By Richard Corben & Jan Strnad & various (Fantagor Press)
No ISBN: ASIN: B000EIU99A
Richard Corben is one of America’s most influential and gifted creators of graphic narrative: an animator, illustrator, publisher and cartoonist who began surfing the tumultuous wave of independent counterculture commix of the 1960s and 1970s and became a major international force in pictorial storytelling with his own unmistakable style and vision.
He is renowned for his mastery of airbrush and captivatingly excessive anatomical stylisation, all couched in an infamous predilection for delightfully wicked, darkly comedic horror and beguiling eroticism which permeates his horror, fantasy and science fiction tales.
Always garnering huge support and acclaim in Europe, he was regularly collected in luxurious albums (such as this Spanish-sponsored tome from Catalan Communications) even as he fell out of favour – and print – in his own country.
Post-Apocalyptic worlds figure prominently in Corben’s back-catalogue and the lighter side of Armageddon features heavily in this raucous and subversively black collection of vignettes from the artist and his long-term collaborator Jan Strnad. The story collected here was originally serialised in Heavy Metal magazine – albeit rather severely over-edited – and this collection restores the original text and intent.
After explanatory introductions from both Corben and Strnad, the hilarious horrors begin with a ‘prolog’ which introduces the shattered New World and its most sympathetic survivor: a mightily-thewed but intellectually challenged goof dubbed “Dimentoâ€â€¦
In the glowing rubble of civilisation hunger is everywhere and almost everything left alive wants to eat everything else, but when Dimento attacks a beautiful woman’s horse, she talks him out of his planned meal and stirs other longings in his simplistic, child-like heart. In gratitude for his forbearance, the buxom Julie directs him to stash of giant eggs, but en route he encounters mean old mutant bullies Zug, Dimlit and Weasel who waylay him and steal his meal.
It’s a theft one of the deformed bandits doesn’t live to regret…
The bound and gagged Dimento is still not safe however and is soon grabbed by yet another mutant predator and dragged off to be consumed. The child-like colossus is then saved by a warrior-priest who bears an uncanny resemblance to the hapless half-wit. Taken under the priest’s wing, Dimento becomes his beast of burden as Father Dove leaves the city for the trackless deserts that surround it. When sudden death comes for the violence-obsessed cleric the once-again solitary simpleton heads back to the destroyed cityscape he knows best…
Soon he has lost the food he “inherited†from Father Dove to weaker but smarter scavengers and when he sees again his beloved Julie she promptly betrays him to a ravaging gang to save her own unblemished skin…
After a Herculean effort the mighty waif breaks free and the marauders take out their anger and frustration on her. Unable to stand the sound of her screams the heartbroken Dimento rushes back to save her…
Unknown to everybody on the surface human civilisation did not end when The War began and observers from below constantly monitor the devastated world above. When one of them, Max, breaks protocol and attempts to save the dying woman, it opens the doors to a technological hell where callous geneticists dabble with the last of mankind’s children, creating a stream of monsters and rejects in their attempts to reshape humanity for the ruined new world…
As the origins of Dove, Dimento and many others are revealed, the terrified and confused man-child lashes out with unexpected savagery…
This spectacular Ragnarok fable also contains eight beautiful new pages to complete and conclude the poignant, savage and twisted love story of a mysteriously capable, simple survivor in a world he was literally born to inherit…
Explosively violent, trenchant, doom-laden, erotically charged and brutally funny, this seminal saga perfectly captured the tone of the times as the last days of Mutually-Assured-Destruction Cold War politics staggered to a close, and Strnad’s taut dialogue exemplifies the “just bomb us and get it over with†attitude that gripped a generation of kids fed up with waiting for the Big One. Moreover, Corben’s sublime acumen in depicting humanity’s primal drives in ludicrous extremis has never been better exemplified than here.
This marvellously mordant book is a tale no comics or fantasy fan should be without.
© 1982 Richard Corben and Jan Strnad. All rights reserved.