HEAVY METAL H.P. LOVECRAFT SPECIAL (PART 1)

HEAVY METAL
Vol. 3 No. 6
October 1979
Publisher: HM Communications, Inc.
Editors: Sean Kelley, Valerie Marchant
Art Director: John Workman
Cover: J.K. Potter
Pages: 100
Cover price: $1.50

I bought the first issue of HEAVY METAL off the newsstand in early 1977. I was amazed at the contents. This was not Stan Lee's or Carmine Infantino's comic book, you understand. This full-color comics magazine was very different. In a word, it was "far out".

Perhaps it was the European influence that made the difference (after all, it was the English version of France's Metal Hurlant magazine). The terrific art was transgressive in the sense that it didn't hold back in either idea or image. Even though the themes stuck pretty closely to fantasy and science fiction, you could say that HEAVY METAL was the mainstream's answer to underground comix. The stories and artwork were imaginative and many tales were not without a good dose of humor.

It took three years, but HM finally broached the work of H.P. Lovecraft, which is quite strange, considering the French have a certain cult fetish for the Old Gentleman from Providence. Many critics have claimed that Lovecraft is best served straight, from the printed page to the reader's mind, and that any significant work influenced by his pen has yet to be achieved in film or illustration. Outside of a scant handful of examples, I find it hard to disagree, for when I read Lovecraft, my imagination spins images and filmstrips full of far more "cosmic horror" than most comics and movies I've ever seen.

Regardless, the October 1979 issue of HEAVY METAL was intended as a special Halloween issue and the lion's share of the contents include stories based on Lovecraft or his works and translated from the French issue of Metal Hurlant entitled, "Homage à Lovecraft".