A new group has taken on the mantle of Heavy Metal magazine and are crowdfunding the first issue of the new version on Kickstarter, with a limited retailer tier.
The assets of the previous iteration from Heavy Metal Entertainment, which stopped publishing in 2023, were acquired by a group led by Marshal Lees, who had been a shareholder of the 2023 version and took over as interim CEO that year (see “ICv2 Interview: Marshall Lees“). In a post earlier this month, Lees said that the new owners were working to meet all unpaid obligations to creators and had taken care of many of them. Lees also said that the company was working to make good on unfilled orders and subscription obligations.
The new version is under the editorial control of Frank Forte, Dave Kelly, and Chris Thompson, who have announced the contents and covers of the first issue, which is planned at nearly 200 pages.
Stories in #1 will include:
- BUG, by Enki Bilal (whose work appeared in the first issue of the original version o of Heavy Metal back in the 1970s)
- Burton & Cyb by Antonio Segura and Jose Ortiz
- Mercenary, by Vicente Segrelles
- Sixella, by Janevsky
- Taarna, by Leah Moore and John Reppion, with art by Anna Morozova
- Cold Dead War, by Craig Wilson,
- Grimaldi, by Keron Grant
- Legends of Taarna, by Joseph Michael Linsner
- Lester, That Old Feeling, by Fernando Dagnino
- The Bus, by Paul Kirchner
- June 2050, by John Workman
- Transcendestiny, by David Quinn and Tim Vigil
The primary cover of the first issue is by the late Greg Hildebrandt. Variant covers, many of which are exclusive to the Kickstarter, are by Frank Frazetta, Dan Brereton, Luca Strati, Skinner, Brian Viveros, Dan Quintana, Nychose, and others.
The U.S. Heavy Metal magazine originally published content licensed from the French magazine Metal Hurlant, but that relationship is long gone. Humanoids is about to launch a U.S. edition of Metal Hurlant (see “Humanoids to Bring Back ‘Metal Hurlant’“), so both magazines, Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal, are going to be published in the U.S. in 2025.
Click Gallery below for covers and interior art from Heavy Metal #1.
Source: ICV2
