The Roots of Heavy Metal Run Deep
The Roots of Heavy Metal Run Deep
by Alain Park
Edited by Dave Kelly
Most know about Heavy Metal’s European origins. The magazine was the North American counterpart of Metal Hurlant, the French sci-fi/fantasy powerhouse founded by Druillet, Dionett, and Moebius. As an officially licensed English-language version, those early years of Heavy Metal relied heavily on translated reprints from Metal Hurlant that ran alongside English-language contemporaries mainly cultivated from the pages of National Lampoon. While this French connection was clear from the outset, for many readers Heavy Metal was still their first introduction to even the concept of European comics. It proved a fresh take for many; and coupled with a magazine format which put Heavy Metal outside the comics code authority, it produced an exciting and intoxicating temptation.
Of course, we all know the result: a life-altering event for those who came across the magazine at just the right time, an almost cult-like status and reverence over time for the early years of the magazine, or whatever era you came in contact with the magazine. Many of us have our own stories about how this mind-blowing, genre-popping magazine entered our lives. They’re conveyed in breathy “I-remember-whens” and eager “the-first-time-I-saws”. The reverence for those first encounters is so intense in fact I feel sometimes we run the risk of viewing them, and in some cases even the magazine itself, as an anomaly. Was Heavy Metal’s explosion onto the scene and into our psyche somehow a singular event? Certainly, it was special, but maybe it was so special it can’t happen again.
But what if it wasn’t a one-off? Wasn’t some non-repeatable product of the moment? What if the magic that was Heavy Metal, those first glimpses we remember pouring over, whatever the era, those special issues that became critically-, artistically-, emotionally-defining for many of us in the medium, are a result of something quantifiable? An editorial strategy, an artistic philosophy, or maybe even something as simple as a format?
Well crap that would be great, huh? If only there were some other magazines that were similar to Heavy Metal, maybe from the same era as those early years, that had similar effects on their readers, had high caliber art and comics, boundary pushing stuff, if only we had some other sources like that from which we could mine some ideas and inspiration. We might even be able to make lightning strike again.
Okay, I’ll give. Full stop on the coyness. I was talking about Heavy Metal’s roots, wasn’t I? The good news is those roots go much deeper than just Metal Hurlant. In fact, there was an explosion in the '60s of adult-oriented high-quality comics magazines in Europe that followed a similar publishing strategy. There are a number of them I’d like to bring up in this article that are eminently worth anyone’s time tracking down and checking out and which we’ll get to soon enough. And who knows, maybe we’ll learn something while we’re at it, about what makes a great and enduring magazine. Hell, we might just figure out how to conjure a storm or two.
You really can’t overstate just how important the prestige magazine format was to European comics at that time. It’s the same format Heavy Metal followed over the years: a nationally distributed, high production magazine that features quality adult-oriented work of a third lane, that is to say not quite underground, but also not quite mainstream either. Not only was this kind of format significant because it differed from the way North American and Japanese publishers pursued serialization, which favored monthly single issue comic books and genre-specific omnibuses respectively, but it was also a proving ground for new talent and new modes of comic storytelling.
But before we get to the individual magazines, perhaps a very brief history of global adult comics would be helpful. Very brief, I promise.
A Global Coming of Age
I’ve always been fascinated by the global shift in comics that happened in the mid-to-late '60s. In a relatively short amount of time comics underwent a huge transformation. It was maturing as a medium, shifting from something just for kids to something that could also be adult-oriented, evolving from a medium of quick and cheap commercial entertainment to one of self-expression. In short, comics were becoming an art form. And it happened simultaneously and independently across the three major traditions of comics: North America, Europe, and Japan. Of course, what seemed like a global phenomenon was anything but. The global shift to comics as an art form had a simple and elegant explanation. And we have boomers to thank for it.
The baby boom after WWII didn’t just happen in North America. Europe and Japan had similar post-war periods and conditions that resulted in massive spikes in birthrates. And the comics traditions in each of these spheres, each interrupted by war at the same, each primed with a huge new audience on the horizon in a new era of growth and prosperity, were then, post war, getting back to work and essentially resetting to zero.
So of course the kids who would grow up reading comics in the '50s and fall in love with a newly invigorated medium would want to see and make comics that appealed to them as adults in the mid to late '60s. And this happened all over the world, in the US, Europe, Japan, all at the same time, the same human formula, all brought on by the end of the war and the boomer populations of each respective region, whether it was R. Crumb and Zap comics in San Fransisco, or Jean-Claude Forest’s Barbarella and Guy Peellaert’s The Adventures of Jodelle in France, Italy’s dark and erotic fumetti neri (black comics), or the groundbreaking journal Garo and the vastly influential work of Yoshiharu Tsuge in Japan. That same beautiful human revolution of wanting to see yourself in the art you make and consume. Agghh. I just love comics.
I’m including the magazines Tintin and Spirou mainly as a base from which we can orient the other entries on the following list, but it’s important to understand that magazines were the dominant format by which most European comics found their audience. What started as weekly supplements in newspapers would later become stand-alone magazines. Tintin, the character and stories by Herge, found their start in The Petite Vingtieme (The Little Twentieth), the weekly youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper, Le Vingtieme Siecle (The Twentieth Century) in the 1930s and early '40s. Weekly or monthly magazines would soon become the standard as readers waited for the longer albums to be completed (“albums” being the European verbiage for a published book of comics and is synonymous with graphic novel or collected edition for our purposes here).
Started after the war, Tintin the magazine serialized long form albums of several ongoing stories (the namesake Tintin being the anchor) by publishing a couple pages of those stories at a time. These entries were not self-contained units and lacked the expository text/dialogue common to US monthlies but considering that the magazine was weekly this wasn’t a problem. Tintin set a standard of above average printing quality and providing readers with content they wouldn’t get in the finished albums like alternate pages, interviews, and comics that wouldn’t reach album form. The focus was undeniably youth-oriented, but make no mistake, the kids who were reading Tintin on a weekly basis in the '50s would later be the same audience for the many adult-oriented magazines of the late '60s and '70s.
Spirou, was Tintin’s rival. Also Belgian the two magazines staked different claims on the Franco-Belgian comics landscape in much the same way DC and Marvel would in the US. For the most part, artists contributed to one or the other and the magazines even laid claim to differing comic styles, Tintin being the champion of Ligne Claire (clear line) comics which emphasized even line weights and a more schematic approach to comics and Spirou heading the charge for the Charleroi-style with its weighty impressionistic lines and dynamic caricatures. Though older than Tintin, Spirou would have its “Golden Age” from 1945 to 1960, largely as a result of the friendly competition between the two magazines, not to mention that huge boomer audience who were laying the groundwork for the comics revolutions in the late '60s.
What’s notable about these two magazines is that they showed a clear devotion to their audience as a growing and maturing cohort. They continually added and featured work of new and emerging artists, eventually adding artists from outside the Franco-Belgian tradition. They kept interest keen with experimental layouts, supplements, games, and even some center fold mini comics.
