Here is something very weird. The top page is the Table of Contents, which looks about the same as it has for the previous few years. The two spot art pieces are from the story in the bottom page – Teddy Bear by Gess. It’s a cyberpunk story about germ warfare and worthless bureaucracy.

One of the threads is about a woman who goes psychotic and takes any number of violent actions. This is one of those pages. Now, I’d like to draw your attention to the outfit she’s wearing in second tier. She does not wear this outfit in any other page for the entire story – just this single page. There is no good, clear, in-story reason for her to be wearing that outfit here, nor is there any indication later in the story that she wore this outfit and changed back (say). It’s just there and then it isn’t.

Now, if that outfit was not explicitly sexual, I wouldn’t think too much of it. But look at it! That’s a Fifth Element design two years before the Fifth Element was released. It’s almost like the artist included some breasts in the story just for the sake of having breasts in the story. Which is, unfortunately, part of the reputation that Heavy Metal had during this period.

What is unsettling is that two panels of a 50-some page feature were chosen for the preview and one of them was the woman in bondage – an outfit which only appears on that single page. Which might be frustrating to someone who was browsing, saw that preview and thought they were were getting more from their purchase. That’s not even subtle.

(Heavy Metal issue #154, January 1995 – Page 2 Table of Contents and 100 Teddy Bear by Gess)