Sorry, not even close. Corben's trade mark is a very realistic painterly style with very muscular men and women who have double D's with tiny hips. He contributed a lot of work for Heavy Metal magazine back when it was still cool. My first encounter with his work was the Den series.
Sorry, not even close. Corben's trade mark is a very realistic painterly style with very muscular men and women who have double D's with tiny hips. He contributed a lot of work for Heavy Metal magazine back when it was still cool. My first encounter with his work was the Den series.
Your example is closer to Segrelle's.
Well no need to apologize, I don't have a trained eye for this kind of stuff.
Early "Heavy Metal" (originally the French "Metal Hurlant") was also my introduction to Richard Corben..and so many other now-legendary comics artists..particularly Moebius. You can see the seeds of "The 5th Element" so clearly developing in his comics from that time..the ragged hero cab driver..the mystery red haired girl..it's all in development in HM..
Influences? I'm not sure the art of other artists actually influenced me, but the ones I admire certainly drove me to work at my drawing harder...I'd list comics by Frank Frazetta, illustrations by Hajime Sorayama, paintings by Gil Elvgren, and bondage comics by Robert Bishop as major influences..
I forgot Milo Manara and Luis Royo...probably the most astonishing sexy girls ever drawn on paper come from these two artists. Manara is refined down to the minimal...very simple line art, but perfect execution of the curves, the shapes so beautiful..I often think Fernando was somehow influenced by Manara, his girls are so similar.
Royo is just...Royo. More Heavy Metal covers than anyone I think. Some of his highly exotic super realistic paintings just kill me. I have portfolios of simple pencils from him though which are equally stunning...he has the gift.
Moebius has a distinct vision...and it is not a style everyone likes. His designing everything in "the 5th Element" brought a wider understanding of where he was trying to go in his comics..seeing those characters and sets and worlds brought to life on screen was kind of an 'ah-HA" for me with Moebius..because in truth, his drawing style can be a bit crazy looking, and his colors very strange..he has a different vision of the universe. And is not very kind or optimistic about Earth or humanity in general..His prototype urban anti-hero, Harry Canyon I think he's called in one comic..the down on his luck sky-cab driver living in a nightmare tangled city of multi layers, living in a closet sized apartment..who has a mysterious red haired girl crash into his life bringing all sort of trouble with her..this story goes back to the late '70s. Seeing it on the big screen was very exciting and revealing..that film is a monument in my world. An object of the highest art.
There is a group of French artist from a certain time period that had a particularly cynical view of the future. Moebius was one in that group. I think most of the old Metal Hurlant guys were like that and they collaborated extensively with Jodorowsky, the guy who made that mind trip, Holy Mountain for John Lennon.
Manara is just perfect execution of the most simple..distilling the drawing down to it's most minimal..and it's just beautiful. He has a grasp of how to get the scene across without filling in every tiny detail. Something I wish I could learn.
The ultimate moral of "5th Element" is a departure from Moebius usual comics scripts..but of course, he simply designed the movie and characters, he didn't write it. Moebius does come from that school of "mankind is pretty f@cked up" thinking (and I don't disagree). "5th Element" brings some hope into his usually dark world...simple love, pure love, will save us all.
Having recently found my Perfect Being...my "LiLu"...I can tell you, it's completely true.
" "5th Element" brings some hope into his usually dark world..."
That's more from Luc Besson's ideas rather than Moebius'.
Manara had far more detail heavy work in the 80's and early 90's, before his work got all porny. Look up his book 'Ape'. His turn on the Borgias brought back some of that old fire, working ironically with Jodorowsky.