******
Now with a little history at our backs, let’s get to the good stuff (not that Tintin and Spirou aren’t good or readable, just that we’re focusing on adult fare here, ala Heavy Metal). I’m going on record that any fan of Heavy Metal would be wise to track down a few copies of the following magazines. They’re absolutely worth the effort. And it’s not just Heavy Metal fans who would do well to do some eBay searches. Anyone interested in the art of comics in general, or cartoonists wanting to expand the sequential vocab, or lovers of old magazines, students of design, layout, and typography, publishing nerds, well… you get the picture. And don’t let the language barrier stop you. Google translate and your phone is your gateway to a whole new world of comics. Seriously, just point your phone at a panel and go. You’ll kick yourself for not doing it sooner.
Positioned at launch as a magazine for adolescents, Pilote would also prove adept at growing and maturing with its audience. Its anchor was Asterix, the adventure/humor comic of a diminutive Gallic warrior in Roman occupied France by Rene Goscinny and Alert Uderzo, and while certainly written for the magazine target audience, Asterix also didn’t dumb down its content for kids. It was actually a sly form of cultural satire which poked fun at Europeans across the board (although usually non-French, because what could be more French than thumbing your nose at your neighbors—with love). Another mainstay of the magazine was Jean Girard’s (the artist who would soon call himself Moebius) Blueberry, an adventure comic set in the American wild west. Blueberry was also perfect for a maturing audience with its revisionist, anti-authoritarian take on a classic Western.
Pilote would continue to mature alongside its audience throughout the '60s as it shifted to content with a more overt political and social satire edge. The 1968 student protests and general strikes in France would push Pilote even further into these socio-political spheres until it eventually felt something like a French born Mad magazine. Irreverent, cynical, jaundiced, skewering. Pilote had a lot of angst.
I want to note too that there was also a hell of a lot of scholarly support for comics in France which found its way into the pages of Pilote. National organizations dedicated to creating a critical dialogue and national legitimacy for comics were eager to highlight the cultural impact of comics as an art form. Pilote had a major role in shifting the public appreciation of comics from characters to creators.
Much of the biting satire of Pilote is likely lost on many North American readers and to time. Nonetheless, Pilote published some great work. You can find the work of Jean (Mœbius) Giraud, Enki Bilal, Jacques Tardi, Philippe Druillet, Marcel Gotlib, Hugo Pratt, and Crumb among many many others in its pages. If you’re on the hunt for any issues, just let the covers be your guide. The covers from the '70s alone are worth any shipping costs. And as a weekly publication until 1973 and then a monthly after that until 1989 there’s no shortage of treasures to find.
Alongside the France and Belgium, Italy was another major comics hub in Europe. Linus, named after the Peanuts character, had a more serious streak than Pilote. Where Pilote excelled at humor and satire, Linus leaned into adventure strips, book illustration, and fine art. This mirrored the more serious literary aspirations and at times darker tone the Italians favored in their comics. By the mid-'60s some of the most popular comics in Italy were fumetti neri, crime comics that favored the criminal over the authorities like Diabolik, Kriminal, and Satanik to name a few.
As for Linus, they reprinted Anglophone strips like Peanuts and Dick Tracy as well as various British strips alongside young Italian talent including Crepax, Enzo Lunari, Buzzelli, and Mattotti. Linus had a couple spin-offs. Alterlinus (see below) would feature adult-oriented fare and Corto Maltese (‘83) featured a variety of adventure comics and lasted well over 100 issues.
Like Pilote, the scholarly support was also there (notice a trend happening?) with writings from Umberto Eco and Fellini of note. Linus also had large cultural sections that dealt with politics, mass media, literature, and contemporary Italian culture. I can’t help but think this kind of scholarly and broader cultural support might be interesting to see again in some form or another in a new magazine. Who knows what that might look like, but I think it would be interesting.
Linus is still going strong today, and while I wouldn’t steer anyone interested away from seeking out some issues, after all it’s the only place you’ll find a chance meeting of Prat’s Corto Maltese and Crepax’s Valentina, it’s really one of its spin-offs that has more of my attention.
"Alterlinus is another Linus. A Linus who is the same and different. A Linus who is not insensitive to the cry of pain of adventure enthusiasts... "
The above is from the editorial in the first issue of Alterlinus (later changed to Alter Alter). Alterlinus was an official spin-off of Linus and ran monthly for about a decade. From its inception it was home to strictly adult-oriented comics.
Alterlinus was home to some seriously awesome comics, international heavy hitters, from Crepax and Toppi to Manara and Buzzelli for the Italians, also Munoz, Breccia, Altan, Moebius, Didier Comes, Druillet, Corben… you name it. The covers are great, provocative but not formulaic. They feel fresh and raw even by today’s standards. I’d pick up any one of these issues given the chance.
Of note, for the issues after 1983 there was often a short insert in issues from the Valvoline Mortorcomics group, which included Mattotti, Igort, Carpintari, among others, which featured highly experimental and innovative work. Definitely worth checking out.
Going back a bit and switching to France, Charlie Mensuel, or just Charlie since “mensuel” means “monthly”, was France’s answer to Linus, right down to taking their name from a Peanuts character. Like its Italian counterpart, Charlie reprinted Anglophone strips alongside European artists, though as with other French magazines the publication itself leaned towards humor and satire with a sharp political edge. It was founded by cartoonists from the infamous French satire magazine Hara Kiri, a frequent target of banning by French censors for its irreverence, and that same editorial philosophy certainly carried over to Charlie.
Charlie would eventually lend its name to Charlie Hebdo (Charlie Weekly), the successor of Hara Kiri, and then merge with Pilote. During its publication, it really did follow closely the editorial formula of Linus and reprinted many Italian creators that first appeared in Linus. The two magazines will feel somewhat interchangeable when collecting, though Charlie does feature a lot of awesome wraparound covers.
L’Echo des Savanes was founded by three Pilote artists (Gotlib, Bretecher, Mandryka) looking for more freedom. Although the magazines above, and others, paved the way, L’Echo was the first comics magazine strictly reserved for adults. It says so right on the cover see, right next to the anthropomorphic penis taking a nap between two breasts. Needless to say, you can’t miss who was the intended audience.
As with other French magazines, the work favored strips and politics, but with a decidedly lewd perspective, inspired more by Mad magazine and the American underground scene of Crumb et al. than anything else. So lots of dirty jokes and bathroom humor. Needless to say, it made a huge impact and was the closest to a "mainstream underground" as yet seen - that is to say, a publication that hit all the underground sensibilities but was also hugely popular.
However, freedom from editorial constraints meant they were also able to explore longer-format, self-contained stories. Something Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal would employ to great effect.
The three founding artist/editors left after 10 issues, and after 1982 the magazine would be taken over and move towards more erotic work and pin-ups with comics taking up less than half of any given issue. Lots of Manara and Liberatore during that era. However, like many of these magazines, supplements were also a mainstay. Try to track down the USA specials if you can. They are supremely worth it. Just check out that Jeffrey Catherine Jones cover!
Founded by the former Pilote and L’Echo Des Savanes editor Gotlib, Fluide Glacial continued much of what L’Echo started. Once again inspired by American underground comics, Mad magazine, Monty Python, and the like, Fluide Glacial was a bit more commercially successful than L’Echo and is still being published today.
