The top page has a long review of various rockabilly bands by Lou Stathis, which startled me because I somehow assumed that rockabilly was a much later phenomenon, not something that was in full swing by 1982. The layout of this review is somewhat hampered by the inclusion of a number of little cartoons that are only tangentially related to the article but are both funny as hell and much more noticeable. The upshot is that I ended up coming back to read the review after I’d finished reading everything else in the magazine because the text just came across as background filler the first time around.

The review on the later page is for imaginary video games that are in the works for when Atari mania has taken over and everyone would rather sit around playing video games instead of, y’know, going to work. The games are, as a result, wrapped around real world issues and have titles like Paparazzi and Meltdown. There’s even a game called Assassin where you have to play an assassin for Colonel Gadaffi and infiltrate the White House. Heavy stuff. The last game is called Illegal Alien Invaders, which highlights the fact that some issues have been around for over 30 years.

The little strip at the bottom of that page is about role playing games and the current crop of strategy board games and is really, really on the nose about a lot of things – I especially liked the skeleton waiting for his turn.

(Heavy Metal issue #62, May 1982 – Pages 5&9 Dossier)