Tell me that you don’t trust your audience without telling me you don’t trust your audience. Seriously: who thought it was important to clarify that it was a wordless comic? It’s a visual medium. Even the most uneducated readers can see that there are no words in the comic. Aside from that, it’s a great comic and the layout/fine line art style owe a debt to Guido Crepax.

(Heavy Metal #281 2016 – Page 62 Zentropa by Mahoney)

I really like how the art here gets out of sync – the blue lines don’t quite line up with the black lines. It’s a striking effect.

(Heavy Metal #281 2016 – Page 58 Her First Time by Dyer)

I really enjoy the way that some of the panels make a larger image and some don’t – especially the third and sixth panels.

(Heavy Metal #281 2016 – Page 39 Frog Wife by Heshka)

The bottom half of the page is great. What a fantastic way to draw people having sex.

(Heavy Metal #281 2016 – Page 34 The Last Romantic Antihero by Haspiel)

Most of the story is just the first two panels repeated, with the only change being the shadows and light on the wall and bed. The last two panels here are the departure that make the story work.

(Heavy Metal #281 2016 – Page 27 Luv U by Roggenbau and Delpeche)

Morrison is clearly having a great time with this story. It’s so over the top that the reader can’t help but be entertained.

(Heavy Metal #281 2016 – Page 11 Option 3 by Morrison, Simeon and Wollet)

A few things worth noting here. It’s pretty obvious that white text over a complex pattern isn’t the best design choice. It’s also obvious that whoever is doing the layout hasn’t been told about the margins necessary to make sure the text doesn’t disappear into the crease created by the binding process. As for the content, it’s clear that Morrison is having a great time spewing out whatever nonsense comes to mind. But for all of that creativity, he somehow comes back to exactly the same challenge that Kevin Eastman had for years – how to make a list of what stories are in the issue sound interesting?

(Heavy Metal #281 2016 – Page 5 Sex in the Summertime by Morrison)

This twist at the end of the story is pretty solid. These aliens are collecting planes and displaying them like butterflies.

(Heavy Metal #280 2016 – Page 118 Lepidopteran by Balcarce and Vivanco)

Structuring the story as a lecture in an art school is a brilliant idea. The giant sculpture in the middle tier is a fun idea, also very predictable.

(Heavy Metal #280 2016 – Page 106 Fiendy by Becks)

This place sounds pretty interesting.

(Heavy Metal #280 2016 – Page 95 The Century Guild curated by Negovan)