The story is pretty straightfoward. These ladies are having a late-night party and are expecting a stripper. So of course when their neighbor knocks on their door to complain about the noise, they think he’s their stripper. Why they attack him sexually isn’t entirely clear – that’s not how strippers work, but whatever.

What’s interesting on this page is that you can clearly see how the word balloons have been pasted over. That’s very unusual for Heavy Metal.

(Heavy Metal #254, July 2011 – Page 78 Sleepless Night by Azpiri)

This image feels like something that a general with a weak grasp of gravity and the human body would greenlight with the phrase “force multiplication.”

(Heavy Metal #254, July 2011 – Page 72 Metal Media by Weisfeld)

This story is not that great, but the alternating use of grey and pink is at least visually dynamic. Of course, it gets dropped after a page or two…

(Heavy Metal #254, July 2011 – Page 53 Records of the Human Arrival to Planets Aqua and Gris by Martinez and Cheggour)

That giant sculpture is pretty impressive. I especially like the glowing bands on her body.

(Heavy Metal #254, July 2011 – Page 107 Arawn #2: Blood Ties by Le Breton and Grenier)

One of the things this story does very well is the lighting, especially torchlight. The backlight guard in the top left panel is really well done.

(Heavy Metal #254, July 2011 – Page 99 Arawn #2: Blood Ties by Le Breton and Grenier)

It’s not really clear if the woman in the bottom left corner is wearing next to nothing under her armor or if she’s got some kind of form-fitting leotard on. If she was wearing nothing, blue skin makes a lot of sense. But why then is her face a different color? On the other hand, where did she get such a form-fitting leotard? In subsequent pages, her body is the same shade as her face, lending credence to the “next to nothing” theory. Either way, it’s a stupid way to wear armor.

(Heavy Metal #254, July 2011 – Page 27 Arawn #2: Blood Ties by Le Breton and Grenier)

It’s not quite clear from this angle, but that blonde in the foreground is basically wearing a thong and a tiny little bikini top. Throughout the rest of the story, we see her fighting in just these scraps of cloth and it does not make a lick of sense why – is it really hot in that space? At any rate, this page is the most beautiful and well-designed in the story.

(Heavy Metal #254, July 2011 – Page 18 Khulan by Houghton-Ward, Morse, and Krank)

The biography portion here is tremendously confusing. Are there two sisters named Cindy? If not, why is she mentioned twice? Or would it make more sense to ask why Nicky doesn’t have her own mini-bio? Weird.

(Heavy Metal #254, July 2011 – Page 14 Gallery on The Joubert Sisters)

Whoever laid out this page really did a number on the reader. After reading the first column, where does your eye go naturally? To the top of the page or to the column directly to the right, under the first image? I know what I did.

(Heavy Metal #254, July 2011 – Page 8 Dossier by Ringgenberg)

This story is just okay, but that first panel is fantastic. In fact, the art style in this story is the most dynamic and striking in the entire issue.

(Heavy Metal War of the Worlds Special, Summer 2011 – Page 113 The Captain by Murad, Yap, and Slaium)