In the same way that Heavy Metal put a lot of push behind Alien, Heavy Metal got behind Outland in a major way. There was a full page ad on the inside front cover and a full page ad for the novel and photobook adaptations. And then there was Steranko.

Pieces from Steranko’s adaptation were repurposed in the middle of this issue to serve as character and situation primers for people who weren’t sure if they wanted to see the movie or not. The two page spread at the top is cropped at the bottom and dropped down to make a gutter at the top that could be used for character bios. As teasers go, it’s really good – it made me want to watch the movie.

The next issue is the proper start of the Steranko adaptation – this collection of pages is just another portion of the Outland marketing outreach. It was a really smart cross-promotion and Heavy Metal was good at this kind of thing – which helped when the movie came out later in 1981.

(Heavy Metal issue #51, June 1981 – Pages 48&49 Outland by Steranko, 55 Outland adaptations ad & Inside Front Cover Outland ad)