Wikipedia tells me that this movie was meant to be a fictionalized account of the end of Janis Joplin’s life and Bette Midler won a Golden Globe for best actress in a musical or comedy for her depiction of the title character. What I found interesting is that part of the promotion for the movie was an illustrated book filled with photographs – 40 in full color.

Even more interesting than that was the people responsible for selling the book thought that Heavy Metal readers would be a good target demographic. I can see the logic: it’s a movie about a drug-addled singer set in the 60s based on the life and times of Janis Joplin. Readers of Heavy Metal are drug-addled people who like illustrated narratives and (presumably) music. It’s still a very weird artifact to show up in these pages.

(Heavy Metal issue #33, December 1979 – Page 75 The Rose ad)