Creepy Archives Volume 7

Richard Corben was born on a farm in Anderson, Missouri, and went on to get a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1965. After working as a professional animator, Corben started doing underground comics, including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Rowlf, Fever Dreams, and his own anthology Fantagor. In 1970 he began illustrating horror and science-fiction stories for Warren Publishing. His stories appeared in Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, 1984, and Comix International. He also colored several episodes of Will Eisner’s Spirit. In 1975, when Mœbius, Druillet, and Jean-Pierre Dionnet started publishing the magazine Métal Hurlant in France, Corben submitted some of his stories to them. He continued his work for the franchise in America, where the magazine was called Heavy Metal. In 1976 he adapted a short Robert E. Howard story in Bloodstar. In 2012 he was elected to the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame.

Frank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers, and other media. In the early 1950s, he worked for EC Comics, National Comics, Avon Comics, and several other companies. By 1964, one of Frazetta’s magazine ads caught the eye of United Artists studios. He was approached to do the movie poster for What’s New Pussycat? and earned his yearly salary in one afternoon. Frazetta also started producing paintings for paperback editions of adventure books. His cover for the sword-and-sorcery collection Conan the Adventurer by Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp caused a sensation—numerous people bought the book for its cover alone. From this point on, Frazetta’s work was in great demand. During this period he also did covers for other paperback editions of classic Edgar Rice Burroughs books, such as those from the Tarzan and Barsoom series. He also did several pen and ink illustrations for many of these books. Frazetta was inducted into the comic book industry’s Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1999. He was the subject of a 2003 documentary, Painting With Fire.