New issue time! Issue 286, the Magick Special, is hitting subscribers’ mailboxes right about now, and will be in stores next week, and we won’t lie—this one’s amazing, Heavy Metal fans! Where do we even start—well, the covers would seem to be a good place. Cover A is by David Stoupakis and it depicts our fearless Editor in Chief and magick expert Grant Morrison. Cover B is “Reign of Wizardry,” a little-seen painting by Frank Frazetta(!), and cover C is a killer piece by Atomahawk artist Ian Bederman. Here they are:

Heavy Metal is available at Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million, and ought to be carried by your local comics shop. You can also get this issue (and many back issues) in the Heavy Metal shop on this very website.

At the center of this issue you’ll find a couple of pieces about magic and the magic of art. Grant Morrison offers a “primer” on the subject as only he can in “Beyond the Word and the Fool.” While you’re still dazed and reeling from that, you’ll get the story behind “Reign of Wizardry,” the issue’s cover art, from the artist’s son, Frank Frazetta Jr. “This was by far the most sexually explicit painting my father ever painted,” he writes. Later on, you’ll hear from Clive Barker, whose discussion of magic with editor Rantz Hoseley accompanies a selection of his own artwork. “I don’t think Magic is us trying to explain the unknowable,” Barker suggests. “I think magic is the secret code that’s trying to become known. It’s that ineffable thing that is trying to break through from the other side. Magic is summoning of something that is very deep inside us, which is therefore universal.” This issue’s Gallery section is given over to a selection of cards based on the 72 demons of the Ars Goetia, the first section of the famous grimoire (or spell book) The Lesser Key of Solomon.

In Edgar Clement’s “Sword of God,” you’ll find fantastic beasts and holy (or diabolical) weaponry, while “Herald” by Diego Grebol and Sebastian Piriz is a mind-bending meditation on technology, humanity and, yes, magic. Pahek’s “A Magician and the Wooden Boy” puts a dark spin on the story of Pinocchio, casting Gepetto not as a woodcarver but a sadistic carnival magician. Neil Kleid, Michael Avon Oeming, and Taki Soma offer a vision of the famous escape artist’s dark magic in “The 1,000 Deaths of Harry Houdini.” “Air,” by Diego Agrimbau and Martin Tunica, looks to a future without magic—a tricky proposition, as the definition of “magic” changes over time and generations. The issue closes with “Lighting the Way,” a tale inspired by a Clive Barker painting.

The issue also features 5 installments of continuing stories: “Atomahawk,” Grant Morrison and Gerhard’s “The Absent Cat,” Enki Bilal’s “The Color of Air,” John Bivens and Omar Estevez’s “Lil Charlie,” and John Mahoney’s “Zentropa.”

Spirits, demons, things not of this earth, Heavy Metal readers—a dark and powerful force compels you to acquire and devour Heavy Metal 286. Some call it Magick… other say it’s merely intellectual curiosity and good taste. You are what you believe.

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