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Haven’t read it (either the original prose or the Corben volume) in decades, but I’m pretty sure Howard’s story is *not* one of his Cthulhu Mythos works.

The story, entitled “The Valley of the Worm,” can be found in the volume entitled “Cthulhu: The Mythos and Kindred Horrors” by Robert E. Howard, edited by David Drake (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1987) p. 91. All the stories in this volume are considered to be amongst Howard’s Cthulhu Mythos.

You should check your facts before you go around correcting other people.

Great to see some good press for Corben. One thing I’d like to point out, however, is that it is clear from your description of Corben’s book that your review is of the second edition of BLOODSTAR, which was published by Ariel Books in crisp black and white and serialized in colour in HEAVY METAL magazine, and not the first edition. As you may or may not be aware, there is a difference. The first edition of BLOODSTAR, which was published in hardcover by The Morning Star Press, with the cover image posted with your review, did not include the sections of purple prose between the chapters and the dialogue and captions were nowhere near as egregiously overwritten as they are in the second edition. Which is to say, if your readers are Corben fans, they owe it to themselves to search out a copy of the first edition; many who’ve read both editions prefer it (despite the ugly typeset text, which for the second edition was professionally, and rather blandly, re-lettered by hand). BLOODSTAR is no masterpiece—Corben’s graphic storytelling is the main attraction—but as a milestone of sorts in the history of the graphic novel, it does deserve to be remembered in its best iteration.

“Howard’s short story had taken place during the Dark Ages after the fall of Rome”. A careful reading of “The Valley of the Worm”, as well of Howard’s essay “The Hyborian Age”, will show you that this wonderful story takes place after Conan’s Age and before the last cataclysms.

I’ve of course read the short story, as a careful reading of the comment from 11/12/08 above will show. The graphic novel is not set during the Dark Ages, but rather the future after a catastrophe. The short story and the graphic novel are two different things.

Bloodstar is one of my favorite stories.  I have the second edition (now falling apart, but still re-read every now and then) and I show it to everyone who is interested in great comic art.

Richard Corben is the most cinematic comics artist working.  He can convey horror by just drawing his protagonist’s face in a silent panel, reacting to things that happened in the panels before.  Much like Eisenstein (sp?) and his experiment with editing, he involves you in the emotions of the story. 

I wonder of Mr. Corben’s way of storytelling came to be because of his relative isolation in Kansas, far away from the hubbub of New York and its comics world?  Other than a Maxfield Parrish influence (visible in some of his paintings) I cannot see where his style came from.  Mr. Corben is like nobody else.  I recommend seeking out all his works.

Yes, good point about his isolation from the NY style in Kansas. I do see some R. Crumb influences, though, especially in his earlier stuff. I, too, have been a lifelong fan of Corben’s work. He is an underrated and underappreciated master of comic art.

As “graphic novels” go this is a pretty good, one of my favorites. Sadly, you’ve evidently never seen or heard of the graphic novels that predate this one.  Two on that list are created by Gil Kane. Both “My Name is Savage” and “Blackmark” utilize more than just length to determine the graphic novel format. Both of these are a unique marriage of actual prose, dialogue and art. Blackmark is like nothing created since.
The argument made these days is that length determines what a graphic novel is. That’s a cop-out because than anything longer than a standard comic pamphlet qualifies as a graphic novel. If that were the case there were multi-comic story arcs long before this saw print and they would qualify as graphic novels too. Using the exact same layout and storytelling process doesn’t pass as a graphic novel. Instead it’s just a really long comic.
One of the reasons I point out Blackmark was that it was even published like a novel and marketed as such on top of the utilization of a different method, look and actual length. That was in 1971. Also like all things unique it sold poorly (how do you sell a hybrid that was not guite a comic but not quite a standard novel?), slowly becoming a closet success and finally a prized and critically acclaimed collectible.
Blackmark was reprinted through Fantagraphics several years ago and has the bonus of a larger trade paperback format size as well as the second book of the continuing saga bound into that single edition. I hope you take the time to give it a look.
Then again…..
I won’t even touch Will Eisner’s work for reasons of length here, but arguable some of his books predate these and the style used is not standard comic storytelling either (and there’s a comic that’s novel length from the late fifties titled “Rhymes with Lust”, and yes, I have that too).
So, while I like this book (have the signed and numbered edition on my shelf) it’s nowhere close to being the first graphic novel.
I hope you do better research in your future articles. And, yes, this is a rather contentious issue in the medium.

