This is a title page illustration for a text-only short story called The Alchemist’s Notebook. The story isn’t all that interesting, but this illustration by Walt Simonson is so good that a black and white excerpt of it was used as spot illustration later in the story to break up the wall of text.

(Heavy Metal issue #31, October 1979 – Page 70 illustration for The Alchemist’s Notebook by Simonson)