Heavy Metal

Publication history

National Lampoon

After a 1975 European trip by National Lampoon contributor Tony Hendra expressing interest in European comics, the magazine's New York offices attracted significant European comic material. On 2 September 1976, editor Sean Kelly singled out the relatively new French comics anthology Métal hurlant (lit. 'Howling Metal', though Kelly translated it as "Screaming Metal") and brought it to the attention of company president Leonard Mogel on 3 September, as Mogel was departing for Germany and France to jump-start the French edition of National Lampoon. (Métal hurlant had debuted in early 1975 from Les Humanoïdes Associés (lit. 'United Humanoids'), an association of Philippe Druillet, Jean-Pierre Dionnet, Jean Giraud (Mœbius), and financial director Bernard Farkas formed on 19 December 1974.) Upon Mogel's return from Paris on 27 September, he reported that the French publishers had agreed to an English language version, and he suggested the title Heavy Metal for an April issue to be released in March 1977.

Heavy Metal debuted in the US as a glossy, full-color monthly published by HM Communications, Inc., a subsidiary of Matty Simmons' Twenty First Century Communications, Inc. The cover of the initial April 1977 issue declared itself to be "From the people who bring you the National Lampoon", and the issue primarily featured reprints from Métal hurlant, as well as material from National Lampoon, a colorized portion of Vaughn Bodē's Sunpot (1971), and an excerpt from Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara (1977). Since the color pages from Métal hurlant had already been shot in France, the budget to reproduce them in the US version was greatly reduced.

In the late spring of 1980, Métal hurlant went bankrupt and Heavy Metal severed its ties with its content partner. Métal hurlant managed to keep publishing, however, and the two magazines reconciled in the summer of 1981.

After running as a monthly for its first nine years up to the December 1985 issue, the magazine dropped to a quarterly schedule (winter, spring, summer, and fall) beginning in 1986, promising an increase in length and to feature only complete (rather than serialized) stories.

Métal hurlant folded in the summer of 1987, forcing Heavy Metal to expand its reach for new content.

In 1977–1978, HM Communications published a number of trade paperbacks featuring "Heavy Metal Presents" on their covers, collecting translated material it had previously serialized in the pages of Heavy Metal:

Grodnik/Matheson, J2 Communications

In late 1988/early 1989, film producer Daniel Grodnik and actor/producer Tim Matheson acquired voting control of 21.3 percent of National Lampoon Inc. stock, were named to the company's board, and eventually took control of the company (by purchasing the ten-percent share—worth $760,000—of Matty Simmons, who departed the company).

During this period, publication of Heavy Metal increased from a quarterly to a bi-monthly schedule, citing a thirty-percent increase in circulation.

A year later, Grodnik/Matheson Co. sold the properties to J2 Communications, a home video producer and distributor founded by James P. Jimirro, with Grodnik and Matheson staying on for a period to run the new division.

Kevin Eastman

Kevin Eastman, co-creator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who had grown up reading Heavy Metal, bought the magazine for $500,000 in May 1992. (In total, HM Communications published 137 issues in 15 volumes from April 1977 to March 1992.) Eastman's publishing entity Metal Mammoth, Inc., published the magazine from 1992 to 2014. Eastman also served as Heavy Metal's editor-in-chief for the bulk of this time (even into 2016, after he was no longer the owner).

Later developments

In January 2014, Eastman sold the magazine to digital and music veteran David Boxenbaum and film producer Jeff Krelitz. Eastman continued to serve as publisher of the magazine (until early 2020) and was a minority investor in the new Heavy Metal, which became at that point published by Heavy Metal Media, LLC.

In late 2019, Krelitz was no longer with the magazine, which was undergoing leadership churn. In early 2020, Heavy Metal saw a regime change to CEO Matthew Medney and "Creative Overlord" David Erwin (formerly of DC Entertainment). Medney and Erwin announced two new comics publishing ventures, Virus and Magma Comix, though neither line produced much material.

Heavy Metal's 300th issue, published in 2021, featured work by Tanino Liberatore, Mark Bodé, and Kent Williams, among others; and posthumous work by Richard Corben, Moebius, and Vaughn Bodē. It had interviews and testimonials from writers discussing the impact the magazine had on them as teenagers.

