by R.M. Rhodes
The latest news from Heavy Metal is that they are launching a Kickstarter on November 18, 2025. Now, those of you with decent memories might remember their last Kickstarter, which was tied to the triumphant return of the magazine, closed in late 2024. Don’t worry, this one is completely different.
One of the challenges that the new Heavy Metal has yet to overcome is a tendency to flood the communication zone with hype, but not really address the fine print in the original announcement. As a result, they end up having to go back and answer questions that probably should have been in the original announcement or in the FAQ. This happens multiple times because not everyone reads the comments obsessively; just me and superfan Tommy Redd.
A commenter on the Heavy Metal Discord server called the official communications approach “a weird drip feed of info here and there and everywhere.” This article aims to collect all of the information and offer some context surrounding the works that are on offer, but the whole thing is very confusing – far more confusing than it should be.
The core of this Kickstarter is four hardcover books, which are being branded as the launch of the Heavy Metal Library. These books are The Covers that Led Us Here, Druuna – Sensual Apocalypse, Segments and Ranxerox. The books will be offered in an exclusive limited edition and a more standard version. There are reports that a version of these will eventually show up in retail stores – most likely the non-exclusive version. In addition, there are a variety of optional extras, some of which are only available if you back the project in the first 72 hours.
The exclusive version will be limited to 500 copies (although they are contemplating increasing that to 1000 copies) and will have a different cover than the standard versions. These exclusive versions will only be available for the first 72 hours and will have a higher price point and page count than the standard versions.
The book of covers contains over 300 covers from Heavy Metal’s history. Historically, Heavy Metal has only issued one cover per issue, but that changed in 2011 with the first variant cover. Over time, this has increased and the relaunched issue number one, which was the subject of the 2024 Kickstarter, had over 35 variant covers. The fact that the primary selling point of the exclusive versions in the Kickstarter is variant covers should tell you how heavily the company has invested in the concept of the variant cover.
It’s not clear from the solicitation text how many of those variant covers will be printed in this book. But considering that Heavy Metal has printed almost 400 issues, it would be fair to assume that not every cover from every issue of Heavy Metal will be represented here. Having said that, they are spoiled for choice. Heavy Metal cover art started strong and has continued that trend over the decades. I fully expect that the collectors edition of this book will sell out very quickly.
The Druuna book reprints “the most complete and uncensored form of the legendary erotic-fantasy epic” from Italian artist Paolo Serpieri. Clocking in at a gigantic 688 pages, this book contains all of the work that was previously published in issues of Heavy Metal, along with two stories that have not been printed in Heavy Metal.
Druuna became so popular that Serpieri became one of the defining artists of Heavy Metal. Reprints of his books featured in Heavy Metal house ads for over a decade and, by all appearances, were a significant source of income for the magazine. This book is the culmination of that trend.
It’s also important to note the “uncensored” part of the product description. The explicit sexual assault in an early Druuna story in the Spring 1988 issue led to the seizure of the issue by Canadian Customs. The magazine was found to be in violation of code 9956, which denied the importation of material dealing with sex with violence and bondage, among other things. The initial reaction was to recall 35,000 copies of that issue and redact them – removing the offending story entirely. Intact copies of this issue have become collector’s items. Subscribers, specifically, got the unredacted version.
After this, Heavy Metal went out of their way to self-censor bondage and sexual violence in stories they printed in subsequent years, to ensure that future seizures did not occur. Ironically, the most commonly censored artist was Serpieri himself. Panels were redacted or obscured and, in one notable case, a handful of pages were simply not printed. The collected editions, of course, contained the full material.
There are conflicting reports that the non-exclusive version of this collection might not be uncensored, but again, the pre-launch information isn’t clear. For obvious reasons, a censored version of Druuna is less appealing, but would be absolutely on-brand. Heavy Metal did not respond to a request for clarification on this point.
Segments reprints a lost sci-fi masterpiece by Richard Malka and iconic Heavy Metal artist Juan Gimenez, who died of COVID in 2020. Segments is the last piece by him that Heavy Metal printed, originally serialized in issues 309 and 310. Gimenez was an iconic Heavy Metal creator and credited the magazine with giving him a high international profile. This book would make an excellent companion to the Juan Gimenez slipcase that Humanoids successfully Kickstarted in the summer of 2025.