So far, France had yet to fully embrace genre beyond the humor and satire magazines that dominated their newsstands. Metal Hurlant would change all that. What can be said about Metal Hurlant that most Heavy Metal fans wouldn’t already know? Perhaps that it was originally conceived as a sci-fi companion to L’Echo Des Savanes, though the financial problems of L’Echo meant Moebius, Dionnet, and Druillet would take on the project on their own might be new to some.
Moebius would also cite the defection of Gotlib, Bretecher, and Mandryka from Pilote as inspiration for agreeing to launch Metal Hurlant with his collaborators, as well as giving credit to his fellow editor Druillet’s use of psychedelic layouts and bombastic imagery as inspiration to start his own experimental work as Moebius. The format for Metal Hurlant of self-contained longer-form comics would prove useful no longer having to oblige the cramped expositional text/dialogue of a weekly serial. Indeed, the format would come to define Metal Hurlant and later Heavy Metal.
For Metal Hurlant all of the original ‘75-‘87 run is worth seeking out, or try another couple Italian magazines that were very similar, Totem (Italian ’80) and L'Eternauta (Italian ‘82). Largely the same stuff, different language, although L’Eternauta, as the name would suggest, features a lot of Argentinian and Spanish artists.
One of the most critically notable spin-offs of all time, Ah!Nana took women’s comics where Metal Hurlant couldn’t. This all-female quarterly featured Hurlant regulars like Chantall Montellier and Nicole Claveloux and others as they went full tilt at some important and controversial issues of the day. Translations of Trina Robbins and others from America’s "wimmen’s commix" movement were also a mainstay of this dynamic but short-lived magazine.
Like with many of the magazines we’re surveyed so far, Ah!Nana featured an extensive amount of non-comic content - editorials, essays, reviews, etc - which went beyond just comics and reflected the overall feminist motivations of the magazine.
Ah!Nana would only last nine issues but each of them had themes that raised the bar critically. They had issues on neo-fascism, transgenderism, bondage, and a final issue on incest which ultimately led to its censor by French authorities and its prohibition from being sold on most newsstands, a tragic and undoubtedly sexist outcome given how many other magazines with similar provocations (sans feminism) continued to publish without challenge.
Issues are a little hard to come by, but the current iteration of Metal Hurlant has produced an Ah!Nana supplement that will certainly help the curious.
Our only entry on this list from the Netherlands, Tante Leny Presentert (or just Tante Leny) was the combined ambition of two Dutch cartoonists, Evert Geradts and Joost Swarte. An extension of the underground publishing of the '60s, Tante Leny featured a decidedly Dutch version of Herge’s Ligne Claire (the term itself was actually coined by Joost Swarte) used to great effect on its R-rated+ content. The number of issues are limited but still readily available on eBay and the like.
(À Suivre), the French phrase for “To Be Continued,” was launched in 1978 and ran for nearly two decades. It had the expressed mission of firmly cementing comics as a literary art form. A beneficiary of the medium’s early rebellious experimentation of the late-'60s/early-'70s and prior to the 1980s period of retrenchment into familiar commercial “story telling”, A Suivre feels like a perfect balance between the two. It prominently published three of my favorite European artists of all time Pratt, Tardi, and Munoz. If you think of those three at the pillars of the magazine, it’s easy to see how the magazine attracted top talent from around the world. Altan, Boucq, François Bourgeon, Forest, Didier Comès (on the cover above), Crepax, Caza, Schuiten and Peeters, Lob, Rochette, André Juillard, Moebius, Milo Manara… there’s a lot.
Pretty much anything printed in A Suivre is worth reading, and many have seen English language editions in stand-alone books. But many haven’t. Those are the ones worth finding (and then hoping some English language publisher has the good enough sense to make a translated edition - Didier Comes anyone?).
******
That’s about does it for my list of European magazines in the same vein of Heavy Metal. There are others of course, but I do think this little survey might have found some common throughlines. Many of these publications had an anchor comic (Tintin for Tintin, Asterix for Pilote) or at least an anchor character on which to pin its flavor (Linus, Charlie, Corto Maltese). Taarna of course stands out historically for Heavy Metal. Scholarly buy-in and/or commentary/editorials on contemporary culture legitimized and provided a sort of societal relevance to many. The same can be said for the common editorial practice of reprinting classic comics from previous eras alongside the fresh new stuff, thereby validating the newbies via proximity to work that’s already established as cannon. Comics has a history worth celebrating. This is something I feel severely lacking in most North American comics discourse/publishing. We tend to only focus on what’s new and have pretty short memories over here.
At any rate, all of these stratagems seem like great ideas to resurrect in some form or another. Ach, but don’t take my word for it. Seek out those magazines listed above. I hope you do. They really are well worth the effort.
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The Roots of Heavy Metal Run Deep
The Roots of Heavy Metal Run Deep
by Alain Park
Edited by Dave Kelly
Most know about Heavy Metal’s European origins. The magazine was the North American counterpart of Metal Hurlant, the French sci-fi/fantasy powerhouse founded by Druillet, Dionett, and Moebius. As an officially licensed English-language version, those early years of Heavy Metal relied heavily on translated reprints from Metal Hurlant that ran alongside English-language contemporaries mainly cultivated from the pages of National Lampoon. While this French connection was clear from the outset, for many readers Heavy Metal was still their first introduction to even the concept of European comics. It proved a fresh take for many; and coupled with a magazine format which put Heavy Metal outside the comics code authority, it produced an exciting and intoxicating temptation.
Of course, we all know the result: a life-altering event for those who came across the magazine at just the right time, an almost cult-like status and reverence over time for the early years of the magazine, or whatever era you came in contact with the magazine. Many of us have our own stories about how this mind-blowing, genre-popping magazine entered our lives. They’re conveyed in breathy “I-remember-whens” and eager “the-first-time-I-saws”. The reverence for those first encounters is so intense in fact I feel sometimes we run the risk of viewing them, and in some cases even the magazine itself, as an anomaly. Was Heavy Metal’s explosion onto the scene and into our psyche somehow a singular event? Certainly, it was special, but maybe it was so special it can’t happen again.
But what if it wasn’t a one-off? Wasn’t some non-repeatable product of the moment? What if the magic that was Heavy Metal, those first glimpses we remember pouring over, whatever the era, those special issues that became critically-, artistically-, emotionally-defining for many of us in the medium, are a result of something quantifiable? An editorial strategy, an artistic philosophy, or maybe even something as simple as a format?
Well crap that would be great, huh? If only there were some other magazines that were similar to Heavy Metal, maybe from the same era as those early years, that had similar effects on their readers, had high caliber art and comics, boundary pushing stuff, if only we had some other sources like that from which we could mine some ideas and inspiration. We might even be able to make lightning strike again.
Okay, I’ll give. Full stop on the coyness. I was talking about Heavy Metal’s roots, wasn’t I? The good news is those roots go much deeper than just Metal Hurlant. In fact, there was an explosion in the '60s of adult-oriented high-quality comics magazines in Europe that followed a similar publishing strategy. There are a number of them I’d like to bring up in this article that are eminently worth anyone’s time tracking down and checking out and which we’ll get to soon enough. And who knows, maybe we’ll learn something while we’re at it, about what makes a great and enduring magazine. Hell, we might just figure out how to conjure a storm or two.