Cancellation

In the fall of 2022, the magazine entered into an agreement with online marketplace Whatnot to publish the following 12 issues of the magazine. Soon afterward, the magazine announced it was "ceasing publication of what they described as the first volume of the magazine, which had been published continuously since 1977. The last issue of the first volume, number 320, was scheduled for publication in late October 2022 and the successor, Volume 2, would be published by WhatNot Publishing starting with issue 1 in February 2023."

Amid cash flow problems, however, Heavy Metal shut down in December 2022. Initially intended to be a temporary suspension, the magazine worked to rectify subscription non-fulfillments and non-payments to artists and vendors. Medney stepped down as CEO, replaced by Marshall Lees and Jamie Penrose.

In July 2023, with Whatnot's publishing division, Massive Publishing, only having produced one issue of Heavy Metal—#320, released in April of that year and still listing Heavy Metal Entertainment LLC in the indicia—it was announced that the publisher had decided to cancel the magazine and that #320 had been the final issue.

The Relaunch Era (2024 to the present)

On October 15, 2024, Heavy Metal International, LLC announced that they would be relaunching the magazine in 2025, and began a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for the first issue on November 25, 2024. By 2026, two Kickstarter campaigns had been completed, raising nearly $2 million in capital, but were fraught with fulfillment problems, angering backers, leading to vocal outcry on Heavy Metal’s official Discord and Circle servers as well as the comment sections on both campaigns (totaling nearly 5,000 comments as of August 2026). Many of these problems remain unresolved.

The First Kickstarter (2024)

Heavy Metal magazine relaunched via Kickstarter at the end of 2024. This was solely for the first issue, but it was offered in many variants as well as in hardcover and softcover. The campaign raised $782,989

pledged of $5,000 goal with 10,924 total backers. This was especially momentous and historic because it went head-to-head with a similar campaign for the English-language return of Métal Hurlant, which has been absent from the North American market for over twenty years. By the end, Heavy Metal beat its French progenitor which brought in a respectable $759,111 pledged of $5,000 goal with 5,098 total backers. Both campaigns began in November and ended in December of that year. As 2025 rolled along, issues regarding fulfillment started to emerge. In particular, the campaign rewards ended up in retail outlets before backers received them, running contrary to a promise made during the campaign that backers would receive theirs first. Things descended further into chaos when it became apparent that backers weren't receiving the rewards at all.

The Angry Mob

Following the disastrous fulfillment of Heavy Metal's first Kickstarter, CEO Marshall Lees set up an exclusive group on Circle to appease customers and rally support for the brand back to a positive place. The group was dubbed "The Angry Mob." The results were generally negative, as communication within the group proved to be fallow and mostly ignored, but it did lead to HM publishing a digital-only series called The Angry Mob Zine that was extremely well received. It brought together fans and professionals alike to contribute content and featured behind-the-scenes content such as comic convention reports and interviews. Initially, Community Director Zack Larez engaged magazine editors Chris Thompson and Dave Kelly to help steer the ship, but it only lasted five issues before cancelation. Regardless, it did provide a launching pad for the comic Heart & Sin, written by then-Executive Editor Dave Kelly. Fans of both HM and H&S rallied behind the series to find it a new home after Kelly departed the company and the zine was ended.

The Second Kickstarter (2025) and subscriptions offered

At the end of 2025, Heavy Metal launched a second kickstarter for a line of deluxe hardcover books. The titles offered were Druuna, Ranx, a.k.a. RanXerox, Segments, and a book compiling all of the magazine's covers called The Covers that Lead Us Here. While the campaign was wildly successful in financial terms, raising $1,028,996

against a $10,000 goal with 6,048 backers, history repeated itself with a long wait to receive the books and little communication from HM management that amplified unrealistic expectations on the part of both the company and the consumer, despite channels such as Circle, Discord, and the Kickstarter campaign pages itself meant to keep such lines open. Compounding matters further were that subscriptions for the magazine were offered to the public beginning with Issue 2. Similarly to the first Kickstarter, the promise was made to subscribers that they would receive their issues before retailers. However, that has proven systemically not to be the case. Issues have run late to retail and have not been effectively sent to subscribers in any sense, resulting in a slew of ongoing complaints every time one comes out.

