Reading Pile: Heavy Metal Magazine #1

A smorgasbord of content with some nutritional value but a lot of empty calories

It's time for a new iteration of Heavy Metal, and while I don't have a particular nostalgic connection to the series I am a sucker for sci-fi anthologies so I went ahead and Kickstarted the first issue. This offering spotlights a ton of creative talents (you name drop Ladronn, Joseph Michael Linsner, and Jim Rugg in one package and I can't really say no), waaaay too many variants (8 'regular' and 15 Kickstarter exclusives), and a hefty 232 page count for a decent $14.99 price point. Is it worth checking out? The short answer is sure, but it really just depends on what you're looking for in an anthology.

Whenever I pick up an anthology I kinda set the point of success at 50%. If half the book was entertaining, then the package was worth it. This issue is tricky because a lot of the installments are so short that it's frankly hard to have much of an opinion on them. They just were, and then you quickly move on to something else that was fine and then another and another and I sort of just forgot about the previous chunks. It's a lot of junk food, tidbits that kinda tide you over but they don't really take the place of a meal.

On the flip side, there is a lot of value in just the sheer amount of stuff this first issue has crammed into it. There are mini-articles, artists features, a nice tribute to Greg Hildebrandt, some minor prose work here and there, some strip comics, and then the mix of short comics and the start of some serialized works. And while not all of it hits for me, I can appreciate the variety and the showcase of artists.

The shorter chapters by artist I really appreciate (Steve Mannion's Evil Sex Bitch is just five pages while Linsner's Legends of Taarna clocks in at six) are still fun little snapshots, and good examples of creators that got the assignment. Quick with some visual flair and with enough weirdness to stick in your brain.

Fernando Dagnino's Lester-"That Old Feeling" really stood out as a solid piece of sci-fi noir, and Sergio Gerasi's artwork in the first chapter of his Valentina story was fantastic, keeping you glued to a story that starts off feeling like some sort of light drama until it insidiously morphs into psychological thriller with some potential Lovecraftian tones.

The installments that didn't work as well for me generally landed more as fine than bad. There was only one page where I stopped and said to myself 'This is literally nothing', but before I spent too much time caring to analyze why I hated it I noticed space mutants on the next page and moved on. There's a strategy at play there that I can't fault too much, and I tend to appreciate an approach that benefits more exposure for more creatives anyway so it works out in the end.

There's really nothing in this package that breaks new ground or makes me feel like I can recommend it as a must read experience, but it's such a densely packed curation of talent that it works as an intriguing shotgun blast of styles and genres to drop in the hands of a new reader. Page for page there is good value here, and in the end it hit my own 50% rule for anthologies. So for $14.99 it's not bad and sometimes you just need to sate that craving for a bunch of junk food.