The Richard Corben Cast

After the break, it's time for an all new episode of Comic Books Are Burning In Hell, with your hosts, Tucker, Joe, Chris & Matt!

This week, we're spotlighting the late Richard Corben, the great Richard Corben. We don't all walk in with the same take, but by the close, we reach the kind of war torn climax a Corben character often finds: a grudging, earned moment of quiet spent looking across a blasted landscape. Except here, the landscape is of the listeners mind. Dare you join us, brother? Shalt we see you, sister? Rise! Rise and FIGHT! 

And then? Bust out those credit cards for the....

OFFICIAL COMIC BOOKS ARE BURNING IN HELL RICHARD CORBEN SHOPPING LIST

 

Bad news! A huge portion of Richard Corben's body of work is completely out of print, including the great majority of his underground and Heavy Metal-era stories. Nonetheless, there are a few options:

 

1. The easiest of Corben's classic works to obtain in print is "Mutant World and Son of Mutant World", a crowdfunded hardcover collection of Corben's & Jan Strnad's 1978-78/83 SF serial and its 1990 sequel. Stuart Ng Books is the official distributor, and you can buy a copy directly from them. If you are in the mood to pay $30.00 for a 20-page comic book, the same distributor also has copies of a very recent extra-large printing of a 1972 Corben/Strnad collaboration, "To Meet the Faces You Meet", which was released as a bonus item for a Corben-related movie kickstarter.

 

2. Even though Joe and Matt said the 2012 Dark Horse collection "Creepy Presents Richard Corben" is out of print, you can nonetheless get a complete digital copy by tithing $13.99 to Jeff "Lucifer" Bezos via comiXology. This is the most enormous Corben collection readily available in English, collecting a very big chunk of prime-period or almost-prime-period work (opinions vary). If you are feeling curious, be advised that somebody appears to have scanned the 1974 Warren magazine "Comix International" #1 to Archive dot org - this 84-page item functions as a handy sampler, containing 10 complete stories with the characteristic Corben color, later restored with rare agility by José Villarrubia in the Dark Horse collection. 

 

3. There was apparently a run on Corben back issues shortly after his death, so pickings may be slim in terms of stapled comic books. Still, it shouldn't be *that* hard to find a copy of the all-Corben "Solo" #2, which DC released in 2005. (Or, you could always buy the series collection, cultivating powerful opinions on the Teddy Kristiansen issue to impress friends and lovers.) Somehow, Last Gasp still has copies left of 1972's "Fantagor" #3, which also features a guest story by the great Vaughn Bodē. Hey, speaking of underground comics, did Joe mis-title the 1971 Rip Off Press one-shot "Up from the Deep" as 'Up from the Depths'...? A great pickup under any name, though good luck finding a copy for a decent price today. Although, if you've already paid thirty bucks for one comic book...

 

4. Matt wants everybody to know that Corben's Robert E. Howard "Bloodstar" adaptation appeared in issues #45-52 of Heavy Metal (1980-81). Interestingly, this serialization followed two graphic novel editions: one in 1976 (Morning Star), and another one with revised text in 1979 (Ariel). However, these are in b&w, while the uncollected Heavy Metal serial is in color, via the Corben studio "overlay" technique. 

 

5. Joe wants everybody to know that, in his final years, Corben returned to Heavy Metal magazine for a new, long color serial that ran from issues #288-301. Hopefully the collected "Murky World" (not to be confused with a 2012 b&w Dark Horse one-shot of the same title, which collected an earlier serial from Dark Horse Presents) will appear soon.

 

6. Chris wanted to mention Corben's contributions to Hellboy, but he accidentally typed "Bellboy" and then Joe said that Corben should have drawn Jerry Lewis! That was a funny moment from the group chat, and I'm so glad to share it with you. In a perfect world there would be an all-Corben Hellboy book, but know for now that "The Crooked Man" is presently collected in Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories Vol. 1, along with about 100 additional pages of Corben work - and other stuff by other people. Corben is also in vol. 2. While we're on the topic of occult characters, the "Hard Time" storyline from Hellblazer is presently collected in John Constantine, Hellblazer Vol. 14: Good Intentions. That's issues #146-150, if you want to find the singles.

 

7. Tucker wants you to know he loves you.

 

FIN. 