It’s amazing how many people have difficulty keeping the history of the term “graphic novel” separate from the history of novel-length or long-form or whatever comics, though it’s really quite simple.. On the one hand, BLOODSTAR definitely was one of the first long-form comics to be packaged and marketed explicitly as a “graphic novel,” a term that was coined in 1964 by Richard Kyle and took more that ten years to catch on with publishers and readers. That’s just a fact. On the other hand, BLOODSTAR definitely is not one of the first long-form comics (what people, in retrospect, without regard to etymology, have learned to call “graphic novels”) and nobody who is the least bit knowledgeable about comics would ever claim that it is. Clear now?

What’s clear is your ignoring history you supposedly espouse to have some knowledge. Just because something is called and marketed as the “first” graphic novel is no reason to ignore the graphic novels that came before it. I know, you think by blogging this calculated subject and having people tell you you’re not really as in touch as you thought you were takes the wind out of your sails. Perhaps had you really done your homework and not invested so much of yourself into this one assertion the sting wouldn’t be so bad.
The lesson from here on is simple- do your homework and don’t base your own opinions on those established by a marketing campaign.
For what it’s worth I learned more about this subject of graphic novels from other, better informed people too. Learning is good. Denial is an impediment to gaining knowledge, regardless of how embarrassing or esoteric it may seem to be.
One last thing to note, technically BLOODSTAR is not novel length. As an expansion on a short story it still only counts as a novella in page count. It’s only 93 pages in length. BLACKMARK, which predates BLOODSTAR by five years and is not just a long comic and was printed in an actual novel format with prose intact is a full 30 pages longer. And that’s just my example. there are others long before that one.
Are you clear?

Ah, I see the problem now, Rich. You can’t, or won’t, read what’s plainly in front of you. I already conceded that “BLOODSTAR definitely is not one of the first long-form comics.” What part of that do you not understand? Seriously? However, I continue to insist—and unlike you, I HAVE done my homework on this; I hashed this out with Domingos Isabelinho, Andrei Molotiu, Dan Parmenter, Jeet Heer, Robert Beerbohm, and others on The Comics Journal forum back in 2004, and the conclusions we reached, backed up by comics historians like R.C. Harvey, have shaped much of the discussion since then, including the Wikipedia entry for “graphic novel” —as I say, I continue to insist that BLOODSTAR definitely has an important place (along with at least two other seminal works) in ANY account of the history, i.e., the ETYMOLOGY, of the term “graphic novel.” I assume you know what etymology is, but if you don’t, please look it up before you embarrass yourself any further.