You really can’t overstate just how important the prestige magazine format was to European comics at that time. It’s the same format Heavy Metal followed over the years: a nationally distributed, high production magazine that features quality adult-oriented work of a third lane, that is to say not quite underground, but also not quite mainstream either. Not only was this kind of format significant because it differed from the way North American and Japanese publishers pursued serialization, which favored monthly single issue comic books and genre-specific omnibuses respectively, but it was also a proving ground for new talent and new modes of comic storytelling.
But before we get to the individual magazines, perhaps a very brief history of global adult comics would be helpful. Very brief, I promise.
A Global Coming of Age
I’ve always been fascinated by the global shift in comics that happened in the mid-to-late '60s. In a relatively short amount of time comics underwent a huge transformation. It was maturing as a medium, shifting from something just for kids to something that could also be adult-oriented, evolving from a medium of quick and cheap commercial entertainment to one of self-expression. In short, comics were becoming an art form. And it happened simultaneously and independently across the three major traditions of comics: North America, Europe, and Japan. Of course, what seemed like a global phenomenon was anything but. The global shift to comics as an art form had a simple and elegant explanation. And we have boomers to thank for it.
The baby boom after WWII didn’t just happen in North America. Europe and Japan had similar post-war periods and conditions that resulted in massive spikes in birthrates. And the comics traditions in each of these spheres, each interrupted by war at the same, each primed with a huge new audience on the horizon in a new era of growth and prosperity, were then, post war, getting back to work and essentially resetting to zero.
So of course the kids who would grow up reading comics in the '50s and fall in love with a newly invigorated medium would want to see and make comics that appealed to them as adults in the mid to late '60s. And this happened all over the world, in the US, Europe, Japan, all at the same time, the same human formula, all brought on by the end of the war and the boomer populations of each respective region, whether it was R. Crumb and Zap comics in San Fransisco, or Jean-Claude Forest’s Barbarella and Guy Peellaert’s The Adventures of Jodelle in France, Italy’s dark and erotic fumetti neri (black comics), or the groundbreaking journal Garo and the vastly influential work of Yoshiharu Tsuge in Japan. That same beautiful human revolution of wanting to see yourself in the art you make and consume. Agghh. I just love comics.
I’m including the magazines Tintin and Spirou mainly as a base from which we can orient the other entries on the following list, but it’s important to understand that magazines were the dominant format by which most European comics found their audience. What started as weekly supplements in newspapers would later become stand-alone magazines. Tintin, the character and stories by Herge, found their start in The Petite Vingtieme (The Little Twentieth), the weekly youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper, Le Vingtieme Siecle (The Twentieth Century) in the 1930s and early '40s. Weekly or monthly magazines would soon become the standard as readers waited for the longer albums to be completed (“albums” being the European verbiage for a published book of comics and is synonymous with graphic novel or collected edition for our purposes here).
Started after the war, Tintin the magazine serialized long form albums of several ongoing stories (the namesake Tintin being the anchor) by publishing a couple pages of those stories at a time. These entries were not self-contained units and lacked the expository text/dialogue common to US monthlies but considering that the magazine was weekly this wasn’t a problem. Tintin set a standard of above average printing quality and providing readers with content they wouldn’t get in the finished albums like alternate pages, interviews, and comics that wouldn’t reach album form. The focus was undeniably youth-oriented, but make no mistake, the kids who were reading Tintin on a weekly basis in the '50s would later be the same audience for the many adult-oriented magazines of the late '60s and '70s.
Spirou, was Tintin’s rival. Also Belgian the two magazines staked different claims on the Franco-Belgian comics landscape in much the same way DC and Marvel would in the US. For the most part, artists contributed to one or the other and the magazines even laid claim to differing comic styles, Tintin being the champion of Ligne Claire (clear line) comics which emphasized even line weights and a more schematic approach to comics and Spirou heading the charge for the Charleroi-style with its weighty impressionistic lines and dynamic caricatures. Though older than Tintin, Spirou would have its “Golden Age” from 1945 to 1960, largely as a result of the friendly competition between the two magazines, not to mention that huge boomer audience who were laying the groundwork for the comics revolutions in the late '60s.
What’s notable about these two magazines is that they showed a clear devotion to their audience as a growing and maturing cohort. They continually added and featured work of new and emerging artists, eventually adding artists from outside the Franco-Belgian tradition. They kept interest keen with experimental layouts, supplements, games, and even some center fold mini comics.
******
Now with a little history at our backs, let’s get to the good stuff (not that Tintin and Spirou aren’t good or readable, just that we’re focusing on adult fare here, ala Heavy Metal). I’m going on record that any fan of Heavy Metal would be wise to track down a few copies of the following magazines. They’re absolutely worth the effort. And it’s not just Heavy Metal fans who would do well to do some eBay searches. Anyone interested in the art of comics in general, or cartoonists wanting to expand the sequential vocab, or lovers of old magazines, students of design, layout, and typography, publishing nerds, well… you get the picture. And don’t let the language barrier stop you. Google translate and your phone is your gateway to a whole new world of comics. Seriously, just point your phone at a panel and go. You’ll kick yourself for not doing it sooner.
Positioned at launch as a magazine for adolescents, Pilote would also prove adept at growing and maturing with its audience. Its anchor was Asterix, the adventure/humor comic of a diminutive Gallic warrior in Roman occupied France by Rene Goscinny and Alert Uderzo, and while certainly written for the magazine target audience, Asterix also didn’t dumb down its content for kids. It was actually a sly form of cultural satire which poked fun at Europeans across the board (although usually non-French, because what could be more French than thumbing your nose at your neighbors—with love). Another mainstay of the magazine was Jean Girard’s (the artist who would soon call himself Moebius) Blueberry, an adventure comic set in the American wild west. Blueberry was also perfect for a maturing audience with its revisionist, anti-authoritarian take on a classic Western.
Pilote would continue to mature alongside its audience throughout the '60s as it shifted to content with a more overt political and social satire edge. The 1968 student protests and general strikes in France would push Pilote even further into these socio-political spheres until it eventually felt something like a French born Mad magazine. Irreverent, cynical, jaundiced, skewering. Pilote had a lot of angst.
I want to note too that there was also a hell of a lot of scholarly support for comics in France which found its way into the pages of Pilote. National organizations dedicated to creating a critical dialogue and national legitimacy for comics were eager to highlight the cultural impact of comics as an art form. Pilote had a major role in shifting the public appreciation of comics from characters to creators.
Much of the biting satire of Pilote is likely lost on many North American readers and to time. Nonetheless, Pilote published some great work. You can find the work of Jean (Mœbius) Giraud, Enki Bilal, Jacques Tardi, Philippe Druillet, Marcel Gotlib, Hugo Pratt, and Crumb among many many others in its pages. If you’re on the hunt for any issues, just let the covers be your guide. The covers from the '70s alone are worth any shipping costs. And as a weekly publication until 1973 and then a monthly after that until 1989 there’s no shortage of treasures to find.
