HEAVY METAL MAGAZINE
HISTORY

		Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
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In the 1970s there was a new fully illustrated magazine that consisted entirely of comics for adults. It started in France as METAL HURLANT and soon came to U.S. shores as HEAVY METAL magazine. By 1977, mere months after its first issue, it was influencing first time feature filmmaker Ridley Scott as he pondered the look and feel of ALIEN. In fact Heavy Metal magazine published the official graphic novel of the movie, ALIEN: The Illustrated Story, becoming the first Graphic Novel ever published.

By 1980 the magazine was influencing James Cameron for the look and feel of THE TERMINATOR. Ridley carried that HEAVY METAL magazine ethos over for BLADE RUNNER and Cameron carried it into ALIENS and TERMINATOR 2 (Cameron even wanted to make a HEAVY METAL movie in the late 2000s). It also heavily influenced director Paul Verhoeven's ROBOCOP and TOTAL RECALL. The strangest thing about all of this was, HEAVY METAL magazine was influencing the most wildly successful Science Fiction Horror movies ever made, yet it wasn't producing or making ANY of them.

Twenty First Century Communications Inc., later renamed to National Lampoon, the political comedy magazine which owned the American publishing rights, had no idea what they owned or how to keep it going. An insurmountable mountain they viewed with hesitation when the answer was obvious to the fans - let the comic artist and writers they adored freely chart their own course.

But of course, National Lampoon, which was producing one hit comedy movie after the next with their Vacation ranchise (giving actor Chevy Chase the only successful franchise he ever had) could only drift aimlessly with their half of the parentage in a magazine that puzzled them.

At its foundation, Heavy Metal magazine was an all American Underground comic sex and violence, drugs and rock & Roll, and it pushed all the negative nanny morality buttons of Liberals and Conservatives alike, thereby delighting the spawn of both.

Heavy Metal featured such American underground comic artists as Richard Corben (Last Gasp, Fantagor), French artists like Jean "Moebius" Girard, and introduced Swiss surrealist artist H.R. Giger to North America. But the actual stories were based on everything from Greek Tragedy to the existential philosophies of Jean-Paul Satre. No other magazine was anywhere near as inventive or innovative like Heavy Metal and it was all beyond the grasp of cutting edge American intellectuals like National Lampoon's P. J. O'Rourke.

In a sense, it was born from the failed attempt of avant gard director, Alejandro Jodorowsky to make DUNE, employing many of the vanguard, largely unknown artists of the era to create the world that would never be realized. The fallout was not only Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal magazine, but ALIEN and more as well.

National Lampoon, overwhelmed from the idea of how to helm it, soon hired a new editor-in-chief, Julie Simmons-Lynch and Heavy Metal's revolving door of editors and designers spun. When the Mother publication, Metal Hurlant, needlessly died in 1987 Heavy Metal began a series of stumbles that would lead to its own eventual, permanent downfall.

Even actor Tim Matheson (Eric Stratton in National Lampoon's ANIMAL HOUSE) stepped in at one point to save the magazine.

Throughout all of this, movies continued to spawn off of Heavy Metal magazine's influence (TREMORS, PREDATOR, IMMORTEL), proving beyond all doubt that the magazine's future lay in motion picture adaptations. No one with any power to make such decisions or pitches came to power and the only two movies that were an actual product of the magazine, well, they had little theatrical success and no cinematic influence at all.

It took nearly 20 years for a HEAVY METAL movie sequel and HEAVY METAL F.A.K.K.2 aka HEAVY METAL 2000 was the sad result that killed the cinema franchise for the next two decades and buried the magazine forever.

Article Copyright 2024 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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