Previously, I’d mentioned Europe’s fascination with Rich Corben’s incredible Den arc of sustained storytelling.

Personally, I greatly enjoyed the Denz stories as published in Penthouse Comics in the mid-90’s, and that was well after seeing Heavy Metal, the movie [sample clip], years earlier as a laddie in 1981. (note: the story & art are merely licensed from Corben; likely he hated how it was represented)

Now, one of the most fascinating aspects about Corben’s mid-90’s art is the question of-- just how ‘organic vs. digital’ it was, actually. I mean-- just look at it. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, was producing art, nor comics art like that, at the time. So how the hell did Corben do it…?

https://imgur.com/a/E53jZ9t

“On the DENZ comic and a few covers and illustrations, I rendered some scanned art work and went over the forms in PAINTER, especially with a couple of specific brushes: BRUSHY, that creates a painterly texture and another one that I can’t remember the name of, that creates the paint texture without adding any other color.

These are both from very old versions of PAINTER and may not be present in later versions” --Richard Corben.

To be clear, Corben first created the art by hand, then scanned it, then fiddled with it via mid-90’s computer tools.

Richard Corben passed away at 80yo in 2020. [WP link]