Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Edgar Allan Poe · Heads Up! · Illustration Art · Look Here · Richard Corben

Heads Up: Even more Corben from Dark Horse

Available in North American comic shops tomorrow, Dark Horse Presents #9 will include Corben’s adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The City in the Sea”:

And coming in April, Creepy Comics #8 will have a cover with art by Corben:


BONUS CONTENT:

“The City in the Sea”
By Edgar Allan Poe

LO! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently,
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free:
Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls,
Up fanes, up Babylon-like walls,
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers,
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathëd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye,–
Not the gayly-jewelled dead,
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas,
Along that wilderness of glass;
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea;
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene!

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave–there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide;
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven!
The waves have now a redder glow,
The hours are breathing faint and low;
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Here, Read · Illustration Art · Interviews · Richard Corben

Look Here, Read: A visit with Richard Corben from 1972…

From Realm #5 (October 1972), here’s “[Journey to] Gore’s Dungeon,” a short article in which cartoonist and fanzine publisher/editor Ed Romero describes a visit to Richard Corben’s home and studio “in the rolling hills of southern Kansas City, Missouri”; also in attendance was a young writer, Jan Strnad, who happened to be in the process of rounding up the stories and cover artwork for Fever Dreams #1:

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Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Book/Magazine Covers (Jones) · Commonplace Book · Frank Frazetta · Here, Read · Illustration Art · Jeffrey "Jeff" Catherine Jones · Look Here · YouTube Finds · Zebra/Kensington Covers (Jones)

Louise Simonson on Frank Frazetta, Jeffrey Jones, and photo reference…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=25tkCaVablg

Below is a partial transcript of the above clip, with bold added for emphasis:

“Well, when Jeff did work for Warren, I wasn’t there [working for Warren] yet. I was, uhm, working in advertising promotion and, for another publisher, a magazine publisher in the city [New York]. Uhm, I think during this time Jeff may have discovered using reference? And it made a huge difference in his work. I remember at one point he, he, it suddenly occurred to him… okay, all right, back in the olden days there was a story that Frank Frazetta said that he never used reference and anybody who used reference was cheating. So a generation of young artists grew up thinking using reference is bad and cheating and this is, I don’t know, I don’t know why Frank did that because I know he used reference, I know he did. [Laughter.] Uhm, anyway, so I guess at one point Jeff just cracked and started using reference and his work got, it took a huge leap forward, so I do remember that, and I believe that was, maybe some of that might have been during the Warren period. Uhm, he just did a few things for Warren. He didn’t do that much.”

— Louise Simonson, Better Things Panel, San Diego Comic Con 2011



“My work looks the way it looks because I shoot reference.
I need that information, then I can play with it.” — Jeffrey Jones, in conversation with George Pratt



RELATED COMMENT:


BONUS SCAN:

From my very own library of brittle old paperbacks:

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To view all of the Zebra/Kensington editions of Robert E. Howard’s books with Jones covers that I’ve posted so far, click here.

Keywords: The Vultures of Whapeton.

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Drawing · Illustration Art · Lee Elias · Look Here · Original art vs. printed page

Look Here: CHAMBER OF CHILLS #11 cover and original art by Lee Elias

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The element that distinguishes Lee Elias’s work here from your run-of-the-mill, damsel-in-distress comic-book cover is the half-naked guy on the ground grasping helplessly at the leg of the evil doer. More typically in fantasy art, it’s the girl who is on the ground, hanging onto the leg of the man, who is cast in the role of heroic protector. Elias’s canny subversion of that tired cliché reveals an artist who has not simply gone through the motions on a routine cover assignment but has thought his way through to a creative solution that gives the obligatory horror and cheesecake a playful tweak on the nose.

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Heads Up! · Illustration Art · Look Here · Look There · Richard Corben

Look There, Read: Jan Strnad and Richard Corben on RAGEMOOR

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Westfield Comics Blog has an interview with longtime friends and legendary comics collaborators, Jan Strnad and Richard Corben, about their forthcoming four-issue Dark Horse mini-series, Ragemoor, which the publisher describes as follows:

Ragemoor! A living castle, nurtured on pagan blood, harborer to deadly monsters! A fortress possessed of its own will and ability to change itself, with the power to add and destroy rooms and to grow without the help of any human hand. Its owner is mad with jealously, its servants aren’t human, and its secret’s horrific!

Issue #1 of Ragemoor will be available in March. So men let your wallets flop out, and women open your purses, because a man or a woman without a copy of Ragemoor will be suffering with the worstest of curses!

In other words, HEADS UP!


“I’ve had a long career in comics, doing it the way I wanted, mostly. I’m grateful for what success I’ve had. I still love the possibility of comics, as a medium to tell the stories I want to, not just the ones that sell big. I still have some goals to achieve and skills to develop so I don’t intend to retire ever. I’m going to continue doing comics until I drop.”
Richard Corben in conversation, Westfield Comics Blog, January 2012



BONUS COVER:

I’m a bit late with this one, but of course Corben fans will also want to pick up the Murky World one-shot, available in stores now from Dark Horse:

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Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Heads Up! · Illustration Art · Look Here · Mike Mignola

Heads Up: HELLBOY LIBRARY EDITION VOLUME 5

Coming in July 2012 from Dark Horse:

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As usual, here’s the publisher’s description:

HELLBOY LIBRARY EDITION VOLUME 5 HC

Mike Mignola (W/Cover), Duncan Fegredo (A), and Dave Stewart (C)

On sale July 11
FC, 408 pages
$49.99
HC, 9″ x 12″

Hellboy has racked up multiple Eisner Awards, numerous spinoffs, a novel line, video games, cartoons, and two feature films. Hellboy Library Volume 5 collects two complete trade paperbacks, Darkness Calls and The Wild Hunt; the short story “The Mole”; and an extensive selection of previously unreleased sketches and designs.

* The oversized Hellboy hardcover series continues, collecting the beginning of the Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo saga!

* An extensive selection of new sketchbook material.

* A New York Times bestseller!

Even without artwork by Corben, the Dark Horse “library editions” of Hellboy are on my “must-have” list of comics publications. They’re GRRRRRREAT!

Book/Magazine Covers (All) · Heads Up! · Illustration Art · Look Here · Richard Corben

Heads Up: CREEPY PRESENTS RICHARD CORBEN

Coming in July 2012 from Dark Horse:

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Here’s the publisher’s description:

CREEPY PRESENTS RICHARD CORBEN

Richard Corben (W/A/Cover), Donald F. McGregor (W), Greg Potter (W), Doug Moench (W), Bill DuBay (W), Steve Skeates (W), Rich Margopoulos (W), Jim Stenstrum (W), Gerry Boudreau (W), Budd Lewis (W), Bruce Jones (W), Roger McKenzie (W), Gerald Conway (W), Al Hewetson (W), Jack Butterworth (W), and Greg Potter (W)

On sale July 18
FC, 320 pages
$29.99
HC, 8 3/8″ x 10 7/8″

Over 300 pages of timeless terror from a master storyteller! Horror comics visionary and coloring pioneer Richard Corben has been a voice of creativity and change for over four decades. For the first time ever, Corben’s legendary Creepy and Eerie short stories and cover illustrations are being collected into one deluxe hardcover! With an informative foreword by artist and comic book colorist José Villarrubia — who also provides color restoration — this volume features Richard Corben’s original stories, Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, and collaborations with cast of comic-book writers.

* Essential stories and illustrations from Richard Corben!

* The first collection of all of Corben’s legendary Creepy and Eerie stories!

This is great news, but what we really want is the complete underground and self-published comics of Richard Corben! Giddy-up, Dark Horse!