Testimonials

HM first arrived in the US about the time I turned sixteen. I saw the first issues in 1977 at a newsstand (remember those?) across the street from a restaurant where my mom and I both worked. My folks had split up a couple years before, so of course I needed escapism. I had lost interest in most comic books and more recently, MAD Magazine. I found HM’s artwork quality to range between sub-par and fantastic beyond anything I’d seen. Later when I did a hitch on a navy ship, my incomplete collection was somehow lost in the cracks. But its artistic and narrative influence has stayed steadfast with me.

High School, Saskatchewan, Canada, Late Eighties. I was reading a lot of science fiction and Heavy Metal was another medium that added to my interest. Also, I bought a lot of Savage Sword of Conan. Loved the magazine format. Have added many of both to my collection. Almost got rid of the Heavy Metals, but couldn't quite do it.

I had some in a big fat box of comics, mostly horrors, that a couple cousins of mine hid at my house in an effort to keep their mom from trashing them. Of course by the time they came back for them, I’d snaked most of them out and had them hidden under my bed… no way was I parting with Mœbius. Then the movie came out and confused the daylights out of me, but it had a killer soundtrack. Mostly.

Figuring out my first heavy metal. Most likely 70's. Doing some research.

I began routinely visiting comic books shops in high school, where I discovered a number of the series I would come to follow. On a couple of occasions I had glimpsed a Heavy Metal magazine cover tucked behind other titles, but mistook it for a music magazine and paid it little mind. However, one semester I took an art class where I met a fellow comics enthusiast who, after hearing me gush about the television show SCTV, which I watched on Nick-at-Nite every week, asked if I'd ever seen the movie Heavy Metal, which featured the voices of SCTV alums such as John Candy and Eugene Levy. I told him I hadn't, so he copied the movie from the tape he'd recorded off of Cinemax. When I watched the movie and recognized the logo, I realized the magazine I'd spotted in the shop wasn't what I thought it was. I enjoyed the movie so much I went out looking for the magazine and I've never stopped reading it since.

My first encounter with Heavy Metal Magazine happened maybe 20 years ago. At the time, I was heavily into Manga, but I also had a strong affinity to European comics. I was a fan of Judge Dredd/2000AD (being from the UK especially!). As time progressed, I wanted to read more "adult" comics, and that was when I discovered Heavy Metal Magazine! For me, it was akin to discovering a mysterious relic or treasure, my young mind was absolutely decimated! I found Moebius, I found Richard Corben, Enki Bilal, and so many other great artists and storytellers! However, it was quite difficult to obtain more copies during the 90s. Ebay was a godsend and gradually over the years I had amassed quite a nice collection. Right now I have about 60 issues ranging from the 70s to the present day. They bring me so much joy!

1981, 13 years old, an R rated animated movie. Hell yeah I was gonna find a way into the theater. Awestruck by the Loc Nar and smitten with Taarna. Picked up issues of the magazine here and there. Stories ran the gamut from imagination inspiring to nonsensical. But the art, oh the art was always wonderful and varied. Barely finished sketches where I got to fill in the blanks, to insanely detailed panes that kept pace with the likes of Frazzetta and the Hildebrandts. Then adulthood realigned priorities. I fell away from the stories and the art. The news that Heavy Metal had ended was but a footnote for me. But for some reason, the news of its rebirth hit me like a thunderclap. Nostalgia fueled my curiosity. I backed the Kickstarter. My first ever crowdfunding experience. The first issue back overwhelmed my love of art with various covers, homages and new alike. Hook, line and sinker. We must have the preciouses…

The first time I encountered Heavy Metal I was nine years old. My dad, an avid reader, had been there for the first days of Heavy Metal Magazine, and was excited to spy 1981's Heavy Metal movie on a TV movie channel. I was too young, probably, for the movie's contents, but what kid doesn't want to watch the "super cool" movie for grownups? I was enthralled from the very first seconds. It blew my mind. The music, the incredible photo animation of the car, and every scene that followed utterly entranced me. After the movie I had so many questions for my dad: what was Heavy Metal, did he read it a lot, can I read it, what was it all about? I don't remember all of his answers but the idea that there was more of this, an entire world of this art and filled with aliens and monsters and babes and jokes was almost intoxicating to me. I don't think I ever really recovered from that evening, or at least my mind never went back to how it was before. I think my horizons broadened that day and I am honestly eternally grateful for the trajectory change. It was one of the first indicators to me that the ideas of sci-fi, fantasy, and comic books weren't just for kids, but that a whole world of it existed for adults, too, and the trajectory of my life and interests were permanently altered from that point on. Some time later a corner store/movie rental place one town over went out of business and my mom came home with boxes upon boxes of coverless comics originally intended to return for credit that they never got around to, hundreds and hundreds of them, including several early 1990s Heavy Metal magazines. Never been the same since.

I first got introduced to the Heavy Metal universe through the animated film from the 80's. I had no idea the magazine existed and it wasnt until many years later that I saw my first Heacy Metal magazine in a store. Growing up in a small town pre internet, it was hard to know that such a medium existed.

While I've developed a deep love for the magazines, my first love is that animated film. It was, in part, what lead me to become an animator by profession. Pushing the envelope in whatever medium it exists is why I love this brand so much.