Sorry to disappoint you and your scholars but i know what a novel is and I know what the term graphic means. And, yes, it is that simple despite you or anyone’s opinions. As much as I respect R.C. Harvey and others at the Comic’s journal they’re not speaking for the history of the entire medium.
You’re all falling for the simplest ruse and that’s whoever makes the loudest claim has to be correct. It doesn’t work in politics or philosophy. It works in the arena of commerce but history, even history ignored or forgotten does not change.
As for the derivation of words, or etymology, it all boils down to the notion -a concept, really- by which people who think by setting down some precedent, however sincerely, that by virtue of putting something down first that act alone makes their claim to it absolute. Making the misguided assumption that because they are credited as establishing a nomenclature that they invented it is not just a stretch, it is not even the truth. Gil Kane’s dead so he can’t argue it and neither can a lot of others created graphic novels before the one you credit. However, their work brings serious question to just who made up what.
Bottom line; a name is just that. A claim unchallenged is not the truth. What matters most is what the term describes and not who can claim they used it first.  Besides, your claim, and that of others, that BLOODSTAR is the first graphic novel by way of scholarly consensus is hardly an established truth. It’s more about like minds agreeing. More than a few question just who these experts are in this area of expertise? Comics and sequential storytellers are a rebellious and independent lot. They don’t exactly hold to any opinions foisted on them.
That’s what makes this medium great.
You’ve not even bothered to address the length issue. The other thing at issue is the fact that for all intents and purposes this “graphic novel” is designed and formatted like any comic book. The only thing that sets it apart is it’s hardcover binding which is later released in a trade paperback binding.
It wasn’t even sold as a “novel”.
So, really, this is all about a claim made and nothing about the book is particularly revolutionary from format, subject matter or even it’s graphic handling of the narrative.
By the way, glad to know you own a dictionary.
That changes nothing. It’s amazing that you (and your compatriots) are making the sweeping assumption of this being the “first” graphic novel by virtue of an editorial decision to use the term on a jacket blurb. That’s pretty funny. So, by this assertion real poetry didn’t exist until someone made a point of referring to it as such in the book collecting the poem or poems? I guess the same rule applies to novels themselves?
That’s rich.

I’m going to try to explain this one more time…

For a long time, Will Eisner claimed to have invented the term graphic novel. In fact, he did so from the publication of CONTRACT WITH GOD basically until his death, and his story was picked up by many self-styled historians of the medium and repeated ad nauseam in enclyopedias and elswhere. But the plain fact is, Eisner did NOT invent the term “graphic novel..” “The term ‘graphic novel,’ as it applies to the ‘long form comic book,’” writes R.C. Harvey, “was originally coined in November 1964 by Richard Kyle in a newsletter circulated to all members of the Amateur Press Association.” After the term was invented, however, it did not immediately catch on with artists, publishers, or anyone else. Other terms were tried. “Visual novel,” for example, like “graphic novel,” is part of the story about the attempt to find a distinctive name for long-form sequential art narratives. Steranko’s CHANDLER: RED TIDE, for instance, was published with the term “visual novel” on the cover. Even BLOODSTAR, which was explicitly identified on the book jacket and in the introduction as a new thing, a “graphic novel,” was advertised (in one place, at least) as “The World’s First Comic Art Novel!” 

Now, you may not like it, or you may think it unimportant, but the fact is, etymologically speaking, it IS significant a) where the words “graphic novel” first appear in print—first in a theoretical discussion of what the comics medium is capable of, and later on the jackets and in the promotional materials of actual books—and b) how the term has come to be used to refer to works that are not especially long, and not fiction, and so on. All of the uses and abuses of the term “graphic novel” are part of its history.

Now, once the term “graphic novel” gained acceptance, once it became synonymous with long-form comics, then it became possible to identify all kinds of books as “graphic novels,” even, *gasp*, books that appeared before the term was invented (although, ironically, when Richard Kyle coined the term, he was thinking not about what had been achieved in the medium but what COULD BE achieved, i.e., he was thinking about the future, not the past.)

Thus, BLACKMARK is now called a graphic novel, even though it was not referred to as such at the time of its publication. (In fact, nobody even thought to look for the first graphic novel—a fool’s errand, IMHO, but that’s another story—before the term gained wider acceptance.)  And some, like you, Rich, give it a prominent place in the history of graphic novels. But BLACKMARK’s place in the history of graphic novels, whatever that place is, is distinct from its place in the history of the term “graphic novel.” Simply put, BLACKMARK has NO special place in etymology of the term “graphic novel”; BLOODSTAR does.