Alongside the France and Belgium, Italy was another major comics hub in Europe. Linus, named after the Peanuts character, had a more serious streak than Pilote. Where Pilote excelled at humor and satire, Linus leaned into adventure strips, book illustration, and fine art. This mirrored the more serious literary aspirations and at times darker tone the Italians favored in their comics. By the mid-'60s some of the most popular comics in Italy were fumetti neri, crime comics that favored the criminal over the authorities like Diabolik, Kriminal, and Satanik to name a few.
As for Linus, they reprinted Anglophone strips like Peanuts and Dick Tracy as well as various British strips alongside young Italian talent including Crepax, Enzo Lunari, Buzzelli, and Mattotti. Linus had a couple spin-offs. Alterlinus (see below) would feature adult-oriented fare and Corto Maltese (‘83) featured a variety of adventure comics and lasted well over 100 issues.
Like Pilote, the scholarly support was also there (notice a trend happening?) with writings from Umberto Eco and Fellini of note. Linus also had large cultural sections that dealt with politics, mass media, literature, and contemporary Italian culture. I can’t help but think this kind of scholarly and broader cultural support might be interesting to see again in some form or another in a new magazine. Who knows what that might look like, but I think it would be interesting.
Linus is still going strong today, and while I wouldn’t steer anyone interested away from seeking out some issues, after all it’s the only place you’ll find a chance meeting of Prat’s Corto Maltese and Crepax’s Valentina, it’s really one of its spin-offs that has more of my attention.
"Alterlinus is another Linus. A Linus who is the same and different. A Linus who is not insensitive to the cry of pain of adventure enthusiasts... "
The above is from the editorial in the first issue of Alterlinus (later changed to Alter Alter). Alterlinus was an official spin-off of Linus and ran monthly for about a decade. From its inception it was home to strictly adult-oriented comics.
Alterlinus was home to some seriously awesome comics, international heavy hitters, from Crepax and Toppi to Manara and Buzzelli for the Italians, also Munoz, Breccia, Altan, Moebius, Didier Comes, Druillet, Corben… you name it. The covers are great, provocative but not formulaic. They feel fresh and raw even by today’s standards. I’d pick up any one of these issues given the chance.
Of note, for the issues after 1983 there was often a short insert in issues from the Valvoline Mortorcomics group, which included Mattotti, Igort, Carpintari, among others, which featured highly experimental and innovative work. Definitely worth checking out.
Going back a bit and switching to France, Charlie Mensuel, or just Charlie since “mensuel” means “monthly”, was France’s answer to Linus, right down to taking their name from a Peanuts character. Like its Italian counterpart, Charlie reprinted Anglophone strips alongside European artists, though as with other French magazines the publication itself leaned towards humor and satire with a sharp political edge. It was founded by cartoonists from the infamous French satire magazine Hara Kiri, a frequent target of banning by French censors for its irreverence, and that same editorial philosophy certainly carried over to Charlie.
Charlie would eventually lend its name to Charlie Hebdo (Charlie Weekly), the successor of Hara Kiri, and then merge with Pilote. During its publication, it really did follow closely the editorial formula of Linus and reprinted many Italian creators that first appeared in Linus. The two magazines will feel somewhat interchangeable when collecting, though Charlie does feature a lot of awesome wraparound covers.
L’Echo des Savanes was founded by three Pilote artists (Gotlib, Bretecher, Mandryka) looking for more freedom. Although the magazines above, and others, paved the way, L’Echo was the first comics magazine strictly reserved for adults. It says so right on the cover see, right next to the anthropomorphic penis taking a nap between two breasts. Needless to say, you can’t miss who was the intended audience.
As with other French magazines, the work favored strips and politics, but with a decidedly lewd perspective, inspired more by Mad magazine and the American underground scene of Crumb et al. than anything else. So lots of dirty jokes and bathroom humor. Needless to say, it made a huge impact and was the closest to a "mainstream underground" as yet seen - that is to say, a publication that hit all the underground sensibilities but was also hugely popular.
However, freedom from editorial constraints meant they were also able to explore longer-format, self-contained stories. Something Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal would employ to great effect.
The three founding artist/editors left after 10 issues, and after 1982 the magazine would be taken over and move towards more erotic work and pin-ups with comics taking up less than half of any given issue. Lots of Manara and Liberatore during that era. However, like many of these magazines, supplements were also a mainstay. Try to track down the USA specials if you can. They are supremely worth it. Just check out that Jeffrey Catherine Jones cover!
Founded by the former Pilote and L’Echo Des Savanes editor Gotlib, Fluide Glacial continued much of what L’Echo started. Once again inspired by American underground comics, Mad magazine, Monty Python, and the like, Fluide Glacial was a bit more commercially successful than L’Echo and is still being published today.
So far, France had yet to fully embrace genre beyond the humor and satire magazines that dominated their newsstands. Metal Hurlant would change all that. What can be said about Metal Hurlant that most Heavy Metal fans wouldn’t already know? Perhaps that it was originally conceived as a sci-fi companion to L’Echo Des Savanes, though the financial problems of L’Echo meant Moebius, Dionnet, and Druillet would take on the project on their own might be new to some.
Moebius would also cite the defection of Gotlib, Bretecher, and Mandryka from Pilote as inspiration for agreeing to launch Metal Hurlant with his collaborators, as well as giving credit to his fellow editor Druillet’s use of psychedelic layouts and bombastic imagery as inspiration to start his own experimental work as Moebius. The format for Metal Hurlant of self-contained longer-form comics would prove useful no longer having to oblige the cramped expositional text/dialogue of a weekly serial. Indeed, the format would come to define Metal Hurlant and later Heavy Metal.
For Metal Hurlant all of the original ‘75-‘87 run is worth seeking out, or try another couple Italian magazines that were very similar, Totem (Italian ’80) and L'Eternauta (Italian ‘82). Largely the same stuff, different language, although L’Eternauta, as the name would suggest, features a lot of Argentinian and Spanish artists.
One of the most critically notable spin-offs of all time, Ah!Nana took women’s comics where Metal Hurlant couldn’t. This all-female quarterly featured Hurlant regulars like Chantall Montellier and Nicole Claveloux and others as they went full tilt at some important and controversial issues of the day. Translations of Trina Robbins and others from America’s "wimmen’s commix" movement were also a mainstay of this dynamic but short-lived magazine.
Like with many of the magazines we’re surveyed so far, Ah!Nana featured an extensive amount of non-comic content - editorials, essays, reviews, etc - which went beyond just comics and reflected the overall feminist motivations of the magazine.
Ah!Nana would only last nine issues but each of them had themes that raised the bar critically. They had issues on neo-fascism, transgenderism, bondage, and a final issue on incest which ultimately led to its censor by French authorities and its prohibition from being sold on most newsstands, a tragic and undoubtedly sexist outcome given how many other magazines with similar provocations (sans feminism) continued to publish without challenge.
Issues are a little hard to come by, but the current iteration of Metal Hurlant has produced an Ah!Nana supplement that will certainly help the curious.