An interesting point of comparison between Heavy Metal and Humanoids is the scope of their Kickstarter projects. Humanoids has run several successful projects focused around a single book by a single creator – the Caza and Gimenez Kickstarters from recent years are excellent examples. By contrast, Heavy Metal Kickstarters to date have been filled to the brim with a variety of stuff by a variety of creators and a variety of vendors. Quite simply, one approach leads to a lot of coordination between a variety of vendors and the other doesn’t.
The Ranxerox books reprints a number of stories about the titular character by Italian creators Stefano Tamburini and Tanino Liberatore. The entire series is beautifully illustrated and filled with over-the-top ultraviolence, sexuality and kink themes. One of the highlights of the series is “Ranxerox in New York,” where Ranx gets into a death race in a cab that belongs to a friend who’s just a little too into JG Ballard’s Crash.
This is a hotly anticipated collection, especially since it was originally solicited in 2020 and never fulfilled. Heavy Metal Publisher Marshall Lees has stated that the company has a list of almost 400 customers who did not receive their pre-ordered copies of the collection and will be using this print run to fulfill that outstanding order.
Of course, this information was not in the announcement – that would get in the way of the hype. It’s entirely possible that they thought they were just going to handle this on the back end, but customers got ahead of them and asked pointed questions which required answers.
Until its demise in 2023, Heavy Metal took a lot of flack for this lack of fulfillment and the general lack of fulfillment of merchandise purchases from its webstore. Credibility is both a trust metric and a grind stat – it’s very difficult to gain and very easy to lose, and Heavy Metal was operating with negative credibility when it launched its 2024 Kickstarter.
Unfortunately, the fulfillment of the 2024 Kickstarter did not go as planned. The most obvious issue was that retailers got copies of the relaunched first issue before Kickstarter backers did. The stated reason for this is that Heavy Metal offered a bewildering variety of stuff in their project and got over 11,000 backers, each of which had slightly different orders and add-ins.
As one would expect, this presented a very complex logistical challenge. After months of wrangling, almost all of the rewards from this Kickstarter have been delivered. The only notable exceptions are the resin models, which are still being delivered directly from the production vendor in a very piecemeal fashion.
This situation led to a lot of bad feeling among Kickstarter backers, which Heavy Metal staff nicknamed The Angry Mob. They quickly leaned into the name and saw the potential of a ready made community of self-identified superfans. They also created exclusive merch and a private online space for The Angry Mob. Some of that promised merch is, of course, still outstanding. Some of it is slated to be delivered with the fulfillment of this Kickstarter project.
The second issue arrived at retailers before subscribers got their copies and, as of this writing, subscribers (including myself) are still receiving their issues six weeks after retailers got copies of issue three. There are a number of reasons for the substandard service, including the movement of a warehouse that disrupted shipping and a general lack of communication from the vendor.
There have also been other challenges with shipping, most of which has since been resolved. Heavy Metal subscribers are collectors and did not react well to having their expensive merchandise arrive in a damaged state because the fulfillment vendor was not experienced in shipping comics. The good news is that Heavy Metal listened to their audience and got the vendor to change their practices.
I say all of this so that you can understand the frame of mind that hardcore Heavy Metal fans are in as the 2025 Kickstarter has been announced. There are a lot of questions, is what I’m saying. There have been a lot of answers, but not as much clarity as anyone would have liked.
Heavy Metal attracts passionate fans with a collector mentality. Heavy Metal has done a very good job of producing a steady stream of merchandise targeted at this core audience. Sorting out the fulfillment issues is, by all appearances, the next high priority. After that, perhaps, making announcements that don’t require updates or clarification might be the next priority.
RM Rhodes is a critic, comics historian and Six Sigma Green Belt who has written extensively about Heavy Metal for a variety of outlets. He lives in the DC area and is often found wandering SPX in a purple suit. He has faith that one day the book he wrote about Heavy Metal will be published.
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