Look back in this topic. I never said that BLOODSTAR was the first graphic novel. I repeat: I NEVER SAID THAT BLOODSTAR WAS THE FIRST GRAPHIC NOVEL. What I said was that it was “one of the first long-form comics to be packaged and marketed explicitly as a ‘graphic novel.’” And whether you like it or not, that is precisely what gives BLOODSTAR its special place in the etymology of the term “graphic novel.”

Correction: “encyclopedias and elsewhere” (not “enclyopedias and elswhere”). Post in haste, repent at leisure. ;)

BTW, whether or not something is a novel has nothing whatsoever to do with page count or format (small hardcover, paperback, whatever). Kerouac’s ON THE ROAD is, by all accounts, a novel, and it didn’t just become a novel when it was published, or when it was published in a particular, Rick-approved format. It was a novel from the moment Kerouac finished typing it out on what he called “the scroll,” a continuous, one hundred and twenty-foot long coil of paper. It was a novel when it was published in hardcover; it was a novel when it was published it paperback; it’s a novel when someone reads it as a pirated PDF on the Web; and so on. Similarly, Mary Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN was a novel when it was written out longhand; it was a novel when it appeared in various hardcover and softcover editions from established publishers; it was a novel when it appeared, in two different editions, at the same physical size as BLOODSTAR with illustrations by Bernie Wrightson; it’s a novel when someone uses a Web browser to read it as an HTML or TXT file from Project Gutenberg; it’s a novel on my Kindle; it’s a novel on somebody else’s iPhone, etc, etc.

BTW, Rick, are you aware that Gil Kane had a hand in the creation of BLOODSTAR? Check out the Wikipedia entry for BLOODSTAR for the details.

“Look back in this topic. I never said that BLOODSTAR was the first graphic novel. I repeat: I NEVER SAID THAT BLOODSTAR WAS THE FIRST GRAPHIC NOVEL.”

Perhaps you need to read the heading you placed on this article to get my point.
Also, there’s nothing in that article regarding other books that were graphic novels.
Your words-
“..as a comic book tale designed specifically to be read in a large format volume. The book was not based upon previously published material and it is the first to specifically refer to itself as a “graphic novel” on its dust jacket. Thus, as in the case of so many other media, the medium of the graphic novel was born as the result of a cross-fertilization of two other media: pulp fiction and comic books (film, for example, was the result of the cross fertilization of photography and theater; opera was born in the early seventeenth century as the result of the cross fertilization of Greek tragedy and classical music; etc. etc.).”

The way that is written leaves the impression that this was the first of it’s kind when you know it wasn’t. I’m not trying to split hairs here. I’m giving context to what you chose to leave out and how that is seen as an omission of the facts as we know them. You made no effort to acknowledge what came before. You even admit in your response that the term Graphic Novel was coined much earlier than BLOODSTAR saw print. Also, what’s the difference between “Picture Novels” and “Graphic Novels”?

I’m not even saying it’s such a big deal, I’m just pointing out that your article’s heading and assertions made within it fail to give credit to the history of graphic novels in the comic book medium.
Personally, I hate the term Graphic Novel because of all the stupid excuses for what a graphic novel now encompasses.

Had you written about what a great book you think BLOODSTAR is without injecting what’s easily seen as an assertion that it’s the “first of it’s kind” and how it supposedly shaped the medium there would be little for me to respond to except that, indeed, BLOODSTAR is a fine book in the graphic narrative tradition.
Then there’s the issue of this format being almost exclusively used for decades in Europe. America did not even invent the big format, painted panel, novel length comic. A French buddy of mine,  Alan Cresswell, who’s a physics professor at Shippensburg Univ. PA, has graphic novels from French and other European publishers (Eastern and Western) that date back to the late fifties.
How did Morning Star Press influence something that predates them by almost 20 years?
That’s my whole issue with your contention that the etymology matters even when you only bring it up after the article is written.
For the most part I like your article. The love you have for this book in particular and the medium as a whole is evidenced throughout the piece. And, yes, I get your contention that Will Eisner is given, and took, a lot of credit for the invention of something he certainly did not invent. I love Eisner and Corben and many others’ work, but the credit likely goes to a braver soul than any of these, to a creator who is in all likelihood lost in history because they chose to do something people did not understand or appreciate. (In Gil Kane’s case Blackmark was terribly mishandled because no one knew what to do with the thing. It was originally stocked and shelved with the rest of the paperback novels but was discovered to be different enough that some store clerks bounced it into other parts of their stores from the art section to collected comic strips, and back to the SF novel sections. It fell by the wayside only to later become a collectible, cult hit.)
 
