The Covers Of Screaming Metal

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Hello from out here on the Thames Delta. This week, I just want to share with you one of my favourite things.

ORBITAL

The Covers Of METAL HURLANT

It’s 1975, you’re passing a newsstand or looking at a magazine shelf through a shop window, and you see this. What do you do?

You go looking for it again, and you find this:

What the fuck just happened?

It took them a few issues to settle on a logo - the first few issues, the logo was different every time. But these two early covers: they just go for you.

METAL HURLANT was founded by Druillet, who did the cover up top, Moebius, who did the second cover I’ve shown you, the wonderful Jean-Pierre Dionnet and financial director Bernard Farkas. I used to know Jean-Pierre, and he’s just the most marvellous person. Quite mad, of course. But you’d expect him to be. He ran METAL HURLANT.

METAL HURLANT was an iconic French comics anthology magazine. Back then, comics anthology magazines in Europe were sold in newsagents alongside all the other magazines. You could go and pick up your newspaper, the tv guide, your car magazine and an anthology comic all in the same place. While fending off dinosaurs and foraging for berries, yes yes I know.

Here’s HR Giger covering the magazine in 1977:

Bear in mind that the event that made Giger’s name worldwide, the film ALIEN, didn’t come out until 1979. Which reminds me of this, slight detour:

This was, I believe, the first time Escher had been showcased in print in England, well ahead of pretty much everyone else. Perhaps hard to imagine now, but, way back when, these little magazines on the edges of the culture were where the future leaked in.

Remember my three rules for covers the other week?

1. A comic cover must speak to the tone and themes of the work inside.

2. It must stand out on the shelves or webpage.

3. It must be a beautiful object that you would like to have in your home.

We are not always going to agree on rule 3. But in periodicals you get to try again, month after month. So, if you want to get weird one month? The hell with it. There’s always next month.

I have cherry-picked. It was a magazine “of its time,” as we say now, so there’s a lot of cheesy-looking tits-out-for-the-lads covers. But when these covers hit? They really hit.

If you want to learn about comics, and you haven’t taken a good look at the long history of European comics, find the time. It’s a global artform and everyone does it differently. All kinds of lessons you can learn, and, frankly, all kinds of stuff you can pinch.

(I really need to get into ESCAPE magazine soon, which introduced me to a lot of stuff when I was a kid.)

If you want to go deeper, here’s a link to 148 METAL HURLANT covers.

Now: THE DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT audio drama podcast, DESOLATION JONES: THE BIOHZARD EDITION, THE STORMWATCH COMPENDIUM. 2025: FELL: FERAL CITY new printing, THE AUTHORITY Compact Edition

This is available as a print from the lordess.io store.

GOT MORE TIME?

LTD

lt’s my daily digital notebook and has stuff okay

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And that’s me done for this week. All kinds of busy over here. I hope you’re doing something you love too, and that you’re finding the time and space to realise things aren’t always as bad as you think they are. See you next week.

W