Our only entry on this list from the Netherlands, Tante Leny Presentert (or just Tante Leny) was the combined ambition of two Dutch cartoonists, Evert Geradts and Joost Swarte. An extension of the underground publishing of the '60s, Tante Leny featured a decidedly Dutch version of Herge’s Ligne Claire (the term itself was actually coined by Joost Swarte) used to great effect on its R-rated+ content. The number of issues are limited but still readily available on eBay and the like.
(À Suivre), the French phrase for “To Be Continued,” was launched in 1978 and ran for nearly two decades. It had the expressed mission of firmly cementing comics as a literary art form. A beneficiary of the medium’s early rebellious experimentation of the late-'60s/early-'70s and prior to the 1980s period of retrenchment into familiar commercial “story telling”, A Suivre feels like a perfect balance between the two. It prominently published three of my favorite European artists of all time Pratt, Tardi, and Munoz. If you think of those three at the pillars of the magazine, it’s easy to see how the magazine attracted top talent from around the world. Altan, Boucq, François Bourgeon, Forest, Didier Comès (on the cover above), Crepax, Caza, Schuiten and Peeters, Lob, Rochette, André Juillard, Moebius, Milo Manara… there’s a lot.
Pretty much anything printed in A Suivre is worth reading, and many have seen English language editions in stand-alone books. But many haven’t. Those are the ones worth finding (and then hoping some English language publisher has the good enough sense to make a translated edition - Didier Comes anyone?).
******
That’s about does it for my list of European magazines in the same vein of Heavy Metal. There are others of course, but I do think this little survey might have found some common throughlines. Many of these publications had an anchor comic (Tintin for Tintin, Asterix for Pilote) or at least an anchor character on which to pin its flavor (Linus, Charlie, Corto Maltese). Taarna of course stands out historically for Heavy Metal. Scholarly buy-in and/or commentary/editorials on contemporary culture legitimized and provided a sort of societal relevance to many. The same can be said for the common editorial practice of reprinting classic comics from previous eras alongside the fresh new stuff, thereby validating the newbies via proximity to work that’s already established as cannon. Comics has a history worth celebrating. This is something I feel severely lacking in most North American comics discourse/publishing. We tend to only focus on what’s new and have pretty short memories over here.
At any rate, all of these stratagems seem like great ideas to resurrect in some form or another. Ach, but don’t take my word for it. Seek out those magazines listed above. I hope you do. They really are well worth the effort.
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The Roots of Heavy Metal Run Deep
by Alain Park
Edited by Dave Kelly
Most know about Heavy Metal’s European origins. The magazine was the North American counterpart of Metal Hurlant, the French sci-fi/fantasy powerhouse founded by Druillet, Dionett, and Moebius. As an officially licensed English-language version, those early years of Heavy Metal relied heavily on translated reprints from Metal Hurlant that ran alongside English-language contemporaries mainly cultivated from the pages of National Lampoon. While this French connection was clear from the outset, for many readers Heavy Metal was still their first introduction to even the concept of European comics. It proved a fresh take for many; and coupled with a magazine format which put Heavy Metal outside the comics code authority, it produced an exciting and intoxicating temptation.
Of course, we all know the result: a life-altering event for those who came across the magazine at just the right time, an almost cult-like status and reverence over time for the early years of the magazine, or whatever era you came in contact with the magazine. Many of us have our own stories about how this mind-blowing, genre-popping magazine entered our lives. They’re conveyed in breathy “I-remember-whens” and eager “the-first-time-I-saws”. The reverence for those first encounters is so intense in fact I feel sometimes we run the risk of viewing them, and in some cases even the magazine itself, as an anomaly. Was Heavy Metal’s explosion onto the scene and into our psyche somehow a singular event? Certainly, it was special, but maybe it was so special it can’t happen again.
But what if it wasn’t a one-off? Wasn’t some non-repeatable product of the moment? What if the magic that was Heavy Metal, those first glimpses we remember pouring over, whatever the era, those special issues that became critically-, artistically-, emotionally-defining for many of us in the medium, are a result of something quantifiable? An editorial strategy, an artistic philosophy, or maybe even something as simple as a format?
Well crap that would be great, huh? If only there were some other magazines that were similar to Heavy Metal, maybe from the same era as those early years, that had similar effects on their readers, had high caliber art and comics, boundary pushing stuff, if only we had some other sources like that from which we could mine some ideas and inspiration. We might even be able to make lightning strike again.
Okay, I’ll give. Full stop on the coyness. I was talking about Heavy Metal’s roots, wasn’t I? The good news is those roots go much deeper than just Metal Hurlant. In fact, there was an explosion in the '60s of adult-oriented high-quality comics magazines in Europe that followed a similar publishing strategy. There are a number of them I’d like to bring up in this article that are eminently worth anyone’s time tracking down and checking out and which we’ll get to soon enough. And who knows, maybe we’ll learn something while we’re at it, about what makes a great and enduring magazine. Hell, we might just figure out how to conjure a storm or two.
You really can’t overstate just how important the prestige magazine format was to European comics at that time. It’s the same format Heavy Metal followed over the years: a nationally distributed, high production magazine that features quality adult-oriented work of a third lane, that is to say not quite underground, but also not quite mainstream either. Not only was this kind of format significant because it differed from the way North American and Japanese publishers pursued serialization, which favored monthly single issue comic books and genre-specific omnibuses respectively, but it was also a proving ground for new talent and new modes of comic storytelling.
But before we get to the individual magazines, perhaps a very brief history of global adult comics would be helpful. Very brief, I promise.
A Global Coming of Age
I’ve always been fascinated by the global shift in comics that happened in the mid-to-late '60s. In a relatively short amount of time comics underwent a huge transformation. It was maturing as a medium, shifting from something just for kids to something that could also be adult-oriented, evolving from a medium of quick and cheap commercial entertainment to one of self-expression. In short, comics were becoming an art form. And it happened simultaneously and independently across the three major traditions of comics: North America, Europe, and Japan. Of course, what seemed like a global phenomenon was anything but. The global shift to comics as an art form had a simple and elegant explanation. And we have boomers to thank for it.
The baby boom after WWII didn’t just happen in North America. Europe and Japan had similar post-war periods and conditions that resulted in massive spikes in birthrates. And the comics traditions in each of these spheres, each interrupted by war at the same, each primed with a huge new audience on the horizon in a new era of growth and prosperity, were then, post war, getting back to work and essentially resetting to zero.
So of course the kids who would grow up reading comics in the '50s and fall in love with a newly invigorated medium would want to see and make comics that appealed to them as adults in the mid to late '60s. And this happened all over the world, in the US, Europe, Japan, all at the same time, the same human formula, all brought on by the end of the war and the boomer populations of each respective region, whether it was R. Crumb and Zap comics in San Fransisco, or Jean-Claude Forest’s Barbarella and Guy Peellaert’s The Adventures of Jodelle in France, Italy’s dark and erotic fumetti neri (black comics), or the groundbreaking journal Garo and the vastly influential work of Yoshiharu Tsuge in Japan. That same beautiful human revolution of wanting to see yourself in the art you make and consume. Agghh. I just love comics.
