Ragged Claws Network » Richard Corben

Heads Up: Corben Art Sale, 11 February 2012

RC — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 01:03:56 +0000

Corben comic art pages will go on sale Saturday 11 February 2012 at noon CST. Available art includes 10 pages from The Bodyssey, 11 pages from Rip in Time, 10 pages from Swamp Thing: Missing Links, and all 10 pages from “Tales of the Black Diamond, Part 5: Cartoon of Blood.” A preview of the sale with thumbnails of all of the pages has already been posted to the Corben website. The actual prices and payment links will be revealed on the sale day, and after that, it’s first come, first serve.

Click here to visit the “Sales” page at CorbenStudios.com.

Act quickly on Saturday 11 February 2012, and you could be the proud owner of the original black-and-white art for pages like these:

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Good luck!

Look Here, Read: “Anti-Christmas,” with art by Richard Corben

RC — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:30:33 +0000

From Creepy #68 (January 1975), here’s “Anti-Christmas,” with story by Gerry Boudreau and art by Richard Corben:

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Look Here: NEW TALES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS, page 23, by Richard Corben

RC — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 15:55:11 +0000

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I invented a technique —my system of color overlays —which apparently nobody can understand, but it’s really very simple. The luminescent quality of my color overlays is derived from the way I combine the colors. I shoot the photomechanical separations myself, to a slightly higher contrast than a normal photo engraver would do. This makes the colors appear brighter. I’m excited when I do finally see the colors. I can see if my ideas work well or not so well.”
—Richard Corben in conversation with Brad Balfour,
Heavy Metal #53 (August 1981)

Out of Context: “He’s been in there for months!”

RC — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 00:14:25 +0000

[CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE -- A LITTLE BIT]

Heads Up: Corben Art Sale, 16 July 2011

RC — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 17:50:42 +0000

Richard Corben comic art pages will go on sale via the official Corben website on Saturday 16 July 2011, at Noon, Central Time. The sale will include ten pages from Hellboy: The Crooked Man by Corben and Mike Mignola, ten pages from Corben’s Children of Fire (including the original black-and-white cover art for issue #3 — see above for the colour version), and ten pages from The Bodyssey by Corben and Simon Revelstroke. Right now, the pages are up for “viewing only.” The prices will be posted when the sale goes live. Click here to jump to the sale page.

Heads Up: HELLBOY: HOUSE OF THE LIVING DEAD by Mignola, Corben, and Stewart

RC — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 14:11:34 +0000

The Eisner-winning dynamic trio of writer Mike Mignola, penciller/inker Richard Corben, and colourist Dave Stewart reunites for an original 56-page hardcover Hellboy graphic novel (ISBN-10: 1-59582-757-9; ISBN-13: 978-1-59582-757-9), available in November from Dark Horse. “Devastated over the loss of his luchador comrade to vampires,” writes the publisher, “Hellboy lingers in Mexican bars until he’s invited to participate in the ultimate wrestling match with a vicious Frankenstein monster!”

Look Here: 1984 #1 – cover and original art by Richard Corben

RC — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 17:05:03 +0000

Corben’s unique method of producing full-colour art by combining a continuous-tone black-and-white grisaille (produced using airbrush, pen and ink, markers, pencil crayons, brushes and paint, etc.) with overlaid, handmade colour separations, gave his finished work a luminosity, intensity, and above all, a texture, that artists who relied on airbrush alone struggled to imitate; it also meant that all of the images produced via Corben’s process — including not only many classic covers but also entire graphic novels such as New Tales of the Arabian Nights, the multi-volume Den saga, and the Heavy Metal reprint of Bloodstar — only exist in colour in the printed versions. The cover of 1984 #1 is a case in point:

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Here’s another example.

Connections: Richard Corben and Jason Brashill

RC — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 00:29:06 +0000

Corben’s cover art for the debut album by Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman, Bat Out of Hell, is explosive, iconic, classic. And since Bat Out of Hell is one of the best-selling albums of all time, I suspect that a great many people would recognize Jason Brashill’s cover to Judge Dredd 1996 Mega-Special as a homage to it. Still, I am delighted that the magazine’s editors acknowledged, on the indicia page, that the front cover art is “after MEATLOAF: Bat Out of Hell”; I am disappointed, however, that they didn’t see fit to mention Corben by name. Because technically speaking, it’s Corben’s art alone that Jason Brashill’s work is “after”; the typographical choices of the designer of the Bat Out of Hell cover have been completely ignored.

Look Here, Read: “A Woman Scorned,” with art by Richard Corben

RC — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 15:00:20 +0000

From Eerie #90 (February 1978), here’s “A Woman Scorned,” with story by Bruce Jones and art by Richard Corben:

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Heads Up: “Hellboy Library Edition Volume 4″

RC — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 01:51:39 +0000

Coming in July 2011 from Dark Horse:

At last, the handsome, oversized “Hellboy Library Edition” hardcover series continues with Volume 4, which collects the following two trade-paperback collections of short stories: The Troll Witch and Other Stories, with scripts by Mike Mignola and art by Mignola, Richard Corben, and P. Craig Russell; and The Crooked Man and Others, with scripts by Mike Mignola and art by Richard Corben, Duncan Fegredo, Joshua Dysart, and Jason Shawn Alexander. The book will also include an extensive selection of previously unreleased sketches and designs. If you own any of the previous volumes, you’ll know that Mignola’s much-admired solo art looks absolutely gorgeous in the oversized format, and I expect that the work of Mignola’s hand-picked artist-collaborators will fare just as well, especially with multiple Eisner Award-winning Photoshop magician, Dave Stewart, handling the colours. A must have!

BONUS LINK:

The Art of Coloring: Making Comics With Dave Stewart [Interview]