Artists and Features

Heavy Metal's high-quality artwork was notable. Work by international fine artists such as H. R. Giger, Frank Frazetta, and Esteban Maroto were featured on the covers of various issues. Stefano Tamburini and Tanino Liberatore's RanXerox series debuted in the States. Terrance Lindall's illustrated version of Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost appeared in the magazine in 1980. Many stories were presented as long-running serials, such as those by Richard Corben, Pepe Moreno and Matt Howarth. Illustrators like Luis Royo and Alex Ebel contributed artwork over the course of their careers. An adaptation of the film Alien named Alien: The Illustrated Story, written by Archie Goodwin and drawn by Walter Simonson, was published in the magazine in 1979.

Here is a starting list of contributing artists featured in Heavy Metal:

Notable artists and features from the relaunch era

The issues plaguing the relaunch of Heavy Metal magazine unfortunately skewed focus away from the content of the magazine. That said, the original material produced in this era has received positive notice from fans and retailers alike. They include:

Gladiatrix by John Stanisci, Dan Gordon, David Baron, and Tom Nepolitano

Heart & Sin by Dave Kelly, Brett Hobson, Katia Vecchio, Clare DeZutti, and DC Hopkins

Millstone by Michael Conrad, Ilias Kyriazis, Nikki Spanou, and Simon Bowland

Sixella by Janevsky

These titles were originally edited by Dave Kelly or Chris Thompson. Thompson assumed editing Gladiatrix with Issue 5, after Kelly quit at the end of 2025. Heart & Sin and Sixella left the HM portfolio with Kelly.

Editors

The founding editors of the American edition of Heavy Metal were Sean Kelly and Valerie Marchant. Over the life of the magazine, the two editors with the longest tenures were Julie Simmons-Lynch (who was publisher Matty Simmons' daughter) and Kevin Eastman, who was also the magazine's owner/publisher for more than 20 years.

The founding design director was Peter Kleinman (who served in the same capacity for National Lampoon). He created the original Heavy Metal logo design, at the request of Mogel, and was responsible for the launch and art direction of the first issue. Kleinman later hired designer and letterer John Workman, who brought to the magazine a background of experience at DC Comics and other publishers. Workman served as the magazine's art director from 1977 to 1984. (His comics art, writing, lettering, coloring, and design work are evident throughout issues from that period.)

Founding editors Kelly and Marchant were replaced in August 1979 by Ted White, who was hired to introduce non-fiction and prose fiction into the magazine. White was fired in August 1980, replaced as editor by magazine founder Leonard Mogel.

Julie Simmons-Lynch took over from Mogel in late 1981, serving as Heavy Metal's editor-in-chief for more than eleven years, stepping down when Kevin Eastman bought the magazine.

With a few breaks, Eastman was chief editor for Heavy Metal from early 1993 until mid-2016. Most of these breaks were packaged and edited by A1 co-creator Dave Elliott. Comics writer Grant Morrison became the magazine's editor-in-chief beginning with the April 2016 issue, serving through 2018. They later served as creative advisor.

By issue #298 (2020), Tim Seeley had become editor-in-chief but was out by the end of that year. In 2021, Joseph Illidge took over as Executive Editor but left the company entirely by the end of 2022.

Following the hiatus, all employees were let go and the company was dissolved. Heavy Metal International, LLC revived the brand in 2024 and subsequently announced new editors Dave Kelly, Frank Forte, and Chris Thompson would helm the magazine going forward. Dave Kelly quit at the end of 2025. Frank Forte was demoted in early 2026 and the title of EIC was handed to Head of Publishing RG Llarena. This shakeup came following two financially-successful Kickstarter campaigns that were plagued with fulfillment problems, resulting in a still-ongoing vocal outcry on Heavy Metal’s official Discord and Circle groups.

Legacy

Heavy Metal was widely credited for exposing many Americans/English-speakers to European comics and the continent's top cartoonists. As cartoonist and publisher Kevin Eastman said of the magazine, "Heavy Metal published European art that had not been previously seen in the United States, as well as demonstrating an underground comix sensibility that nonetheless wasn't as harsh or extreme as some of the underground comix – but ... definitely intended for an older readership".