Can we not just appreciate the work we know without making attempts to hold anything over anyone? The egos of individual creators (and, sadly, their fans) are enough to contend with without us taking up their cause or rallying against them. As a reader I can only comment on the content of that which appeals to me. For me, that’s as much responsibility as I care to have in the crafting of potentially historic opinion. As far as etymology goes, really, since historical precedent tends to work backwards as easily as forward, does it really matter that the name that stuck was pasted on one book when others like it, or even more suited to that name, preceded it by decades? Personally, given the baggage the term now carries, what does it matter? It’s misused daily by people who THINK they know what they’re talking about.

That said, I’ll clam up. I’m only adding to a fire in a metal waste can. Few will care and fewer will even remember.

[Here’s Corben’s version of the genesis of BLOODSTAR, taken from the artist’s infamous 1981 HEAVY METAL interview with Brad Balfour:]

WHEN DID YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH EISNER BEGIN?

Indirectly - I didn’t know he lived in Kansas City. He was a partner with Gil Kane, who lives in Connecticut. They had some high ideals about doing graphic novels, whereas he was going to do some of them but needed other artists. He got in touch with me first, and I had to think about working on that project. It was after I had agreed to do the job with Gil Kane and I found out that his partner was Armand. Then they moved to Kansas City. The idea of Bloodstar with the star on his head was Gil Kane’s. I believe at the time I was at the beginning stages of BLOODSTAR. Armand was still finishing graduate work in southern California.

HOW LONG DID BLOODSTAR TAKE?

That took about nine months, and it was done in black and white. I shipped the stuff to Gil Kane, as he was judging everything to make sure it was okay. BLOODSTAR is my favourite story so far. I felt it was the most organized of my long stories. I guess I liked it because it was long and I put so much of myself into it. The characters are more realized.

I’ll give you a rough breakdown on how it worked. It’s based loosely on a story by Robert E. Howard called “Valley of the Worm.” Gil Kane was acting as producer, and he also got the writer John Jakes to add quite a bit of additional material. I had the short story and the additional material to integrate together, and in doing so I did a final written version and all the breakdowns and designed the characters and practically wrote it from those two other pieces. My writing was rewritten again by one of the publishers - another writer. My version is the most simple, direct, and clear version of the story. The publisher had his own ideas about adding glory and passion to a story that was underwritten a little bit. They hired my services to do the color work. It’s done in my technique but I didn’t actually do the color.

[Funny how Gil Kane, in his role as “producer” of BLOODSTAR, had no problem promoting the book as “a new, revolutionary concept—a graphic novel, which combines all the imagination and visual power of comic strip art with the richness of the traditional novel” (see the original book jacket), while a defender of Gil Kane wants to argue that BLOODSTAR is anything but a graphic novel.]

“Perhaps you need to read the heading you placed on this article to get my point. Also, there’s nothing in that article regarding other books that were graphic novels.”

I didn’t place the heading on the article, and I didn’t write the article, Rick. John David Ebert did both, because HE IS THE AUTHOR, NOT ME!

“I didn’t place the heading on the article, and I didn’t write the article, Rick. John David Ebert did both, because HE IS THE AUTHOR, NOT ME!”

Sorry, but the way you were defending it I readily assumed you had a deeper interest. My mistake. So why do you care to defend a flawed position?

