Two things worth noting here. First, the mention of an art book to be published by Rizzoli. There is absolutely no other official information about this book in this issue except for one mention by Greg Hildebrandt in his interview. When I asked about it on the Discord channel, I was told that there would be more information later. In my mind, this sums up the promotional strategy of Heavy Metal in a nutshell – tease information and then give absolutely no details whatsoever. It’s not great, is what I’m saying.

Also, I’m really not sure why Heavy Metal would choose their 45th anniversary to put out a definitive retrospective art book. Wouldn’t the 50th anniversary have made more sense? It’s only five years out! Weird.

The other thing worth noting here is that someone clearly let David Erwin know how long Heavy Metal has been in print. This is the first acknowledgement I’ve seen that 2022 is an anniversary year.

(Heavy Metal #314 2022 – Page 2 Editorials)