"And at the center of all that [the indie comics era in the early '70s], we have Richard Corben self-publishing (yay!) Fantagor number one in 1970. There really wasn't a tangible marketplace at the time and it would be a few years before he self-published again, but I do remember that first issue and what an odd-ball thing it was. I always felt a little funny putting my Corben books in with my undergrounds. He didn't seem to ﬁt there any more than he did in the overgrounds. Or the fanzines. He was a unique stylist who defied categorization. He did things with light and shadow no one else did. He drew women with enormous breasts: bigger breasts than anyone else. Later when I started getting laid I found out that he got them right, too. Only Corben could do enormous breasts that looked like the real magilla." -- Dave Sim, indie comics legend and the creator of Cerebus the Aardvark
"[Kansas City has] everything I want and that’s why I don’t have to move to New York." -- Richard Corben, 1981

Corben’s Den in the process of dropping the hammer on some Neverwhere goon.

Artist Richard Corben turns eighty years old today. Fans of the exotic, the erotic, the gonzo and the over-the-top (and of exuberant mammaries) should rejoice that Mr. Corben is still among us. Over the last half-century Richard has blessed his fans with art that, quite frankly, no other artist could have. His artwork--especially his airbrushed art--had no precedents and, even today, there are very few artists who can legitimately claim to carry on his unique legacy. Probably the nearest "heir" to Corben's legacy would be Simon Bisley, who has always given Richard credit as a major influence.

Born in southern Missouri, Corben’s family found employmet soon after his birth at the booming Sunflower Ordnance Works, just south of DeSoto, Kansas. Richard spent his childhood and teen years there. He moved to the Kansas City area after high school, where he has lived ever since. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1965. At the same time as Richard--who grew up loving the horror comics from EC-- was getting his degree, Warren Magazines was firing up Creepy and then Eerie. Corben immediately started sending them art but kept getting rejected. Richard took the bit in his teeth and began getting his stories published in the burgeoning indie comics scene. They created quite a buzz and Jim Warren changed his mind. Corben started getting work at Warren Magazines. Meanwhile, he poured his creative energies into his graphic novel, Neverwhere.

The protagonist of Neverwhere is Den, who would become Corben's signature character. The history of Den is long and convoluted. I suggest clicking this link for a good summary of the character's career. Among his other amazing attributes, Den was the first sword-and-planet hero in S&P history to come from Kansas. The Burroughsian and Howardian influences in the Den saga are quite evident, but Corben transmutes them, bringing a groovy, psychedelic, ‘70s sensibility to all of it. Neverwhere is a world of exotic, baroque exuberance. The look of the art was achieved by an overlay process devised by Corben himself, which rendered everything in a blazing, hyper-real fashion.

The adventures of Den would soon be published in Metal Hurlant and its US offshoot, Heavy Metal. The series was a hit and the 1981 movie, Heavy Metal, would feature a Den segment. The "Loc-Nar" in the film, which was used to unify the wildly different segments, originated in Corben's tales of Den.

Corben's star faded a bit over the next twenty years or so. In 2000, he did a Batman one-shot for DC. Since then, the twenty-first century has witnessed something of a Corben resurgence, with him doing work for Marvel, DC and Dark Horse. I hope to see another two decades of gonzo art from Richard.