I’m including the magazines Tintin and Spirou mainly as a base from which we can orient the other entries on the following list, but it’s important to understand that magazines were the dominant format by which most European comics found their audience. What started as weekly supplements in newspapers would later become stand-alone magazines. Tintin, the character and stories by Herge, found their start in The Petite Vingtieme (The Little Twentieth), the weekly youth supplement to the Belgian newspaper, Le Vingtieme Siecle (The Twentieth Century) in the 1930s and early '40s. Weekly or monthly magazines would soon become the standard as readers waited for the longer albums to be completed (“albums” being the European verbiage for a published book of comics and is synonymous with graphic novel or collected edition for our purposes here).
Started after the war, Tintin the magazine serialized long form albums of several ongoing stories (the namesake Tintin being the anchor) by publishing a couple pages of those stories at a time. These entries were not self-contained units and lacked the expository text/dialogue common to US monthlies but considering that the magazine was weekly this wasn’t a problem. Tintin set a standard of above average printing quality and providing readers with content they wouldn’t get in the finished albums like alternate pages, interviews, and comics that wouldn’t reach album form. The focus was undeniably youth-oriented, but make no mistake, the kids who were reading Tintin on a weekly basis in the '50s would later be the same audience for the many adult-oriented magazines of the late '60s and '70s.
Spirou, was Tintin’s rival. Also Belgian the two magazines staked different claims on the Franco-Belgian comics landscape in much the same way DC and Marvel would in the US. For the most part, artists contributed to one or the other and the magazines even laid claim to differing comic styles, Tintin being the champion of Ligne Claire (clear line) comics which emphasized even line weights and a more schematic approach to comics and Spirou heading the charge for the Charleroi-style with its weighty impressionistic lines and dynamic caricatures. Though older than Tintin, Spirou would have its “Golden Age” from 1945 to 1960, largely as a result of the friendly competition between the two magazines, not to mention that huge boomer audience who were laying the groundwork for the comics revolutions in the late '60s.
What’s notable about these two magazines is that they showed a clear devotion to their audience as a growing and maturing cohort. They continually added and featured work of new and emerging artists, eventually adding artists from outside the Franco-Belgian tradition. They kept interest keen with experimental layouts, supplements, games, and even some center fold mini comics.
******
Now with a little history at our backs, let’s get to the good stuff (not that Tintin and Spirou aren’t good or readable, just that we’re focusing on adult fare here, ala Heavy Metal). I’m going on record that any fan of Heavy Metal would be wise to track down a few copies of the following magazines. They’re absolutely worth the effort. And it’s not just Heavy Metal fans who would do well to do some eBay searches. Anyone interested in the art of comics in general, or cartoonists wanting to expand the sequential vocab, or lovers of old magazines, students of design, layout, and typography, publishing nerds, well… you get the picture. And don’t let the language barrier stop you. Google translate and your phone is your gateway to a whole new world of comics. Seriously, just point your phone at a panel and go. You’ll kick yourself for not doing it sooner.
Positioned at launch as a magazine for adolescents, Pilote would also prove adept at growing and maturing with its audience. Its anchor was Asterix, the adventure/humor comic of a diminutive Gallic warrior in Roman occupied France by Rene Goscinny and Alert Uderzo, and while certainly written for the magazine target audience, Asterix also didn’t dumb down its content for kids. It was actually a sly form of cultural satire which poked fun at Europeans across the board (although usually non-French, because what could be more French than thumbing your nose at your neighbors—with love). Another mainstay of the magazine was Jean Girard’s (the artist who would soon call himself Moebius) Blueberry, an adventure comic set in the American wild west. Blueberry was also perfect for a maturing audience with its revisionist, anti-authoritarian take on a classic Western.
Pilote would continue to mature alongside its audience throughout the '60s as it shifted to content with a more overt political and social satire edge. The 1968 student protests and general strikes in France would push Pilote even further into these socio-political spheres until it eventually felt something like a French born Mad magazine. Irreverent, cynical, jaundiced, skewering. Pilote had a lot of angst.
I want to note too that there was also a hell of a lot of scholarly support for comics in France which found its way into the pages of Pilote. National organizations dedicated to creating a critical dialogue and national legitimacy for comics were eager to highlight the cultural impact of comics as an art form. Pilote had a major role in shifting the public appreciation of comics from characters to creators.
Much of the biting satire of Pilote is likely lost on many North American readers and to time. Nonetheless, Pilote published some great work. You can find the work of Jean (Mœbius) Giraud, Enki Bilal, Jacques Tardi, Philippe Druillet, Marcel Gotlib, Hugo Pratt, and Crumb among many many others in its pages. If you’re on the hunt for any issues, just let the covers be your guide. The covers from the '70s alone are worth any shipping costs. And as a weekly publication until 1973 and then a monthly after that until 1989 there’s no shortage of treasures to find.
Alongside the France and Belgium, Italy was another major comics hub in Europe. Linus, named after the Peanuts character, had a more serious streak than Pilote. Where Pilote excelled at humor and satire, Linus leaned into adventure strips, book illustration, and fine art. This mirrored the more serious literary aspirations and at times darker tone the Italians favored in their comics. By the mid-'60s some of the most popular comics in Italy were fumetti neri, crime comics that favored the criminal over the authorities like Diabolik, Kriminal, and Satanik to name a few.
As for Linus, they reprinted Anglophone strips like Peanuts and Dick Tracy as well as various British strips alongside young Italian talent including Crepax, Enzo Lunari, Buzzelli, and Mattotti. Linus had a couple spin-offs. Alterlinus (see below) would feature adult-oriented fare and Corto Maltese (‘83) featured a variety of adventure comics and lasted well over 100 issues.
Like Pilote, the scholarly support was also there (notice a trend happening?) with writings from Umberto Eco and Fellini of note. Linus also had large cultural sections that dealt with politics, mass media, literature, and contemporary Italian culture. I can’t help but think this kind of scholarly and broader cultural support might be interesting to see again in some form or another in a new magazine. Who knows what that might look like, but I think it would be interesting.
Linus is still going strong today, and while I wouldn’t steer anyone interested away from seeking out some issues, after all it’s the only place you’ll find a chance meeting of Prat’s Corto Maltese and Crepax’s Valentina, it’s really one of its spin-offs that has more of my attention.
"Alterlinus is another Linus. A Linus who is the same and different. A Linus who is not insensitive to the cry of pain of adventure enthusiasts... "
The above is from the editorial in the first issue of Alterlinus (later changed to Alter Alter). Alterlinus was an official spin-off of Linus and ran monthly for about a decade. From its inception it was home to strictly adult-oriented comics.
Alterlinus was home to some seriously awesome comics, international heavy hitters, from Crepax and Toppi to Manara and Buzzelli for the Italians, also Munoz, Breccia, Altan, Moebius, Didier Comes, Druillet, Corben… you name it. The covers are great, provocative but not formulaic. They feel fresh and raw even by today’s standards. I’d pick up any one of these issues given the chance.
Of note, for the issues after 1983 there was often a short insert in issues from the Valvoline Mortorcomics group, which included Mattotti, Igort, Carpintari, among others, which featured highly experimental and innovative work. Definitely worth checking out.
