I was the kid in the 80s, working at a comic book shop when I discovered Corben and immediately fell in love with his artwork and bought everything by him I could find. Good times!
That’s really awesome! I bet Corben’s work was probably appreciated more back then, because it must have been mind blowing to see and experience as it was hitting the racks. But perhaps he was taken for granted just as he is now and if that’s the case it is a shame. Corben I feel isn’t as appreciated as he should be. He should be talked about in the same sentence with the likes of Kirby, Wrightson, and Adams ect, but his stuff is so difficult to get your hands on these days because it has been out of print for so long. I’m not certain if in the end that was his choice but it is truly odd that his name isn’t a house hold one and that I had to begin to create myself to discover his work. Thanks for the comment, much appreciated. I always like the hear about those who experienced these masters as their work was being produced and published, because sadly comics no matter how good they may be have become rather sparse in their availability, and aren’t really fully appreciated.
Yeah, I still have the original editions of Neverwhere and Muvovum which now sell on eBay for $100 each but I still bought the new editions because they’re really well done. Unfortunately I was really broke in 2008 and had to sell a bunch of his other stuff just for food money, but I held onto those. I know Den 3 is being published as a new edition later this year and I’m hoping they will publish The Last Voyage of Sinbad and Vic and Blood: The Chronicles of A Boy and his Dog. All great work by Corben. It seems to me that his career had a bell-curve-like trajectory. His early art for E.C. was good but mainly black and white and then when he made the Den comics for Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal his artistic ability reached a crescendo. His technique of painting on four layers of acetate (basically animation cells) in order to layer colors had never been done in comics before. He learned that from his experience creating the animated Den for the Heavy Metal movie. And so every time you look at his art and ask how did he do that? Yeah that’s how. The process however was very labor-intensive and time consuming and after awhile he returned to a much simpler style of illustration. His middle period stuff is absolute fire though and he remains one of the greatest illustrators in the medium of comic books ever.
Corben was a great inspiration growing up. As a teen in the 80's I gravitated heavily to his work and it inspired me to pursue art and go to art school!
Man that’s great! It’s the same for me but I found his work much later and every time I feel like slacking off I open one of his comics and it really helps me get the engine going for the day to sit at the table. He really is an inspiration!
Corben had such a unique and recognizable style: sculptural forms, otherworldly color palettes, visceral and erotic subjects. Truly one of the giants in his field.
“In these days of Alex Ross and company, everyone is used to fully painted colour in comics, but it was virtually unknown at that time in America (apart perhaps from Harvey Kurtzman’s Little Annie Fanny in Playboy). Unable to afford mechanical colour separations, Corben devised a unique but labour-intensive method to simulate full colour artwork by building up the colours himself on four acetate overlays, resulting in an uncanny, almost photographic immediacy. He would also sculpt clay models of his characters to help visualise lighting effects or even to photograph for ‘fumetti’ experiments. In the new colour inserts in Warren’s magazines, illuminating twisted twist-enders and recurring series like Child, The Butcher and Mutant World, his electric spectrum grabbed you by the eyeballs. Corben took some five years, on and off, to write and draw his landmark 98-page graphic novel, Neverwhere in 1978, serialised in France’s Metal Hurlant and later its American offshoot Heavy Metal. It sprung from a half-hour 16mm movie, part hand-drawn animation, part live action, which he had made with help and finance from his former employers at Calvin. The lead in both the film and the comic sequel is a mild-mannered electrical engineer, zapped by a circuit he has mysteriously constructed to the untamed dimension of Neverwhere. Here he is transformed into its pumped-up champion Den, absurdly muscled and endowed, hairless and naked, the unlikely hero sent to rescue tempting but devious buxom beauties from savage beasts and scheming rulers. Corben’s plotting may be erratic and prone to charges of sexism and cliché, but his total conviction and self-absorption in imagining this sensual dreamscape captivate and transport us there.” paulgravett.com/articles/article/richard_corben
Glad to hear your new found appreciation for an artist as brilliant as Corben. That’s the goal of this channel and I’m very happy to hear that I am accomplishing that goal.
I got my copy! When you consider that Corben was doing all these insane colouring gradients using separations (painting each colour plate in black and white and assembling them without digital methods,) there's a lot more work that goes into reproducing it than most comics from the time which usec flat colours without nuance, or something like El Mercenario which used paintings that could just be photographed.
@@LittleCozyNostril true, it really was a ground breaking entry to the comics medium. Corben in my opinion has to be one of the most underrated artists ever and this includes every medium.
Dude... I've never heard of this comic before! It looks like something right down my alley, especially the bizarre, almost berserk-ish undertones. Yeah, I think this is for me!
Beautiful work, for sure, but the nudity content blew my teenaged mind. My moms caught an eyeball on what I was reading and she thought I was into porn comics. "Boy, what are you reading???"😅
Same here with both volumes, and I definitely love that about them. I wanted more, but got plenty (heck, that might be the right balance!). The simplicity of the story paired with the complexity of the art is just *chef kiss*.
Possible delay is right issue original DEN was serialised in Heavy Metal Magazine and Metal Hurlant, then publish as album at Fantagor Press seem Dark Horse had to figure out who own the rights now, since Heavy Metal ended, it simplified the issue...
