Leigh Walton has a very fun rundown/reviewof Black Metal, the Rick Spears/Chuck BB joint that rocks your lame ass. I think Chris Mautner would approve, as Leigh’s review features a lot of artwork from the book — a large percentage of which feature the fabled Horned Hand:
Notice the hands. This is key. One of the essential features of metal culture is its ethos of brotherhood and tribal identity, and this is most famously symbolized with the Horned Hand. It spread to the mainstream long ago and has been widely co-opted, but somehow this gesture still holds meaning for metalheads: as a sign of defiant self-assertion, a greeting between friends, or a gesture of admiration and unity [metal, more than most musical cultures, is egalitarian, based on a very loose boundary between artists and fans]. The proper formation of a Horned Hand even acts as a shibboleth to distinguish the True Metalhead from the Poseur. Appropriately, the Horns are all over this book — somebody throws them up whenever something badass happens.
[snip]
Actually, Chuck BB draws pretty distinctive hands across the board — those chunky fingers have a lot of personality to them.
