically "sheeple", without actually using the word.
Age of Ages: A Gothic Science-Fiction Trip to the Apocalypse by Norman Rubington and Akbar Del Piombo
This is a collage story, one that's all a little bit silly. How silly is it? We have a character who works for the Planetary Intelligence Survey System, or PISS for short. However, since you can't say that in polite company, they call it PI**. That's a bit like going "I made a joke about a naughty word. See how clever I am? I'm so clever, I'll call it to your attention by censoring it, and then using the uncensored version in a footnote, to show that I'm aware that I used a naughty word. I'm such a rebel."
*Sigh*
Anyway, it's To Be Continued, but I'm not impressed.
1996 by Chantal Montellier
Another one-shot joke here. This time it's the proprietor of a billiard hall attempting to evict a "Dam Ferner" who happens to be an extra terrestrial. Just for the record, showing someone as being stupid or uneducated by having them slur their speech isn't something I find funny. Now, I understand that this is by a French writer, and in Hurlant the joke could have been done in French instead of in English... I still wouldn't find it funny.
Sunpot by Vaughn Bodé and Jack Adler
This is the start of what I suspect will be an ongoing Sci-Fi series in here. We get a blueprint for the ship and a Dramatis Personae, as well as our first little chapter. It's kind of amusing, in the same way the story from the tail end of the Heavy Metal movie with the coke-head aliens was semi-amusing.
Manipulation by Roy
I'm afraid I don't get this one. I'm guessing it's supposed to be satirical, but it doesn't make sense to me. Sorry, but I've got nothing. If anyone has this issue and wants to explain it, please feel free.
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