RICHARD CORBEN: GRAND MASTER

The Directors of Spectrum are pleased to announce that Richard Corben is the recipient of the 2009 Grand Master Award.

Richard Corben

"He is everything we're talking about when describing what makes a Grand Master," says Mark Chiarello, art director for DC Comics and Spectrum Advisory Board member. "Brilliant, an individual, astoundingly influential, a master of fantasy, horror, science fiction and comedic art, whose career has lasted longer and is more fruitful than anyone else I've ever seen. Richard is one of the five or six true geniuses in comics history."

Richard Vance Corben was born in Anderson, Missouri on October 1, 1940, and grew up in Sunflower (now Desoto), Kansas, a town built for workers at the government's Sunflower Ordinance Works during World War II. Encouraged to pursue art by his parents, he enrolled in the Kansas City Art Institute and studied drawing and painting. The Art Institute's emphasis was primarily on Fine Art and didn't offer courses in film, but Corben nevertheless bucked tradition and produced an animated short based on "The Labors of Hercules" as his senior project.

After graduating with a BFA he served six months in the Army Reserves and worked construction before landing a job in 1963 as an artist/animator/cameraman at Calvin Productions, a company that produced training films for businesses. It was during his nine-year-tenure at Calvin that Richard married his wife Dona and also began to flex his artistic muscles and express his independence. His first professional sale was a cover painting for the September 1967 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction; he also started to submit illustrations and comics to a host of fanzines like Weirdom, Photon, and Voice of Comicdom. For fun he spent the better part of 1968 creating a short film, Neverwhere. The movie's live-action opening quickly transitions into animation and tells the story of an Everyman that stumbles into another dimension and is transformed into a nude warrior-hero. Stark and moody, Neverwhere received a C.I.N.E. Golden Eagle Award and the President of Japan Cultural Society trophy – and also introduced audiences to what would become Corben's most famous character, Den.

Comic page from "Beast of Wolfton" (Grim Wit, 1972)

Fantagor cover by Corben

From fanzines he graduated to Underground Comix and the success of his stories for Fantagor, Grim Wit, Skull, and others caught the attention of the mainstream publishers. His stories appeared in Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, Metal Hurlant, and Heavy Metal. Richard co-created what is arguably the first graphic novel [Bloodstar, 1979] and also began painting book covers for everyone from Edgar Rice Burroughs to Robert Silverberg. He continues to draw comics (The Hulk, Bigfoot, Hellboy), take life-drawing classes, sculpt, and experiment with computer art.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man cover by Richard Corben

"Corben changed more things, addressed more issues (eco-comics, gender commentary, etc.), and pushed the margins," says Board member and fellow artist Rick Berry. "He's also a genuine member of the Underground Revolution."

A bio and full appreciation of Richard will appear in the upcoming Spectrum 16.

Album cover for Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, 1977

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