Technically, the Spring special would have been more appropriate for the 25th Anniversary issue, but whatever plans they were making in the late summer of 2001 were swept away by 9/11, as referenced in the March 2002 Publisher’s Note. None of the stories seem like they were custom-made for this issue and several of them are clustered in a way that would suggest a Fall/Halloween focus. This is only natural – it’s the Fall special. I don’t know for sure, but I speculate that they realized halfway through the year that they hadn’t done anything for the anniversary so they took over a partially planned issue.

It’s worth noting that the September 2001 issue was the last raise in cover price, from $4.95 to $5.95. This was the second largest cover price hike since the 1986 reset to $3.95, the price that stuck for the longest – over nine years. The jump to $5.95 lasted just over a year – this Anniversary Issue and the November 2002 issue both had a cover price of $5.99. The four cent price increase lasted for six years.

The logo is pretty crazy. Is it meant to look like semen? Was someone watching Ichi the Killer? I mean, I guess that could be mercury. Sure. That sounds good.

This table of contents drives me nuts. It references page numbers, but there are no page numbers. None in the entire issue, including this page. No page numbers makes the archivist sad. One of the major things that differentiates the Specials since the mid-90s from the bimonthly issues has been the lack of page numbers. They are very clearly put together as a collection of stories wrapped around a special advertising supplement with less concern about production values.

A production note: a good quarter inch of the inside front cover is glued to this page. You can see how tight the indicia information is to the left margin on the bottom of the page.

(Heavy Metal 25th Anniversary Special, Fall 2002- Page 1 Table of Contents)