This is a throwaway little story, but it’s got some nice details and context.

The second panel on the first page is textbook Frank Santoro – pink foreground, yellow background. The rest of the page has the expressive coloration that was big in the 70s in European BD, but that one panel really captures that principle. If only there was a foreground element.

The essay by Charles Platt is concerned with how fantasy has become too prominent, given that most of it is bad Tolkien rip-offs. He provides a nice checklist of cliche elements that appear in most of these terrible stories. The irony, of course, is that the first page of the essay is directly adjacent to the end of the cliched fantasy story. In fact, the story ticks most of the boxes that Platt anguishes over. Whether the placement was intentional or not, the effect is hilarious.

(Heavy Metal issue #54, September 1981 – Pages 58&64 The Eye of the Goddess Isliah by Remohi & Page 65 The Curse of the Hobbit by Platt)