Published between 1980 and 1986, Epic Illustrated was Marvel Comics’ answer to Heavy Metal Magazine and adult comics. For 34 issues, Epic provided a platform within Marvel Comics for artists and writers to go beyond the usual work-for-hire mainstream boundaries and explore adult-themed genre fiction (mostly fantasy and SF) whilst maintaining the rights to their work. Personally, I’ve always loved Epic slightly more than Heavy Metal. Maybe its because the material published was just slightly different, more US centric than the French legacy that permeated Heavy Metal at that time. The unique thing about Epic was that, because Marvel owned it, you sometimes found the odd super hero story in it — most famously the unfinished Last Galactus Story by John Byrne — where creators were free to explore characters outside continuity. For the most part though, its pages served you some awesome sci-fi stories (never been much of a fantasy guy personally, although P. Graig Russell’s Elric adaptation is beautiful) like the surreal Abraxas and the Earthman by Rick Veitch, The sacred and the Profane by Dean Motter and Ken Steacy, Generation Zero by Pepe Moreno and Archie Goodwin to name just a few of the serialized stories (not to forget Jim Starlin, Kent Williams, Bernie Wrightson, Michael Kaluta, Barry Windsor-Smith,…).
Twenty years on, Mam Tor: Event Horizon™ (1 and 2) would recapture that energy that Epic had created — if only for 2 issues.
Here’s a few of my favourite covers (a full list can be seen at Cover Browser)
September 13th, 2009
Wow – are those first two Sienkiwicz? Not seen those before
September 13th, 2009
No, the first one is Howard Chaykin :)
September 15th, 2009
Hot! Love that last one.