Finally tracked down a copy of Heavy Metal from July 2007. The same month my oldest Daughter turned 15, my 17th anniversary of being married to my beautiful wife and the release of Robert Valley’s illustrations for Boy Zero in the pages of Heavy Metal. I have seen these reposted here and there on the internet but until this arrived in the mail today I had never held it in my hands or been able to pour over it like I’ve been doing for the last 45 minutes. I can’t do it justice here. It’s really strong, the story is solid but the artwork is truly otherworldly. You can tell he’s an animator because these images just beg to move. Or maybe they radiate the illusion of movement. Either way they will be studied until I develop an eye splitting migraine and a hunched back from looking at them. In 20/20 hindsight the story and a good deal of the story feels very Dalrympian (yeah that’s a thing) as I’ve had my nose buried in @popgunwar ’s books lately (see It All Hurts, The Wrenchies and Pop GunWar) but there is a real similarity in tone between Boy Zero and Farel Dalrymples’s work, a similar glimpse into the sinister demonic maw that feeds on all of our negative earthly mess. Go dig around in your long boxes, raid a good comic shop or even go out on EBay but get a copy of this magazine. You won’t be disappointed. Valley’s spare detail and distorted perspective lend the work an intense energy that is missing in so many illustrators drawings. You feel the movement and menace. It’s easy to say it’s “cinematic” but it’s not, that’s a cop out. It’s some mystical “guy in the back of the class drawing on the back of his homework” shit. Some unidentifiable bit of Voom to borrow a term from Dr.Seuss ( he’s a doctor so he knows shit) that some people tap into and the rest of us dream about and tear our hair out over. You can trace this kind of art, free hand copy it all day long and you will miss that one something that makes this sizzle. Not that I won’t try to spot it. It may overstate things the way I’m going on about this but it’s not hyperbole, not a lie, not a knowing fabrication. I mean it. This shit sizzles, it’s good. It’s everything I want my work to be, it’s everything my work is not. The sad thing is, this is it. I mean as far as I can tell there isn’t too much of Robert Valley’s work out there to be hunted and consumed - no meat left on the bones after this feast. You slay this creature in the wild and it’s the last Dodo, last of the Unicorns, a lone white rhino. There are some animated projects and one other book that I know of but this was the elusive beast in the brush. So if you like the pics I’ve posted and the other images floating here and there but remember before you take up this hunt, you can catch this dragon and kill it but there is the danger that once you skin it the dragon’s scales dull their luster and the eyes lose their fiery glow. So hunt it but build a cage for it and when you catch it, don’t kill it. Read it, keep it company and then set it free. (I say this knowing my son will disappear with my copy soon) you’ll be the better for it. Now go tell Robert Valley to draw more comics.
(Also check out the Kickstarter for his Pear Cider and Cigarettes flick here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/395550245/pear-cider-and-cigarettes-the-animated-movie )