[Funny how Gil Kane, in his role as “producer” of BLOODSTAR, had no problem promoting the book as “a new, revolutionary concept—a graphic novel, which combines all the imagination and visual power of comic strip art with the richness of the traditional novel” (see the original book jacket), while a defender of Gil Kane wants to argue that BLOODSTAR is anything but a graphic novel.]

First, I never said the BLOODSTAR was not a graphic novel. Feel free to prove me wrong by quoting any such statement made by me.
Second, you and others are not the only people connected to this industry. I talked extensively to Gil for several years before his demise. That he produced this is not a surprise in retrospective but that doesn’t change his own efforts in changing the way the American comic market was seen.
Now, as the owner of the original edition of BLOODSTAR, there is no indication anywhere in the book regarding any producers. Since Gil never brought it up and he’s not listed, and I’ve yet to master mind reading I could not care less if Gil had a role in the creation of this book. In fact, seeing as his name is nowhere associated with any of the print in this book, what difference does the idea that he had a hand in it matter?
And even if it is true, that doesn’t change my points.
Why am I bothering to reply to your repeated attempts to dodge the issue at hand and that is the heading of this article states this is the first graphic novel, which is not anywhere close to the truth?
Context. Learn it. Reply from one, or go crawl up your thumb for all I care.

One last thing- wikipedia? Really. You do know that this is compiled mostly by guys who put it down to print just waiting for experts to correct them, right?
Seeing as Gil never mentioned BLOODSTAR over all the years we talked about the medium I think it might be safe to assume that someone wrote this and no one’s bothered to make a correction. Since he received no print credit all there is is a friendship between two creators and the respect for an older peer’s opinion.
The fact that Gil never brought this up is probably indicative of Gil feeling like he was more a supportive friend than expediter of the project.
Gil was not shy about taking credit for things that I otherwise would not have known he was even associated with. From “My boy…” to end of the whatever he was laying down I knew he was telling me something I either did not know, or at least he thought I did not know.

Wow, could you be more obtuse? The Wikipedia entry is based on the 1981 HEAVY METAL interview with Corben, the relevant section of which I’ve already posted (and which you can easily check on your own). Why on earth would Corben lie about Gil Kane’s involvement in BLOODSTAR? But never mind that, because I’m done responding to you Rick. It’s easy enough for any intelligent person to read what I’ve posted and see the MANY instances where you’ve either misinterpreted my comments or confused the position of the author of the article with my position, which it just so happens, is quite distinct from his. For one thing, I have made no claims whatsoever concerning which book is the first graphic novel—sans quotation marks—or which comics “influenced” which. But there’s no use going round on this again. You’re hopeless.

Very entertaining discussion, guys. While I am not a comics historian, and generally quit posting on this site specifically to avoid these kinds of technical discussions which miss the forest and get stuck on the tree bark, I am a historian of culture generally speaking. When, in culture studies, someone says, “this is the first example” of something that sets a medium going, they generally do not mean this literally, Rick. It’s a way of presenting a theme in order to develop a point.

For instance: Don Quixote is not the first novel, by any stretch of the imagination. However, it is often, in literary discussions referred to as the first novel in the western cultural cycle that began with the Grail romances and comes down to today. Others have said the Greeks invented the novel, much earlier. Technically, not true either, since there are other examples of prose epics that could qualify as novels. Aeschylus is held up as the first Greek tragedian. Is this “technically” true? No, there were one or two before him, but their works have been lost, and probably not accidentally, either, since Aeschylus survived because his plays so evidently captured and crystalized what the medium was about, and was the first to do so.

Only pedants carp on these kinds of details. Good writers and great minds who see not just whole forests, but entire topographies, don’t worry about these sorts of details because they miss the point of the argument. And the point is, Bloodstar stands out as the first graphic novel in the cycle that had influence on subsequent works leading directly down to today’s graphic novels. It wasn’t just some isolated example that some carping pedant later held up and said, “Hey, wait a minute, what about this old rag over here?” Bloodstar was the first conscious, and I stress the word, “conscious,” attempt to create a “graphic novel.” This is evident from Corben’s description in the Heavy Metal interview that Bruce quoted. And it has undeservedly been forgotten about. Corben in general gets overlooked these days, and I wrote this article to draw attention to his work, not to make an official entry in a comics encyclopedia.