RE Mobius: Harzak, one of Mobius' classic series, did have a character flying on a chubby-winged pterodactyl. I like Mobius, but at times he could be TOO european. It's like a... maybe an intellectual twist of lemon? Corben is very American.
I surprised they only titled it Den and not Den: Muvovum. I grew up with Corben and still have my Den graphic novels from the 80s. I shouldn't have been able to buy them at the time being under 18. Luckily, my parents let me watch and get anything I wanted. I wish Den would be adapted to a live action movie. My choice would be Zack Snyder to direct with Vin Diesel as Den. Den volume 3 will be the 6 issue mini-series Corben did through his own comic book company Fantagor. I had them, but lost them. 😢 What Dark Horse needs to do after is Mutant World and this one story I remember seeing, but didn't buy was about an astronaut landing on a planet only to discover Earth populated it before he arrived.
I read the Corben graphic novels and a lot of Heavy Metal magazines along with the tamer American Epic Illustrated which was also very good. I was a young teen and had an older brother who was also a young teen. It was pretty easy to get the magazines off the shelf in the 80s because they were treated like comic books. We ordered things by mail with post office money orders. No IDs needed to be sent. I guess no one thought teenagers could go through the entire ordering process. In the 70s, our parents dropped us off to watch rated R movies by ourselves when we were kids. It was very chill back then. Very happy to see people getting to read Corben's works.
lol no child in the 70s or 80s had access to richard corben. he was very much underground comix. the first den was mail order only. thx for showing us this, but its not as good as early den, which was a lot more sparse and clean. 😂🎉
It's always strange how Corben was considered "underground" in the US whereas in Europe he was very much mainstream. I was able to read it uncensored as a kid in Yugoslavia and didn't think his work was more transgressive than the French titles of the day. No need to mail order Den, it was on the newsstands everywhere.
Wasn’t heavy metal readily available in the states? I wasn’t around but it seems like they printed a ton of copies per issue because they can be found almost anywhere.
@@rowleyzero Heavy Metal is where I was introduced to his work, back in the 80's when store clerks were lax enough to sell that magazine to me, despite clearly being much too young.
I say possibly the dumbest thing in this video “is that a Moebius piece?” Yeah genius there’s a Moebius piece in a Corben book. Sooo uhh yeah. Enjoy!
I was the kid in the 80s, working at a comic book shop when I discovered Corben and immediately fell in love with his artwork and bought everything by him I could find. Good times!
That’s really awesome! I bet Corben’s work was probably appreciated more back then, because it must have been mind blowing to see and experience as it was hitting the racks. But perhaps he was taken for granted just as he is now and if that’s the case it is a shame.
Corben I feel isn’t as appreciated as he should be. He should be talked about in the same sentence with the likes of Kirby, Wrightson, and Adams ect, but his stuff is so difficult to get your hands on these days because it has been out of print for so long. I’m not certain if in the end that was his choice but it is truly odd that his name isn’t a house hold one and that I had to begin to create myself to discover his work.
Thanks for the comment, much appreciated. I always like the hear about those who experienced these masters as their work was being produced and published, because sadly comics no matter how good they may be have become rather sparse in their availability, and aren’t really fully appreciated.
Yeah, I still have the original editions of Neverwhere and Muvovum which now sell on eBay for $100 each but I still bought the new editions because they’re really well done. Unfortunately I was really broke in 2008 and had to sell a bunch of his other stuff just for food money, but I held onto those. I know Den 3 is being published as a new edition later this year and I’m hoping they will publish The Last Voyage of Sinbad and Vic and Blood: The Chronicles of A Boy and his Dog. All great work by Corben.
It seems to me that his career had a bell-curve-like trajectory. His early art for E.C. was good but mainly black and white and then when he made the Den comics for Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal his artistic ability reached a crescendo. His technique of painting on four layers of acetate (basically animation cells) in order to layer colors had never been done in comics before. He learned that from his experience creating the animated Den for the Heavy Metal movie. And so every time you look at his art and ask how did he do that? Yeah that’s how.
The process however was very labor-intensive and time consuming and after awhile he returned to a much simpler style of illustration. His middle period stuff is absolute fire though and he remains one of the greatest illustrators in the medium of comic books ever.
Corben was a great inspiration growing up. As a teen in the 80's I gravitated heavily to his work and it inspired me to pursue art and go to art school!
Man that’s great! It’s the same for me but I found his work much later and every time I feel like slacking off I open one of his comics and it really helps me get the engine going for the day to sit at the table.
He really is an inspiration!
Corben had such a unique and recognizable style: sculptural forms, otherworldly color palettes, visceral and erotic subjects. Truly one of the giants in his field.
Agreed 100 percent! Beautifully said.
