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In Review: Métal Hurlant – Embarquement immediat (“Ready for Boarding”)

By downthetubes Guests on April 2, 2026 • ( 0 )

Métal Hurlant – Embarquement immediat ("Ready for Boarding") Exhibition runs until 17th April 2026 at The Comic Art Museum – Brussels, Rue des Sables 20, 1000 Brussels

The groundbreaking French science fiction, fantasy and horror comics anthology Metal Hurlant (usually given in English as ‘Screaming’ or ‘Howling’ Metal), was first published in 1974, and is – until 17th April 2026 – the focus of a major retrospective at the Comic Art Museum in Brussels, housed in a tremendous building designed by art nouveau architect, Victor Horta.

Metal Hurlant was the brainchild of the artists Jean Giraud (aka, Moebius) and Phillipe Druillet, the writer Jean-Pierre Dionnet and the entrepreneur Bernard Farkas, who found themselves individually and collectively chafing at the conservative and cautious nature of Franco-Belgian comics in the early 1970s, and set out to do something about it.

Establishing themselves as ‘Les Humanoïdes Associés’, this Fab Four of more adult-oriented comics began publishing Metal Hurlant as a monthly black and white title with sumptuous colour covers in December of 1974. Over the subsequent thirteen years, until the magazine ceased publication in 1987, Metal Hurlant showcased work by many of Europe’s most talented and inventive comics creators, including Phillipe Caza, Enki Bilal, Chantalle Montelier, Francois Schuiten and Jacques Tardi.

Subsequently birthing both the kindred titles Schwermetall in Germany and (more significantly for English-speaking audiences) Heavy Metal in America, Metal Hurlant was arguably one of the most influential comic anthologies of the 1970s, shaping not just the look and feel of other comics but of cinema and book jacket design too. Perhaps unsurprisingly therefore, the title has been re-established several times since it folded in the 1980s, with new leases of life in 2002, 2021 and – most recently – 2025.

All photos above courtesy and © Jim O’Brien

The current exhibition tips its hat to all of these incarnations of Metal Hurlant but wisely focuses on the magazine’s 1970s and early 80s heyday, displaying a mixture of original art and high-quality reproductions in a generally well-designed ‘futuristic’ space, complete with red neon lighting and black walls. Two sides of the exhibition gallery feature a run of covers from the title, mixing original copies of the magazine with excellent scans of those that were evidently less easy to track down. Well written interpretation boards showcasing massively enlarged details from famous Metal Hurlant stories (Moebius’s Arzach saga, for example) give a good potted history of the magazine and its contributors.

Downstairs, the museum’s shop has French-language copies of the most recent Metal Hurlant anthology collections published by Humanoïdes Associés for sale. English editions of (most of) these volumes are available from online booksellers.

Jim O’Brien

Métal Hurlant – Embarquement immediat (“Ready for Boarding”) Exhibition runs until 17th April 2026 at The Comic Art Museum – Brussels, Rue des Sables 20, 1000 Brussels | Tel.: + 32 (0) 2 219 19 80 (from Tuesday to Friday from 10.00 am to 5.00 pm) | visit@comicscenter.net | Open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10.00 am to 6.00pm (last admission: 5pm) | Open 7 days a week during the Christmas holidays | Web: cbbd.be/fr/accueil (French) | English