You can take a look at a lot of the books we talk about on this show on our Bookshop page. If you purchase any of the books, the podcast will receive an affiliate fee, which will go towards paying the monthly hosting fee for the podcast, and, because it is Bookshop, will also go to support indie booksellers. On Twitter, you can keep up with the boys at @factualopinion, @snubpollard, @mattseneca and @cmautner.

Comments

[Matt Seneca]

Forgot to mention a key, key Mad/EC-era influence on both Corben's drafting and his stippled rendering style: the great war/western cartoonist John Severin. I recently picked up a 1971 issue of DC war comic "The Losers" by Severin - contemporary with Corben's entry into comics- and the similarity between their approaches is as plain as can be, though Severin never got as expressionistic as Corben could.

[Jeet Heer]

I was hoping you guys would do Corben & I was not disappointed. A great episode of the special genre "Comic Books are Burning in Hell guys explain the appeal of comics I absolutely can't stand." I realize I'm on the Groth end of the generational divide but believe me I've tried to appreciate Corben (as I've tried to appreciate Judge Dredd, Alan Moore, Darth Anus, Grant Morrison and other favorites). And yes I can see the use of colors -- which I wish had been put the service of better work. But I think the problem is not so much as a focus on "content" over "art" as the art is ultimately kind of empty and mannered. There's the lack of cognitive complexity or sophistication about the world that one finds in the best underground cartoonists -- Crumb and Spiegelman obviously but also Deitch, Spain, etc.

[Matt Seneca]

I think there’s a case to be made for Corben as an artist whose most impressive comics- not art, but comics- were made in service of a writer’s vision. (Hellblazer Hard Time is probably my favorite work of his.) Corben’s genius is best displayed in purely visual areas- manipulation of open and negative space, his approach to color, squash and stretch, markmaking, camera movements during talking head scenes, facial expressions... the list goes on but hopefully you get the gist. To me holding up someone like Spiegelman as emblematic of a more “cognitively complex” (?) approach to the medium is illustrative of a gap between ways of looking at the medium that just can’t be closed. Corben uses the tools of the trade I’m talking about to elevate rote material and make it smack and sing without calling too much attention to his process- he’s not interested in putting form above content, whereas for someone like Spiegelman the two are inextricable.

There’s validity to both ways of thinking, but I’d personally rather read ten corben comics than one Spiegelman. That’s because Corben’s work ultimately is what it is, fantastically executed genre, while I think Spiegelman is so invested in making his points about the medium (and of course, Himself as a genius artist), spittle flying, that his work ends up exciting but incoherent. Crumb is a more solid example of what I think you mean, but he’s so self referential so often that you have to be invested in outdated notions of self-expression to get much out of anything but his graphic approach- and let’s not get started on that guy as a cultural commentator.

Ultimately as a reader I think you have to place greater than normal importance on *something* to get much out of any of the underground cartoonists we’re talking about- be it craft, genre, influence, personal style, whatever. But Corben is the guy from that milieu whose innovation and historical importance carries equal value as generic entertainment- the guy with whom you can have your cake and eat it too- so I’ll take him over the Groth all stars as someone to return to. If you’re allergic to genre it’s a lost cause, but boy are you sealing yourself off from some cool comics if that’s where you’re at. And it’s a little rich to hold up someone like Crumb as a bastion of cognitive complexity and sophistication about the world in the same breath as a dismissal of Alan Moore, haha! I could go on, but there’s not really any reason to.... apples and oranges, there’s no credible case for either as superior.

[Tyler]

The only work I've read by Corben has been his Hellboy stuff, but this podcast definitely made me want to seek out more. Looking at more of his stuff has made me wonder if he was influenced by Basil Wolverton. They seem to share a talent for combining the cartoony with the grotesque.

[Kumar Sivasubramanian]

The Fantagor editions of DEN were NOT censored. NEVERWHERE (the first volume of DEN) had TPBs from 3 publishers: Ariel, Catalan, and Fantagor -- I have all 3, and the horse cock remains the same in all of them.

[Tucker Stone]

Kumar coming in for the easy win with the horsecock content I crave!

[Joe]

Ugh, I’m afraid I misremembered that... Corben replaced the nudity in some of the older stories used in the Fantagor Den comic books as backups, not in the Den stories themselves; fuck, that’s a dumb error.