After months and years of presenting The Bus as the last page in the magazine, this month switched things up considerably by putting it towards the front. The fact that the “Coming” box for the next issue is here with it, as it normally is, leads me to believe that switching the location of this page was not made early on. In fact, this issue has a group of newsprint pages – perhaps as a cost-cutting measure? The placement of those pages probably wouldn’t have allowed The Bus and Rock Opera (which are usually bundled together) to sit in their normal space, changing up the whole layout.

(Heavy Metal issue #87, June 1984 – Page 26 The Bus by Kirchner)