Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: heavy metal, sdcc

Heavy Metal Magazine Promises A Relaunch

The Heavy Metal Magazine website seems to have had a bit of an update. and that Heavy Metal magazine is about to be relaunched. Again.

The Heavy Metal Magazine website seems to have had a bit of an update. In that, it says that there is an update coming, the site is currently under construction, and that Heavy Metal magazine is about to be relaunched. Again. Previously it had just been a blank black website for some time. Now it looks like this.

During San Diego Comic-Con, I reported that former Content Editor for Heavy Metal Magazine, Frank Forte, who had been telling folk that he was the new editor-in-chief of Heavy Metal, was joined at the show by Chris Thompson, formerly of Orbital Comics in London, Eaglemoss, Opus Publishing. Wild River and Titan Comics, and Dave Kelly, who self-published his own series Tales Of The Nightwatchman under So What Press, as well as in Savage Dragon, to be part of his editorial team. The word was that they both already had some claim on the future of Heavy Metal Magazine, a brand recently used and abused, but this would consolidate the two. The only other worry they have is that there is also an English language revival planned of Metal Hurlant, the French magazine that was the direct inspiration for Heavy Metal Magazine.

Previously, Heavy Metal Magazine was revived under a series of obliquely funded figures, many of whom didn't seem to have an entire grasp on publishing, leaving creators unaid and customers unfilfilled. After hitting issue 300, it was relaunched through Massive/Whatnot but they weren't able to publish a single issue before it fell again.

Heavy Metal Magazine began as a translated license from the French science-fantasy magazine Métal Hurlant and included work by the likes of Enki Bilal, Philippe Caza, Guido Crepax, Philippe Druillet, Jean-Claude Forest, Moebius, Chantal Montellier, and Milo Manara. before spinning off into its own original publication, animated movie and a success on the magazine stands, helped by its liberal attitude to semi-clad sci-fi women on the cover. It was bought by massive Heavy Metal fan Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in 1992. It was later sold to David Boxenbaum and Jeff Krelitz in 2014, until they were forced out. In 2019, Heavy Metal was taken over by Matthew Medney and David Erwin. With stories of internal coups, challenging comings and goings, non-delivery to customers, callousness and challenges from creators, former employees, their widows and estates, cash flow problems saw the publisher shut down, before a planned relaunch and revamp from Whatnot Publishing/Massive was announced. In the end, they only published a final issue of the previous version of the magazine, a year late, for San Diego Comic-Con and the promised revival was abandoned. Massive/Whatnot had decided not to publish it after all. Hundreds of thousands of copies of back issues were pulped rather than pay for the warehousing. Since then the publication has been in limbo. The last EIC, Joe Illidge, left giving Bleeding Cool a breakdown of events. What happens now? We have no idea, but we can cross out respective fingers…

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