Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Steranko's 'Outland'
from the June 1981 issue of Heavy Metal


Released in May 1981, Outland is described as an outer space version of the Western classic 'High Noon'. It's been a while since I last saw it, but I do remember it being a decent film , if not particularly inspired or imaginative. 

Warner Bros. was hoping the film would be a box-office, multi-marketing juggernaut, like Fox's 'Alien' had been two years previously, and they adopted much the same marketing approach.  

Heavy Metal magazine was happy to oblige,  serializing a graphic novel, ably illustrated by Jim Steranko, in several issues (July through October 1981, and January 1982). 

Outland was also available as a novelization in paperback, by Alan Dean Foster, and a 'movie novel' paperback authored by Richard Anobile.

Unfortunately, 'Outland' never became the marketing phenomenon that Warner was anticipating, but Steranko certainly did a good job on the graphic novel. Here's the Preview of the graphic novel; I'll scan and present its serial sections in forthcoming posts here at the PorPor Books Blog.




4 comments:

Will Errickson said...

Man, this reminds me of how Harlan Ellison did NOT like OUTLAND, and did one of his classic rants about it in AN EDGE IN MY VOICE. That's all I really know about it...

Tony said...

Thanks for posting the preview. Not much point posting the rest of the graphic novel as it has already been posted at the Drawings of Steranko website, unless you are going to present it in higher resolution scans.

misterdna said...

Not true, the Drawings of Steranko site only has the first 9 pages. Would love to see the rest - I hope you will scan and post more soon. Thanks!

Tony said...

yes, you are correct, it now only has the first 9 pages. when i wrote that post the site did have then entire story. Steranko asked me to only show some of it. it has been published in book form in French and Spanish.