Publisher's Note
Hello Everyone,
I'm going to be forty seven years old at the end of this month—how cool
is that?! Seriously, there were many times in my life I was sure I'd never see
my 25th birthday—or reach the ripe old age of thirty. I guess I'm just happy
to have gone past my own personal expectations (as well as a few friends and family
members opinions on the matter) and still be able to get out of bed excited about
the next mountain that I'll need to climb. My son, Shane will be three in a few
months and Pam's son, Peter will be nine by the year's end. Both these little
gentlemen in my life convinced me to finally quit smoking for Christmas last year—toughest
thing I've ever done, but easier when these guys tell you they'd really like to
have you around for the next thirty years! Thanks for the support dudes, and I
promise to lose the extra weight soon!
Been an interesting Spring for the planet so far, the bad spots still far outweighing
the bright spots so far—but that was to be expected I guess...and among
all the local cutbacks and layoffs there does seem to be "real" possibilities
that there is "hope". With money this tight, I want to personally thank
you for shelling out the hard earned cash for a copy of our magazine—it
means a lot to us, and we'll keep working our hardest to make sure it is worth
it.
The heavyweights for this month's issue, besides the KILLER cover by Michael Calandra,
is the seventh chapter in the extremely popular "Requiem" series by
Pat Mills and Olivier Ledroit! We get a fair amount of e-mails and message board
discussions on every issue, but notes and posts on "Requiem" far exceed
all others—and YES, we will finally be issuing a series of collected versions,
in groups of three chapters per book and the first one will be on the stands by
the time you read this. More cool beans.
I love it when we can fit in this many short stories and by some of my favorite
artists and writers no less! "Killer Ball" by Stefano Cardoselli, &
Marco DElla Verde will satisfy those needing a Cardoselli fix, and "False
Gods" by Santiago Casares & Miguel Mora will give you an interesting
take. Cool beans. Totally dug the "Prized Fight" by Tyler Richlen and
Craig Richlen from the first time I saw it and glad to finally fit it into an
issue. "Run Away" by Marco Belli, Gabriele Parma and Oscar Celestini-
what can I say here but nice work guys, and "Fire Singer" by Bernd Frenz
& Oliver Ferreira is sure to warm you up. Last, but far from least is "Living
City" by George Todorovski—simply love this piece and after way too
long, "Caveman" by my old friend Tayyar Ozkan returns—and we promise
to slide these one pagers in more often.
On the editorial and artist side of this issue is the "Dossier" which
is always rock'n when the talented S.C. Ringgenberg is in the house, the main
"Gallery" on Ural Akyuz is wonderful—thanks Ural, and "Tarot
Cards" continues by Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell and David Palumbo—regarding
which, we all can't wait for the collection of this amazing gallery section! The
astounding Tyler Walpole shows us what he's been up to in the "Artist Studio",
while Caries de Miguel struts his stuff on the featured artist page respectively.
I want to take an extra minute to sincerely thank ALL the artists who make this
and every issue of Heavy Metal a special event for me, and remind all the fans
if you're digging these guys as much as I am—be sure to follow their links
off the gallery pages and let them know, as well as check out all the expanded
galleries we're doing on www.heavymetal.com, which are updated weekly.
That's going to wrap it up for me this month, look forward to talking with you
in sixty.