I found Heavy Metal through my mom when I was a teenager. She had a subscription to the magazine. I used to sneak and read it until she caught me. She told me she was going to cancel it and I begged her to let me pay for it. I had a job working in a laundry mat on the weekends so paying for it was okay by me. My mom didn't have a problem with it, so I gave her the money, and she kept the subscription going until I was old enough to put it in my name. She also took me to see the movie. I think I was about 16 when we saw it. I'll never forget what an impact it made on me and my life.

My first exposure to heavy metal was the movie from nineteen eighty one. That was the moment that I needed more of this sci.Fi fantasy world. I would have to say that was want got me into collecting comics.

I saw it on the newstand in '77 it was the debut issue and it looked very cool,a female robot kicking another robot's ass.It was in the adult section at Readmore Bookworld and I doubt my twelve year old self had a chance taking it to the counter to be waited on and not turned away.It wasn't long before I had the nerve to purchase HM with a healthy stack of comics.I finally bought Number One a couple years ago,it was the last issue I to purchased to complete the whole collection.

I lived in a small town in Northern California, there was a liquor store called "George's Liquor" and the old man who owned it was a World War Two veteran who smoked a big cigar and was really crotchety, all the booze and dirty magazines were behind a red curtain and he would get really mad if us kids tried to sneak behind there. But up front was the regular magazines, soda, penny candy and the comics, that included "Heavy Metal". Now old man George would get mad if you sat and read the comics he'd growl "This ain't a book store, kid." What he didn't know was the content of the comics he carried, they were on a spinning rack, I usually ignored the DC and Marvels, but when I saw Heavy Metal, twelve year old me back in 1992 perked up, when I opened the issue I saw beautiful art, naked ladies and violence. At first I thought the old man had forgot to put it behind the red curtain but month after month it was there. Soon enough I had enough to buy an issue collecting cans and doing odd jobs and from then on I bought it sporadically. Now I have every issue to the year 2012, I am planning on catching up buying the issues after that soon. Hell, I even have all of Marvel's rip off of Heavy Metal, "Epic". So to "Heavy Metal" Cheers up!!!

As a 12 year old boy, me and my friend would hang out in his dad’s basement. He had piles of Playboy magazines as well as a huge collection of Heavy Metal. We came for the Playboy (not literally) but stayed for the Heavy Metal. Eventually, my friend would let me sneak some of the HM’s home to read as long as I brought them back.

Now as an adult I have reconnected with my childhood love of adult fantasy and sci-fi. It’s been great rediscovering the classics and everything that has been released since!

As a kid in the late '80s, I bought cheap used issues at the Milwaukee Airport’s Renaissance Books. Reading them during family visits to Florida. Since regular bookstores around me kept them in the adult section, the airport was my only option, and my parents assumed they were just regular comics. I later discovered the movie and subscribed in high school alongside Fangoria and OMNI magazine. Kids today miss out on the tangible fun of print magazines now that everything is digital.

I was 9, very permissive parents that saw no harm in cartoons/animation. I was instantly hooked. Amazing how the serial style of wait to see what happens next month was totally fine! Most of it went over my head anyway but I wanted to be pretty like the women depicted. Fantasy art has always been more about fantasizing to be one of them instead of registering the nudity aspect. Characters like Taarna were rare to me because she was a fighter and less a lady in distress.

Oddly enough the subscription was in my name and my parents blew a gasket when Adam & Eve catalogs came too. How dare they send something so adult! 😂

In 1979, I was twelve years old, and my family was on a road trip in Southern Alberta. We stopped at a convenience store in a small town for some snacks and a bathroom break. I headed over to the magazine rack to perhaps pick up some ‘Archie’ digests to read while on the road. A magazine with the intriguing title, ‘Heavy Metal’ caught my eye, and I picked it up, thinking it was a music magazine like ‘Rolling Stone’ or ‘Creem’.

Well. Turns out it was chock full of comics, which to young me was like dog turds to a fly. Not only was it in full colour, but the art was detailed, elaborate, and best of all to pubescent me…there were BOOBIES! On full display! Hot diggity! I cautiously took it to the counter to pay for it, thinking they weren’t going to sell vile porn to a little kid, but I recall the transaction went off without a hitch. Later, back on the road, I devoured the magazine from cover to cover, being introduced to the art of Möbius, Drullet, and Richard Corben. (I remember Moebius drew a story written by Dan O’Bannon, called, ‘The Long Tomorrow’.)

It started a life-long interest in the kind of comics that weren’t just superheroes or goofy teenagers for me. I also learned, thanks to the BOOBIES, that there was more to ‘Little Tommy’ then the drainage of processed Slurpee water…

I first saw Heavy Metal Magazine when someone at school showed me Number 1, April 1977, when it appeared. I started buying them from then on, through the 80s. I was just 18, I wasn't so into comics growing up, mostly I'd read Mad Magazine and read some of my uncle's comics when we visited ( I liked G.I. Combat and Sgt Rock) and by then I'd read Lord of the Rings. But I greatly enjoyed the other worlds of the Adult Illustrated Fantasy Magazine through my 20s. In 1990 I moved, and gave away my almost-complete collection of Heavy Metal Magazine. I came across an almost-complete set in a resale shop in 2005, and reminiscing the joys of my misspent youth, I bought it, and used the then-new internet shopping to complete the set, and started buying them again. Since then I've enjoyed the excellent heavymetalmagazinefanpage.com, watched the HM website forums come and go, started my own little blog, enjoyed R.M. Rhodes' HM Tumblr, and saw the decline and death of Heavy Metal. And I lived long enough to see its rebirth, and I hope I keep living to see Heavy Metal Magazine's continued resurgence.