Rejected Projects

Sometimes planned and/or advertised projects for some reason or other never realize. Or they appeared under different name or in different form.

There is no record how many different animation/movie productions Mr. Corben has been through. Richard Corben’s Art Book #2 (1994) lists only some. Also Flights into Fantasy (1981) shows several photos of unlisted live action movies. Pg 45 has “Return of the Box”, and “Mondo Amore”. There is no record of the first one, but the latter is prob. part of the later published video movie, The Dark Planet (1989). The Dark Planet video was a mixture of several old projects. Pg 44 (of Flights into Fantasy) talks about “Creatures of the Box”, which is sequel for “Return of the Box”. Stop-action animation was scheduled for completion by the summer of 1981. FoolCon4 Souvenir Program (1982) includes a mention of release of it.

Amazons Below (around 1990)
History: A screenplay Mr. Corben wrote (around 1990?). Appeared later under different name, “From the Pit”, though only first two chapter exists.

Cosmic Hunter Cosmic Hunter (1994)
Mentioned: In Richard Corben Art Book [#1] (1990) next the illustration under the same name. As said next to the illustration: The second promotional illustration for a possible comic series as noted for Necromancy on the previous page. In this story, an android policeman is continually after a human criminal barely missing him on several different planets. Never realized. See also Necromancy (1994), and Pilgor (1984).

Dreams of an Ancient World (1986)
Advertised in: Rip in Time #2 (1986).
History: Aside of the Art Print (under that very same name) Mr. Corben explains of his idea to make an story of an American indian version of The Beauty and the Beast. Only a single Art Print exists from that idea, and he never pronounced the possible name for it. There is a dead bison and on it an athletic indian woman, similar to the Kil’s outlook in the story, “Children of Fire”. Never realized.

Eram (2007)
Time: 2007. Revealed: José Villarubia in April 18, 2014 in a Richard Corben Facebook group.
Contents: Realizes a three page B&W beginning and a color promotional pict (see Red Shooter).

Fantagor #5 (1974)
Listed: In an interview of Infinity #5 (1973). Plan: Possible ought to come out around 1973 to 1975, because his other project, a comic book adaption of Phili José Farmer’s A Feast Unknown (1975) supposed to wait till this comic book is out. The cap between Fantagor #4 and #5 was prob. not intedted to be that long since #4 was printed in 1972. Question: What was going to be in Fantagor #5 year 1974? Delay: Comic book was out not until trilogy Jeremy Brood #1: Relativity (1982) cooled down and he decided to make a hit by truck endind for the story [the conclusion appeared first time in Fantagor #5 (1983)].

A Feast Unknown (1975)
Listed: In an interview of Infinity #5 (1973). Plan: A comic book adaption of Phili José Farmer’s A Feast Unknown (1975), one story spread out over the length of two comic books in full color, which have to wait till Fantagor #5 (1983) is out. Altered: That didn’t happen, but he did provide a cover and a few illustrations for a new printing (1975) of the book.

From the Dark (1991)
Advertised in: The Comics Buyer’s Guide, Son of Mutant World #5 (1990).
Exchange: The title was changed to Horror in the Dark and comic book serial was published under that new name. Reason: They thought that the original title was too close to the other existing (non-Corben) title Tales from the Darkside.

From the Pit #1 From the Pit #1 to #7 (1994)
Format: A seven (7!) issue full color serial (on high quality paper, same as “DenSaga”), based on Mr. Corben’s screenplay he wrote several years before called, “Amazons Below”. Printed only the first issue. Reason: Fantagor Press went bankruptcy after first issue came out. Afterprint: The rest of existing (20 pgs), unpublished story was printed later in Odds and Ends (2009) in B&W.

Horror in the Dark #1 to #5 (1991) *Partly realized*
Altered: Actually this title was printed [See also From the Dark (1991)]. But they did not only change the title, they neither never published last issue, issue #5. And there was even planned an extra story #6! The serial was forced to appear only as 4 issue long. The last story (for issue #5) was printed alongside with story #4 in issue #4. The missing extra story was added into Tradebook version (were all stories were printed together) as a story #0, because it was kind of the opening story. Reason for the cut down number: Bad selling figures.

Jeremy Brood #2 & #3 (1982) *Partly realized*
Advertised in: Heavy Metal #71 (1983).
Contents: The other two chapters for the beginning of the epic story “Jeremy Brood”. Never realized. Reason: Because of the bad selling numbers of the first issue, the serial was forced to cancel. Jan Strnad wrote a hit by a truck ending instead, “The Big Shriek!” The new, quick ending was completely different than what it was planned to be. See also The Jan Strnad interview.

Legacy of Horror (production year unknown)
Listed: in Richard Corben’s Art Book #2 (1984), pg 21, with a color photo of rat creature.
Format: Prob. puppet animation. Unfinished.