Going back a bit and switching to France, Charlie Mensuel, or just Charlie since “mensuel” means “monthly”, was France’s answer to Linus, right down to taking their name from a Peanuts character. Like its Italian counterpart, Charlie reprinted Anglophone strips alongside European artists, though as with other French magazines the publication itself leaned towards humor and satire with a sharp political edge. It was founded by cartoonists from the infamous French satire magazine Hara Kiri, a frequent target of banning by French censors for its irreverence, and that same editorial philosophy certainly carried over to Charlie.
Charlie would eventually lend its name to Charlie Hebdo (Charlie Weekly), the successor of Hara Kiri, and then merge with Pilote. During its publication, it really did follow closely the editorial formula of Linus and reprinted many Italian creators that first appeared in Linus. The two magazines will feel somewhat interchangeable when collecting, though Charlie does feature a lot of awesome wraparound covers.
L’Echo des Savanes was founded by three Pilote artists (Gotlib, Bretecher, Mandryka) looking for more freedom. Although the magazines above, and others, paved the way, L’Echo was the first comics magazine strictly reserved for adults. It says so right on the cover see, right next to the anthropomorphic penis taking a nap between two breasts. Needless to say, you can’t miss who was the intended audience.
As with other French magazines, the work favored strips and politics, but with a decidedly lewd perspective, inspired more by Mad magazine and the American underground scene of Crumb et al. than anything else. So lots of dirty jokes and bathroom humor. Needless to say, it made a huge impact and was the closest to a "mainstream underground" as yet seen - that is to say, a publication that hit all the underground sensibilities but was also hugely popular.
However, freedom from editorial constraints meant they were also able to explore longer-format, self-contained stories. Something Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal would employ to great effect.
The three founding artist/editors left after 10 issues, and after 1982 the magazine would be taken over and move towards more erotic work and pin-ups with comics taking up less than half of any given issue. Lots of Manara and Liberatore during that era. However, like many of these magazines, supplements were also a mainstay. Try to track down the USA specials if you can. They are supremely worth it. Just check out that Jeffrey Catherine Jones cover!
Founded by the former Pilote and L’Echo Des Savanes editor Gotlib, Fluide Glacial continued much of what L’Echo started. Once again inspired by American underground comics, Mad magazine, Monty Python, and the like, Fluide Glacial was a bit more commercially successful than L’Echo and is still being published today.
So far, France had yet to fully embrace genre beyond the humor and satire magazines that dominated their newsstands. Metal Hurlant would change all that. What can be said about Metal Hurlant that most Heavy Metal fans wouldn’t already know? Perhaps that it was originally conceived as a sci-fi companion to L’Echo Des Savanes, though the financial problems of L’Echo meant Moebius, Dionnet, and Druillet would take on the project on their own might be new to some.
Moebius would also cite the defection of Gotlib, Bretecher, and Mandryka from Pilote as inspiration for agreeing to launch Metal Hurlant with his collaborators, as well as giving credit to his fellow editor Druillet’s use of psychedelic layouts and bombastic imagery as inspiration to start his own experimental work as Moebius. The format for Metal Hurlant of self-contained longer-form comics would prove useful no longer having to oblige the cramped expositional text/dialogue of a weekly serial. Indeed, the format would come to define Metal Hurlant and later Heavy Metal.
For Metal Hurlant all of the original ‘75-‘87 run is worth seeking out, or try another couple Italian magazines that were very similar, Totem (Italian ’80) and L'Eternauta (Italian ‘82). Largely the same stuff, different language, although L’Eternauta, as the name would suggest, features a lot of Argentinian and Spanish artists.
One of the most critically notable spin-offs of all time, Ah!Nana took women’s comics where Metal Hurlant couldn’t. This all-female quarterly featured Hurlant regulars like Chantall Montellier and Nicole Claveloux and others as they went full tilt at some important and controversial issues of the day. Translations of Trina Robbins and others from America’s "wimmen’s commix" movement were also a mainstay of this dynamic but short-lived magazine.
Like with many of the magazines we’re surveyed so far, Ah!Nana featured an extensive amount of non-comic content - editorials, essays, reviews, etc - which went beyond just comics and reflected the overall feminist motivations of the magazine.
Ah!Nana would only last nine issues but each of them had themes that raised the bar critically. They had issues on neo-fascism, transgenderism, bondage, and a final issue on incest which ultimately led to its censor by French authorities and its prohibition from being sold on most newsstands, a tragic and undoubtedly sexist outcome given how many other magazines with similar provocations (sans feminism) continued to publish without challenge.
Issues are a little hard to come by, but the current iteration of Metal Hurlant has produced an Ah!Nana supplement that will certainly help the curious.
Our only entry on this list from the Netherlands, Tante Leny Presentert (or just Tante Leny) was the combined ambition of two Dutch cartoonists, Evert Geradts and Joost Swarte. An extension of the underground publishing of the '60s, Tante Leny featured a decidedly Dutch version of Herge’s Ligne Claire (the term itself was actually coined by Joost Swarte) used to great effect on its R-rated+ content. The number of issues are limited but still readily available on eBay and the like.
(À Suivre), the French phrase for “To Be Continued,” was launched in 1978 and ran for nearly two decades. It had the expressed mission of firmly cementing comics as a literary art form. A beneficiary of the medium’s early rebellious experimentation of the late-'60s/early-'70s and prior to the 1980s period of retrenchment into familiar commercial “story telling”, A Suivre feels like a perfect balance between the two. It prominently published three of my favorite European artists of all time Pratt, Tardi, and Munoz. If you think of those three at the pillars of the magazine, it’s easy to see how the magazine attracted top talent from around the world. Altan, Boucq, François Bourgeon, Forest, Didier Comès (on the cover above), Crepax, Caza, Schuiten and Peeters, Lob, Rochette, André Juillard, Moebius, Milo Manara… there’s a lot.
Pretty much anything printed in A Suivre is worth reading, and many have seen English language editions in stand-alone books. But many haven’t. Those are the ones worth finding (and then hoping some English language publisher has the good enough sense to make a translated edition - Didier Comes anyone?).
******
That’s about does it for my list of European magazines in the same vein of Heavy Metal. There are others of course, but I do think this little survey might have found some common throughlines. Many of these publications had an anchor comic (Tintin for Tintin, Asterix for Pilote) or at least an anchor character on which to pin its flavor (Linus, Charlie, Corto Maltese). Taarna of course stands out historically for Heavy Metal. Scholarly buy-in and/or commentary/editorials on contemporary culture legitimized and provided a sort of societal relevance to many. The same can be said for the common editorial practice of reprinting classic comics from previous eras alongside the fresh new stuff, thereby validating the newbies via proximity to work that’s already established as cannon. Comics has a history worth celebrating. This is something I feel severely lacking in most North American comics discourse/publishing. We tend to only focus on what’s new and have pretty short memories over here.
At any rate, all of these stratagems seem like great ideas to resurrect in some form or another. Ach, but don’t take my word for it. Seek out those magazines listed above. I hope you do. They really are well worth the effort.
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