Heavy Metal: April 1977-December 1985 (Complete Original Run)

I was a huge, huge fan of Heavy Metal when I was in high school and me and my friends spent most of out afternoons poring over the amazing stories and awesome artwork, and over time I managed to to get my hands on every issue in its initial run, and must have read and re-read them a million times over!

I dug out my collection and realized it had been years, if not decades since I read them, and I thought I'd take a month or so out to re-read the entire run of this fantastic series and re-connect back to my teenage sci-fi fantasy years!

Best Of Neal Adams: Eerie #125

My friends and I started collection comics around 1978, starting with friendly titles like Star Wars and Godzilla, by 1979 we were totally into superhero genre titles like X-Men, Avengers and the like, and by 1981, we were card carrying frothing at the mouth rabid fans of everything comics related, and  one of our HUGE favorite artists was the incredible Neal Adams! 
 We loved both his Marvel and DC work, from X-Men to Avengers, to Green Lantern/Green Arrow and his Deadman series, and I guess there was a general buzz in the air that year, for that summer EERIE magazine released a special BEST OF NEAL ADAMS issue which ALL of us grabbed!
MAN, this issue BLEW US AWAY- For one thing, not only was the Neal Adams art superb, he used so many different techniques for his story depiction- (from straight pencils, to charcoal, to painting and washes, no two stories looked the same) and Two: Holy COW, the STORIES THEMSELVES were so freaking GREAT! Samples from some faves:

" The Curse of the Undead"

Always been a huge fan of Neal Adams ladies, and we start things off right with this story where a man has fallen in love with a beautiful countess whom the town believe is cursed to awake as one of the undead. Look at that pic of the woman sleeping, man what awesome artwork!

“Goddess from The Sea"

Oooooh, MAN, how I lusted after the illustrations in this story! This story tells the tale of a man who meets a lusciously curvy blue-skinned woman who claims she is from the lost undersea world of Atlantis and needs his help protecting her from warriors who want to take her back. What’s a poor boy to do!!!

“Thrill Kill”

Two Police Investigators try and find the motive behind ayoung lad’s seemingly senseless shooting spree in the middle of town. Though the crime seems at first to be no more than a frivoulus and callous attack, the more they delve, the more they feel the boy may have had other reasons…

 

“The Terror Beyond Time"

What, a myserious cave that goes to deep into the earth and comes out in a lush, prehistoric apradise where dinosaurs roam free? Where have I seen this story before? Oh Yeah., in Neal Adams’ X-eMen stories where the gang goes to the Savage Land! LOL, Neal sure does love drawing those Pterosaurs…

 

“A Curse Of Claws”

And I’ve been putting out fire with gasoline! Sorry, I’ve had David Bwoie’s “Cat people” song gojg through my mind as I re=read this tale of a safari man who crosses paths with a sultry feline- a woman part human and part cat! Makes me wondeer what it would have looked like if Neal had illustrated Hellcat!

“Fair Exchange”

I love this one because out of all of these stories, it’s the most like those traditional ‘spooky Comics” like House of Mystery, etc, and Neal's art is more like his Marvel work. The tale of a rich old man who trades his body for a young, healthy one is a tale oft trodden, in fact, I have another similar story in GHOSTS that Neal illustrated as well! Of course, these body-switching things never seem to work out…

Man,,all of these stories were so captivating, we read and re-read these over and over! And the Neal Adams renaissance continued when DC shortly released a  "Best of GHOSTS" comic in their DC Digests format, which gave us even MORE new Neal Adams art and more freaking  terrific stories! I'll have to dig THAT one out and scans some of THOSE as well!

Super-Vixens: Vampirella

In celebration of Halloween, I give you Warren's famed Gothic Supernatural Seductress that's been putting the VAMP in Vampire for nigh on five decades, the illustrious Queen of the Undead, Vampirella!

Vampi's been around since the late sixties,  and I remember feasting my young eyes on  those oh-so-seductive Warren Magazine covers and noting that even then it seemed more about sex than Horror! Oh, you can bet those covers just drove me out of my mind, they were so AWESOME!

I remember back in 1979, there was this one particular Vampirella cover that I truly believe was the sexiest illustration I'd ever seen at that point in my life (and still may rank among the top five!) and I remember staring at that cover every day I went into the store to buy my comics. 

Oh how I'd been brave (and old) enough to have picked that one up at the time, but unfortunately for my raging hormones, it would be not until years later that I finally got ahold of that one! The issue was Vampirella #82, and I remember when I was older, going to the comic store and feverishly thumbing through the old box of Vampirellas, and the THRILL when I found it again after all those years!

But that was just one of the many, many awesome issues that Warren put out in those years (even a short stint where they used real life models dresses as Vampi for the covers, which i just HATED) and  she even had a new life in the 90s and beyond in the comics medium! But for, it would always be about those 70's issues that so enthralled me!