Mutant World [III] (1990)
Mentioned: In Comics Scene #14 (1990) was an article, “Return to the Mutant Planet”, by Scott Lobdell. Author, Mr. Strnad and Mr. Corben are talking about a new serial “Son of Mutant World”. Mr. Corben mentioned that if his new serial will be very successful, he’s prepared to stand and deliver several more generations of offspring (of “Mutant World”). But because Mr. Strand would be tight with other projects, the story would have been written by Mr. Corben himself. Untitled. Never realized.

Necromancy Necromancy (1994)
Mentioned: In Richard Corben Art Book [#1] (1990) next the illustration under the same name. As said next to the illustration: After some bad business dealing with my version of The Fall of the House of Usher [A Corben Special #1 (1984)] and the Jeremy Brood (1982) graphic novel, I needed to rebuild the family’s resources. With Simon Revelstroke, a writer of great imagination and descriptive skills, I wanted to promote another project to Heavy Metal Magazine (1977). We put together three packages, each with an illustration and synopsis. Necromancy was to have been a rough adaptation of Clark Ashton Smith’s Necromancy in Naat, a deliciously morbid story where both the hero and his lover end up as the living dead. Never realized. See also Cosmic Hunter (1994), and Pilgor (1984).

Odds and Ends (1994)
Advertised in: The end of DenSaga #4 (1994).
Contents: A 300 page collection of short stories with many underground strips. Never realized. Reason: Prob. because Fantagor Press went bankruptcy after next quarterly issue, From the Pit (1994). See also Underground #4 (1986). Extra: Though there exists a Robert Crumb sketch book under the same name…

Pilgor (1994) *Realized*
Mentioned: In Richard Corben Art Book [#1] (1990) next the illustration under the name, “Pilgor and the Worm”. As said next to the illustration: The third promotional piece, the one Heavy Metal Magazine (1977) chose, developed into The Bodyssey (1986) series. I wanted to tie some of the Pilgor pictures together in a humorous adventure. Here, I painted over a photograph of an old cover [Kitchen Sink’s Bizarre Sex #5 (1976)] adding the figure of Pilgor. See also Necromancy (1994), and Pilgor (1984).

Playboy (1979)
Time: 1979. Exists only a sheet of character design.

Red Shooter (2007), see Eram

Richard Corben Complete Works, Underground #4 (1986)
Advertised in: Den [I]: Neverwhere (2nd: Nov. 1985, Catalan) as up coming in 1986: Bodyssey, Underground, books 2, 3, and 4. Underground, book 1 was already out.
Contents: Unknown. Maybe this unpublished 4th Underground book has a link to later (also never published) Odds and Ends (1994) collection book. Never realized. Reason: Unknown.

Rowlf Picks Up Rowlf (1972?)
Listed: in Richard Corben’s Art Book #2 (1984), pg 21, without a photo. There it is dated as 1972, but it was also mentioned in an interview, The Magic World of Richard Corben by Rudi Franke in Voice of Comicdom #17 (Winter 1970!) , “Rowlf was first conceived a couple of years ago [!] not as a comic story, but as a film”. [read more: Movies]
Format: A full-length animated film. Abandoned. Extra: Also a Japanise animation company was interested of the story. Production year around thirty years after Mr. Corben’s own. Never realized? Extra2: In Infinity #5 (1973), there’s an April, 1973 interview with Corben by Jan Strnad where, on page 17, Corben says, “One firm is interested in making a full-length animated film of “Rowlf” using the comic book art as a basis for the movie. I’m not sure they know how much work they’re getting into, but I’ve told them to go ahead and shoot a 30 second test section and then I’d tell them whether I approve or not.”

Skull Island (1975)
Listed: in Richard Corben’s Art Book #2 (1984), pg 21, with a B&W photo of puppets.
Format: Prob. puppet animation. Abandoned.

Son of Mutant World #1 to #5 (1990) *Realized partly in B&W*
Altered: This serial was also printed as planned, but after #3 they had to drop colors off and the rest of the story was in B&W. Reason: The old and the same, bad selling numbers. Extra: This story has never been published in English completely in color. All translated, foreign prints are in color.

Star Beat (1968)
Partly published: in Thirteen (13th) Floor Elevator #10. (1985?) printed the first two pages with a letter from Mr. Corben.
Format: An 8 page story. Concluded (?) but never printed entirely.

Warren stories (around 1968)
Unpublished: “[Corben] drew several [B&W] stories for CREEPY on speculation. Unfortuneately none of these were accepted”. [corbenstudios] Extra: Two panels (of possiby those stories) were published in Eerie #16 (1968).

Rejected / Altered / Unfinished Projects