1. Tell us your origin story, how did you become involved with Heavy Metal? Were you a fan of the magazine growing up?

I’ve been a long-time fan and collector of the Magazine and I’ve always been interested in sci-fi and fantasy more broadly, having been a D&D player most of my life. I vividly remembering discovering Heavy Metal for the first time as a teenager at a neighbor’s house. It had an incredible Chichioni cover, it latched onto me and set my mind off in a thousand different creative directions. I flicked through the pages and remember thinking what is this?!

It’s probably a good time to explain why I’m even here. I was a minor investor in the company Heavy Metal Entertainment. I was purely a shareholder and was not involved in the operational side of the business. At that time I wasn’t aware of the issues I would eventually discover. When Heavy Metal Entertainment fell apart operationally no one else wanted to step in and try and save this iconic brand. I knew how big of a mountain it would be to overcome but I didn’t want this to die, it meant too much to too many people, myself included. My partners and I acquired the brand from Heavy Metal Entertainment and set out to find a way to not only bring it back to its glory days but provide the foundation for it to grow in all new ways. It’s been a complex task but the future is finally looking bright.

As the new brand owners we decided from the outset to make good with all of the writers and artists who were owed money by Heavy Metal Entertainment. I know there is a rumor out there that there are many unpaid creators left but that is simply not true. We have worked through the vast majority of those outstanding creator debts at this point. There are still some that need to be dealt with, mainly because of a lack of paperwork and clarity, but it is our intention to address with every creator that had a claim with the other business. I encourage any creators who believe they were still owed money to reach out so we can get it resolved.

It’s been exciting to get stuck into this business and build a new team of passionate people that love this brand and we have some really big things we are going to be announcing over the coming months.

“I think we should be one of the most interesting companies in the world so that’s what I’m hoping to build here.”

2. I know that you are an avid comic book collector, what drew you to the medium?

I really love the art and the artists, and I am a bit of a compulsive collector so that doesn't help! So many incredible stories get life through the comic medium, it's a really exciting, but also challenging space to be in. One of my prized possessions is my collection of Heavy Metal Magazines, I have almost every issue, including the specials and lots of the extremely hard to find pieces.

3. Heavy Metal has recently come under scrutiny by fans with a number of past subscribers saying orders were not being fulfilled. Can you talk about what your current administration is doing, or has done, to remedy these past issues?

It has been really disappointing to hear about the way fans were treated in the past. This is a new team and we are committed to making as much of the past as right as we can and we are a significant way through doing that. We have plans to make good with past subscribers who missed issues and with people whose orders were not fulfilled for other items. It’s taking time and we appreciate the patience this is demanding from fans. The magazine is back in production, the store is being relaunched (with some incredible things planned) and we will be contacting affected customers that we have records for within the next few weeks. We have established specific mechanisms and added internal resources for fans to communicate with us and get these things resolved.

4. Heavy Metal is a unique brand in that fans really want to see it succeed. What do you think lends it this special
regard?

There really aren’t many brands on the planet like this one. It’s influence over some of the most significant parts of entertainment history has been truly unique. The incredible combination of artists and writers who have pushed creative boundaries and breathed life into Heavy Metal over the past 47 years have helped create something that would be impossible to replicate from scratch. I think genre fans today are just as keen as ever to see brave storytelling told through a Heavy Metal lens.

5. Can you talk about your vision for Heavy Metal?

I want to see Heavy Metal thrive. I want it to be an important part of the creative landscape again. I want creators to feel like this is a place they have freedom to tell incredible stories or showcase amazing art in all different forms. I think we are a storytelling business at our core and there’s so many ways in the modern world you can bring those stories to life and excite fans, so I am excited to explore all those possibilities. I am very interested in building new worlds and having brilliant contributors expand those places in different ways. I’d like fans to be a part of that process too. I want to push
into the tabletop RPG and gaming space and we are actively working on that at the moment. We are also stepping into different forms of storytelling like Manga. In essence, I think we should be one of the most interesting companies in the world so that’s what I’m hoping to build here. Watch this space.

6. Do you view the magazine as the lifeblood of Heavy Metal?

The magazine is our heartbeat and we are focused on geing that back to being the really unique and brave publication it once was. It certainly won’t be the only part of this business that pushes boundaries though. The magazine will only use real art, no ai, that’s a hardline decision we have made. It will showcase some of the great established creators and be a vehicle for new writers and artists to get out into the world too. It’s going to be a more adult Heavy Metal than the last few years have been.

7. If there’s one thing you’d like to impart to fans and readers, what would it be?

Firstly, I want to say thank you for caring. Beyond that I just hope we give you back the sense that Heavy Metal is a lile different, a lile weirder and edgier and worth your time to experience. We won’t always get it right but this time we really want to involve the fans in what we are doing and how we are doing it. I would encourage anyone who is interested to jump into our Discord and speak to our team and incredible moderators who are working hard to build a special community there. We want to rebuild this with you and there will be lots of ways fans can get involved in the new Heavy Metal.