The most prominent part of this issue is the dichotomy between the recent death of Philip K Dick (he died in March of 1982 and this issue is cover-dated June of 1982) and the mainstream success that the movie Blade Runner seemed on the verge of – with the implication that Blade Runner’s success would be Dick’s success.

Lou Stathis wrote the very moving obituary (and seems to have taken more of an active role in recent months – in the magazine’s credits, he’s moved up to Associate Editor so the Ted White debacle didn’t hurt him too badly) and makes a good case for why Dick was worth reading, despite his many failings. This is actually a fairly interesting discussion that isn’t pursued in the obituary, but is probably worth an essay or two – at what point do the author’s structural failings not matter because the quality of the ideas on offer are so good and/or weird?

The article doesn’t really say much and the most interesting part is the production stills from the movie and the concept drawings from Syd Mead. Two of Mead’s drawings are presented in the page above, which really made me wish I’d seen that movie.

(Heavy Metal issue #63, June 1982 – Pages 4&34 Philip K Dick Obituary and Blade Runner feature)