Once again you accuse me of something I did not do, and that was to lie. Sorry, pal, the lying here is your own. The proof is in all of my responses.
And what are you credentials as a historian of culture? That of another consumer? Why is it that geniuses like yourself avoid the meat of the contention, lie about what is written by others, and then start spouting about your “credentials”?

“Only pedants carp on these kinds of details. Good writers and great minds who see not just whole forests, but entire topographies, don’t worry about these sorts of details because they miss the point of the argument. And the point is, Bloodstar stands out as the first graphic novel in the cycle that had influence on subsequent works leading directly down to today’s graphic novels.”

And who brought up such minute a detail as the boredom quoted above?
That’s right. You did.
You’re the one splitting hairs at this point, as well as mushroom clouding. First, the detail is who established the medium known as the graphic novel? Your answer: the guys who printed it in the blurb on the inside of a jacket cover.
Then you say that you agree that as the “first” GN it set an artistic precedent.
Wrong.
As it has been pointed out the precedent is older than this book. Then you mushroom cloud into calling me a liar when all I suggested is that wikipedia is not a good place to derive your references from, not even in direct quotes from previous material. Now had you quoted the actual issue of HM that had the interview, instead of the rather dubious wiki installment, I would lend it far more credence. But, and here’s the “GET” , IF you really do your research you would know that editors constantly shape the interviews they present before they even see print. That means even the interviews are not reliable. With your credentials you’d think you’d be aware of that fact, that editors routinely cull material out and change context to make the interviews more readable or even to ramp up the oomph factor.
As long as they don’t outright lie they get away with that. Frank Frazetta is one of the most misquoted guys around and just grew a thicker skin.
Now, had you bothered to call Richard Corben to verify what you read that would be one thing. Taking a second hand source as the sole arbiter of fact is not a reliable method at all. That alone brings any of your credentials into question. No professor would instruct such shorthand as well as unreliable approach to your information gathering.
And it’s a lie to make the assertion that BLOODSTAR was the first “conscious effort” at making a graphic novel. That’s assuming you know the mind of every creator out there before that. also, what about “Rhymes with Lust” from Picture Novels, Kane’s Savage and Blackmark, the British “Trigan Empire”, or Holland’s “Storm”, or Belgium’s “TinTin”?Those are the easy ones.
You can ignore those all you want but they all predate this “conscious effort”. I guess they were just copying something they’d never seen before and had the foresight to get their’s to print first, right?

As for Richard Corben being overlooked, well he’s not being as overlooked as those who came before him. Have you ever read about the shoddy treatment older and even somewhat current artists have received? Did you miss what happened to Reed Crandall, Gene Colon, Dave Cockrum, Herb Trimpe, John Buscema and so many others? Compared to all of those guys and more too numerous to list he’s sitting pretty good.
I love Richard’s work and have the book shelves loaded with his books to prove it. And, he’s not just well regarded and loved but manages every year to snag some project or other. He may not get the work you think he deserves but that’s neither here nor there. I have every DEN that was ever printed and ALL of his Fantagraphics, his work for Warren, HM, Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, etc. I even have his art books and his illustrated ed. of the John Carter novels from the SFBC. Not to sound like a broken record but I used to chat it up with him back in the late eighties and early nineties. After a move and a long time between conversations I wasn’t comfortable trying to keep the conversation going. Richard can get withdrawn from time to time and I decided to stop calling him, let him have his space. And, no, despite our yak sessions I only brought BLOODSTAR up once. He really didn’t volunteer a lot.
Now, you want to go off and accuse me of more lies be sure you quote my words. That’s the honest thing to do.

I’m definitely bowing out as I see I’ve addressed a different person entirely.
Oy….