Well, since we've had these interesting discussions of Elric and Witherwing lately, I suppose I'd like to follow up on another of Ron's references in Sorcerer and Sword, namely Heavy Metal Magazine.

I used to really enjoy the copies of this my grade school and junior high friends would steal from the 7/11 back in the late seventies, and I've picked it up on and off since then, though not for many years now.

Is it still any good? If not, is there anything that reliably delivers along the aesthetic lines of the old magazine these days?

I subscribe to Heavy Metal, and it is still pretty cool. The most recent story, Magika, concerning the fate of Vlad Tepes, reawakened a few thousand years in the future, is pretty kickass. Recently HM split into two separate but unequal halves, released in a rotating fashion every other month. One month is the regular mag with a variety of content, the other month is a specialty issue with longer but more limited content on a particular theme. As far as I know they are still doing the four yearly specials for Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, each featuring work by a particular artist on a particular theme (fantasy, adult humor, horror, sci-fi).

Other good recent stories include some Druuna, the Regulator, and the absolutely fan-fucking-tastic Requiem by Mills and Ledroit.

Speaking of HM stories, if anybody knows where I can pick up the Shadowslayer GN I would appreciate the tip... I know Ron's read it, and it was pretty much the story responsible for me picking up HM again after about a 5 year hiatus.

Hope that was helpful ^_^

Also, recently, Heavy Metal's "mother" publication, Metal Hurlant, has come back into regular production. It is more compact, less explicit (but still racy), just as exceptional in range and talent, and is a far more consistent anthology of continuing stories. By which I mean, there are some short stand alone stories in each issue, but you will find the continuing stories continued in every successive issue, instead of haphazardly like HM does it.