"Flight of the Dead"
Lemme lay it down for ya. Back in the day, watchin’ a movie like Heavy Metal wasn’t just a casual thing—it was a damn mission, man. See, in the ‘80s, if you wanted to catch the good stuff, you had to work for it. We didn’t have streaming. We had cable boxes—these chunky little things with dials that, if you turned ‘em just right, you might crack the code and pull in a channel you weren’t payin’ for. And the golden channel? Cinemax. Or as we called it, Skinemax—‘cause after 10 p.m., things got weird.
Now, Heavy Metal—that was legendary. Always buried at 2:30 in the damn morning. So me and my buddies? We’d find out when it was comin’ on, pile in somebody’s living room, and start workin’ those dials, like we were hackin’ into some government signal. And when we finally pulled it in—fuzzy, wavy, just barely holdin’ focus—it was on.
And the B-17 sequence? Man… That one stuck. The Pacific Belle, up in formation, catchin’ hell, crew goin’ down one by one, till it’s just the pilot left, tryin’ to bring her home. But then—bam—meteorite outta nowhere, and suddenly his whole damn crew is back. Only now? They ain’t on his side.
Dead eyes, twisted grins, it’s all wrong and so cool. The pilot bails, thinkin’ he’s free, but nah. He drifts down onto an island that’s not just an island—it’s a graveyard. Wreckage from every war, every era, scattered across the beach like some kinda cursed purgatory. And then, he sees ‘em. The others. Every dead airman who’s ever crashed there, just waiting.
And man, that was it. That was the moment that stuck in my head, all these years later, ‘til I had to get it out somehow. So here it is, scratched out in ink, like one of those midnight transmissions we used to chase on the TV—fuzzy, raw, maybe not quite in focus, but still there.
A ghost in the sky, still flyin’.
And that, my friend, is heavy.
Lemme lay it down for ya. Back in the day, watchin’ a movie like Heavy Metal wasn’t just a casual thing—it was a damn mission, man. See, in the ‘80s, if you wanted to catch the good stuff, you had to work for it. We didn’t have streaming. We had cable boxes—these chunky little things with dials that, if you turned ‘em just right, you might crack the code and pull in a channel you weren’t payin’ for. And the golden channel? Cinemax. Or as we called it, Skinemax—‘cause after 10 p.m., things got weird.
Now, Heavy Metal—that was legendary. Always buried at 2:30 in the damn morning. So me and my buddies? We’d find out when it was comin’ on, pile in somebody’s living room, and start workin’ those dials, like we were hackin’ into some government signal. And when we finally pulled it in—fuzzy, wavy, just barely holdin’ focus—it was on.
And the B-17 sequence? Man… That one stuck. The Pacific Belle, up in formation, catchin’ hell, crew goin’ down one by one, till it’s just the pilot left, tryin’ to bring her home. But then—bam—meteorite outta nowhere, and suddenly his whole damn crew is back. Only now? They ain’t on his side.
Dead eyes, twisted grins, it’s all wrong and so cool. The pilot bails, thinkin’ he’s free, but nah. He drifts down onto an island that’s not just an island—it’s a graveyard. Wreckage from every war, every era, scattered across the beach like some kinda cursed purgatory. And then, he sees ‘em. The others. Every dead airman who’s ever crashed there, just waiting.
And man, that was it. That was the moment that stuck in my head, all these years later, ‘til I had to get it out somehow. So here it is, scratched out in ink, like one of those midnight transmissions we used to chase on the TV—fuzzy, raw, maybe not quite in focus, but still there.
A ghost in the sky, still flyin’.
And that, my friend, is heavy.
Lemme lay it down for ya. Back in the day, watchin’ a movie like Heavy Metal wasn’t just a casual thing—it was a damn mission, man. See, in the ‘80s, if you wanted to catch the good stuff, you had to work for it. We didn’t have streaming. We had cable boxes—these chunky little things with dials that, if you turned ‘em just right, you might crack the code and pull in a channel you weren’t payin’ for. And the golden channel? Cinemax. Or as we called it, Skinemax—‘cause after 10 p.m., things got weird.
Now, Heavy Metal—that was legendary. Always buried at 2:30 in the damn morning. So me and my buddies? We’d find out when it was comin’ on, pile in somebody’s living room, and start workin’ those dials, like we were hackin’ into some government signal. And when we finally pulled it in—fuzzy, wavy, just barely holdin’ focus—it was on.
And the B-17 sequence? Man… That one stuck. The Pacific Belle, up in formation, catchin’ hell, crew goin’ down one by one, till it’s just the pilot left, tryin’ to bring her home. But then—bam—meteorite outta nowhere, and suddenly his whole damn crew is back. Only now? They ain’t on his side.
Dead eyes, twisted grins, it’s all wrong and so cool. The pilot bails, thinkin’ he’s free, but nah. He drifts down onto an island that’s not just an island—it’s a graveyard. Wreckage from every war, every era, scattered across the beach like some kinda cursed purgatory. And then, he sees ‘em. The others. Every dead airman who’s ever crashed there, just waiting.
And man, that was it. That was the moment that stuck in my head, all these years later, ‘til I had to get it out somehow. So here it is, scratched out in ink, like one of those midnight transmissions we used to chase on the TV—fuzzy, raw, maybe not quite in focus, but still there.
A ghost in the sky, still flyin’.
And that, my friend, is heavy.
Pen and Ink on Heavy Weight Paper