Heavy Metal and Me

Starting in 1977 and continuing for two decades I purchased every issue of Heavy Metal magazine as they were released. In its early or early/middle years John Workman was the Art Director and I liked seeing his lettering on the translations of the many European stories, but my interest waned and I just stopped buying it.

I spotted the latest issue of Heavy Metal in the bookstore recently and I was burning off a gift card anyway so, why not, I pulled the trigger. I would describe this copy I have as a nice enough package, but not enough to lure me back as a regular customer. The single most interesting thing in the issue is a house ad showing a partially obscured painting by the unusual team of Jim Steranko and Stanley (Artgerm) Lau.

I did a little investigative work and found the full image to share with you above. It turns out this was to have been a variant cover to my issue of Heavy Metal, but the variant was cancelled. Hey, wait a minute. Isn't that Simon and Kirby's Fighting American?