Creators like George Lucas, Neil Gaiman, and Steven Lisberger have all discussed the influence of Heavy Metal on their later work.

The magazine was taken to task, however, for its juvenile stories, violence, and misogynist portrayals of women. Entertainment Weekly described the magazine as, "a legendary sci-fi and fantasy comic magazine for adults... and perhaps precocious teens interested in more daring material, or who consider Wonder Woman a tad underdressed." Critic R. M. Rhodes pointed out "the abundance of breasts in the magazine [was] somewhat of a running joke over the years."

Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times wrote that Heavy Metal had "charm" but decried its "sadism." Writing about the magazine's early years, Rhodes discussed the voluminous number of pieces in which "the amount of rape (and stories where attempted rape drives the action).... I really didn't keep track of how often it happens, but any number more than 'none' is usually a bad sign. Tragically, it's mostly used as just another plot point, with no mention or indication of the consequences."

In other media

Films

In 1981, an animated feature film was adapted from several of the magazine's serials. Made on a budget of U.S. $9.3 million and under production for three years, Heavy Metal features animated segments from several different animation houses, with each contributing a single story segment. Another house animated the frame story which ties all the disparate stories together. Another animated feature film called Heavy Metal 2000 was released in 2000.

During 2008 and into 2009, reports circulated that David Fincher and James Cameron would executive produce and, each, direct two of the eight to nine segments of a new animated Heavy Metal feature. Kevin Eastman was to also direct a segment, as well as animator Tim Miller, Zack Snyder, Gore Verbinski and Guillermo del Toro. Paramount Pictures decided to stop funding the film by August 2009 and no distributor or production company has shown interest in the second sequel, since. In 2011, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez purchased the film rights to Heavy Metal and planned to develop a new animated film at the new Quick Draw Studios.

An animated 3D film entitled War of the Worlds: Goliath, created as a sequel to H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds and based on a story previously published in the magazine, was produced by The Tripod Group and released in Malaysia in 2012.

Heavy Metal has a long history of announcing projects in other media that never come to fruition, such as "Hoax Hunters," "Roche Limit," and "Interceptor" in 2015. Regardless, all were announced in legitimate Hollywood trade publications like Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter.

In March 2021, Heavy Metal announced it would be adapting Blake Northcott's Arena Mode Saga for television, but after years of corporate-level turbulence, the project remains motionless. Also announced around that time was a slate of content dubbed The Metalverse, of which the Arena Mode Saga seemed to be a part. However, following an alleged corporate sale and the departure of the company's Head of Studio Tommy Coriale, the likelihood of this slate materializing is in doubt.

In March 2019, the David Fincher project had evolved into the well-known and well-received Netflix series Love, Death & Robots following a falling out with Heavy Metal management. The series was a rousing success for the streamer, bringing in 21 Primetime Emmy nominations, of which it won 17.

Video games

Heavy Metal 2000 inspired a video game sequel released in 2000, the PC action-adventure Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.². It was developed by Ritual Entertainment.

In 2001, Capcom released Heavy Metal: Geomatrix, an arcade fighting game that later made its way to Sega's Dreamcast console. Though not based on any specific material from Heavy Metal, it featured character designs by frequent contributor Simon Bisley and a style generally inspired by the magazine.

Pinball machine

In 2020, Stern Pinball and the production company Incendium released a pinball machine commemorating the 300th issue of Heavy Metal, featuring Taarna and Cold Dead War (2021). Designed by George Gomez, the made to order machine, with a playfield based on the Stern 2019 Star Wars release, sold for eight-thousand dollars and shipped in late 2020 along with an exclusive variant cover edition of Heavy Metal issue #300. Pinside, a website devoted to pinball machine culture, disclosed that, ultimately, "only 100 Stern Heavy Metal Pinball Machines of the 300 scheduled to be produced were ever made. No matching numbered magazine issues were ever issued, Incendium was shipped the blank cover variant of issue 300 and decided not to use them."

Podcast network

In 2021, Heavy Metal launched a podcast network featuring scripted and unscripted shows that focused on horror, fantasy, sci-fi, comedy, and pop culture. The podcast ran for only one season of 20 episodes. The podcast is not currently archived on the Heavy Metal website.