“In these days of Alex Ross and company, everyone is used to fully painted colour in comics, but it was virtually unknown at that time in America (apart perhaps from Harvey Kurtzman’s Little Annie Fanny in Playboy). Unable to afford mechanical colour separations, Corben devised a unique but labour-intensive method to simulate full colour artwork by building up the colours himself on four acetate overlays, resulting in an uncanny, almost photographic immediacy. He would also sculpt clay models of his characters to help visualise lighting effects or even to photograph for ‘fumetti’ experiments. In the new colour inserts in Warren’s magazines, illuminating twisted twist-enders and recurring series like Child, The Butcher and Mutant World, his electric spectrum grabbed you by the eyeballs.
Corben took some five years, on and off, to write and draw his landmark 98-page graphic novel, Neverwhere in 1978, serialised in France’s Metal Hurlant and later its American offshoot Heavy Metal. It sprung from a half-hour 16mm movie, part hand-drawn animation, part live action, which he had made with help and finance from his former employers at Calvin. The lead in both the film and the comic sequel is a mild-mannered electrical engineer, zapped by a circuit he has mysteriously constructed to the untamed dimension of Neverwhere. Here he is transformed into its pumped-up champion Den, absurdly muscled and endowed, hairless and naked, the unlikely hero sent to rescue tempting but devious buxom beauties from savage beasts and scheming rulers. Corben’s plotting may be erratic and prone to charges of sexism and cliché, but his total conviction and self-absorption in imagining this sensual dreamscape captivate and transport us there.”
paulgravett.com/articles/article/richard_corben
Big fan now. thanks to you.
Glad to hear your new found appreciation for an artist as brilliant as Corben. That’s the goal of this channel and I’m very happy to hear that I am accomplishing that goal.
I got my copy! When you consider that Corben was doing all these insane colouring gradients using separations (painting each colour plate in black and white and assembling them without digital methods,) there's a lot more work that goes into reproducing it than most comics from the time which usec flat colours without nuance, or something like El Mercenario which used paintings that could just be photographed.
@@LittleCozyNostril true, it really was a ground breaking entry to the comics medium. Corben in my opinion has to be one of the most underrated artists ever and this includes every medium.
Dude... I've never heard of this comic before! It looks like something right down my alley, especially the bizarre, almost berserk-ish undertones. Yeah, I think this is for me!
@@cosmiccomiccorner it’s a great one! I highly recommend it.
Beautiful work, for sure, but the nudity content blew my teenaged mind. My moms caught an eyeball on what I was reading and she thought I was into porn comics. "Boy, what are you reading???"😅
got my copy as well. couldn't help it but to finish it in a few hours
It’s such a beautiful book. Corben’s work is just mesmerizing.
Same here with both volumes, and I definitely love that about them. I wanted more, but got plenty (heck, that might be the right balance!). The simplicity of the story paired with the complexity of the art is just *chef kiss*.
Possible delay is right issue original DEN was serialised in Heavy Metal Magazine and Metal Hurlant, then publish as album at Fantagor Press
seem Dark Horse had to figure out who own the rights now, since Heavy Metal ended, it simplified the issue...
RE Mobius: Harzak, one of Mobius' classic series, did have a character flying on a chubby-winged pterodactyl. I like Mobius, but at times he could be TOO european. It's like a... maybe an intellectual twist of lemon? Corben is very American.
I surprised they only titled it Den and not Den: Muvovum.
I grew up with Corben and still have my Den graphic novels from the 80s. I shouldn't have been able to buy them at the time being under 18. Luckily, my parents let me watch and get anything I wanted.
I wish Den would be adapted to a live action movie. My choice would be Zack Snyder to direct with Vin Diesel as Den.
Den volume 3 will be the 6 issue mini-series Corben did through his own comic book company Fantagor. I had them, but lost them. 😢
What Dark Horse needs to do after is Mutant World and this one story I remember seeing, but didn't buy was about an astronaut landing on a planet only to discover Earth populated it before he arrived.
I read the Corben graphic novels and a lot of Heavy Metal magazines along with the tamer American Epic Illustrated which was also very good. I was a young teen and had an older brother who was also a young teen. It was pretty easy to get the magazines off the shelf in the 80s because they were treated like comic books. We ordered things by mail with post office money orders. No IDs needed to be sent. I guess no one thought teenagers could go through the entire ordering process. In the 70s, our parents dropped us off to watch rated R movies by ourselves when we were kids. It was very chill back then. Very happy to see people getting to read Corben's works.
Same.
lol no child in the 70s or 80s had access to richard corben. he was very much underground comix. the first den was mail order only. thx for showing us this, but its not as good as early den, which was a lot more sparse and clean. 😂🎉
It's always strange how Corben was considered "underground" in the US whereas in Europe he was very much mainstream. I was able to read it uncensored as a kid in Yugoslavia and didn't think his work was more transgressive than the French titles of the day. No need to mail order Den, it was on the newsstands everywhere.
Every child with an older brother did
Wasn’t heavy metal readily available in the states? I wasn’t around but it seems like they printed a ton of copies per issue because they can be found almost anywhere.
@@rowleyzero Yes, right there in the top draw of his bureau.
@@rowleyzero Heavy Metal is where I was introduced to his work, back in the 80's when store clerks were lax enough to sell that magazine to me, despite clearly being much too young.
DUDE!!! read the books. Then do this again. You are really missing out.
I’m planning on it. My goal is to read this and return to it again in another video.