Friday, April 5, 2013

Heavy Metal magazine April 1977

'Heavy Metal' magazine, April 1977


April, 1977, and on the FM radio stations, David Soul is getting major airplay with 'Don't Give Up On Us'.

I didn't know it at the time, but the very first issue of Heavy Metal magazine was on the stands, and with it, a revolution in the way graphic art and comics were presented to readers in the US. 

Issued by National Lampoon publisher and owner Leonard Mogel, HM was the American incarnation of Metal Hurlant, a magazine Mogel had seen on newsstands in France.

The inaugural issue staff included Sean Kelly and Valerie Marchant as Editors and Julie Simmons (who would go on to be Editor herself in several years) as the Associate Editor.

The 'Origins' statement provided in the first issue lays out - in exaggerated 70s hipster style - how this all came to be....



I didn't buy an issue of HM until November 1978, mainly because I had limited money in my pocket (I was only 16 years old) and what money I did have was spent on sf and fantasy paperbacks.

 It's too bad I didn't pick up, and save for posterity, the first issue of HM; copies in good condition go for $50 on up to greater than $100 on eBay.

Issue 1 contained the opening episode of Corben's 'Den', an outstanding installment of Gal and Dionnet's 'Conquering Armies', an 'Arzach' episode by Moebius, and a first look at Terry Brooks's 'The Sword of Shannara', featuring illustrations by The Brothers Hildebrandt.

And, of course, a great comic from Sergio Macedo: 'Selenia', posted below. This is the kind of stuff late 70s stoners went goggle-eyed over, as they drew a toke on their joint or their bowl.....ray guns, spaceships, giant robots, and A NUDE CHICK !

All of this cripsly rendered in black and white / graytone on 'magazine stock', glossy paper....!

Unlike the non-Comics Code black and white magazines from Warren and Marvel / Curtis, HM was definitely European, and definitely adult, in content. During the first few years of its existence, it was mailed, in brown wrappers, to subscribers in some areas of the country. Since I was only 16 in April, 1977, I'm not sure if I actually could have purchased the inaugural issue of HM in those more innocent times.....











5 comments:

Mahendra Singh said...

That first issue was a blast. I was 17 at the time, my step-father was an AD at Ft Belvoir and one day he brought home that very issue if HM, telling me that all the young fellers at the art-shop were "grokking" this … then he told me to hide it from my mom.

Anonymous said...

Macedo's artwork is still incredible to this day. I loved getting stoned to his works in the first year of HeavyMetal.

SourceCodeX said...

What Heavy Metal issue has a story inside with images of floating pyramids? I know I saw this image in a Heavy Metal zine in the late 70s or early 80s -- really can't remember which issue.
I am trying to determine what issue has such before I purchase it.
Thanks for your help.

Thanks so much. It was either late 70s or early 80s when I saw those images. I am about to release a new CD and I need to see those floating pyramid images to show the guy that is doing the artwork.


I first saw that unknown Heavy Metal zine with floating pyramids and thought nothing of it -- then I started seeing ads in other magazines with floating pyramids and then out came the movie Stargate with the floating pyramid ships about 13 years later. As an artist myself in the 80s, I did logos for local businesses with a floating pyramid. It was a striking image idea that was awesome.

SourceCodeX.com

tarbandu said...

SourceCodeX:

Maybe you be referring to one of the 'Galactic Geographic' features that regularly appeared in Heavy Metal, by the artist Karl Kofoed ?

Try going to the website http://www.memories-restored.net/GG.html

tarbandu

GenericChristianMystic said...

Hmm,no,not Kofoed.
Bilal's pyramid images preceded Kofoed