This is one of three stories in this issue with explicitly meta-textual elements. Here, the second panel gives the game away and gives the artist free reign to do whatever he wants, as long as the captions can explain it away – as in panel 4.

The last panel acts as an insightful poke at Heavy Metal’s sensibilities and readership.

The punchline of the strip reads like a 2000 AD short story, with jokey twist ending that is telegraphed on the first page (panel 5, for the curious).

(Heavy Metal issue #17, August 1978 – Page 17 Mission on Saturn by Petillion)