Thursday, August 8, 2013

Heavy Metal August 1983

'Heavy Metal' magazine, August 1983

 

 
August, 1983, and in heavy rotation on the FM stations, and on MTV, is Loverboy's 'Hot Girls in Love'. Cheesy as it was back then, it's substantially better than anything in the top 40 nowadays.

The latest issue of Heavy Metal is on the stands, with a remarkably insipid front cover illustration by Greg Hildebrandt. It was now becoming quite clear that the HM editorial staff had decided to exclusively promote a pinup theme for each and every front cover, a departure from the way things were done in the first several year's of the magazine's existence. The arresting, artistic covers of 1978, 1979, and 1980 were to be faint memories from now on.

Jay Muth provides the back cover.

The advertising features a full-page ad for the latest Iron Maiden album, 'Piece of Mind'; it's an unwitting and unintentional nod to 'Spinal Tap'.


 For those deeply moved by the Hildebrandt cover, posters are available:


There also is an advertisement for some film I've never heard of, called 'Private School for Girls'. Phoebe Cates does look nice..... 



After its heavy coverage of rap, the Dossier now turns to R & B, and we lead off with coverage of Prince Nelson Rogers (just beginning his rapid rise to fame), and Marvin Gaye.




Then there is coverage of graffiti artist - if that's the right word - Keith Haring, one of the decade's greatest art poseurs. He would die from AIDS in 7 years.





Ed Naha waxes enthusiastic over an indie, low-budget film-maker named Alan Arkush and his film 'Get Crazy'. I've never heard of it before or since......




 And the Dossier closes out with a review of some awful underground / indie comics.....
 


Among the comics appearing in the August issue are continuing installments of  'The City That Didn't Exist', by Bilal; 'The Odyssey' by Navarro and Sauri; 'Zora' by Fernandez.

Among the better entries was another 'El Borbah' tale by Charles Burns, that I've posted below.








1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A long time ago I thought Charles Burns' comics were unattractive. For this reason I always overlooked them while I was going through some magazines here in Brazil.
Today, after getting a little bit smarter, I think he is an excellent artist. I do like his drawings. It has a distinct look yet it looks like an old comic book.