Bloodstar: Portrait of the barbarian as a young man

Wow, the awesome stuff you can find in your local used bookstore for insanely low prices.

Case in point: Bloodstar, a trade released in 1979 that collects all of Richard Corben's Metal Hurlant adaptation of a classic Robert E. Howard story.



So, take a second to imagine what happens when Richard Corben in the late 70's adapts a short story by the creator of Conan and publishes it in a magazine that combines the insane antics you might find in 2000 A.D. with high concepts along the lines of the DC Humanoids reprint line.

Basically, yeah, you've got it.

This is a hell of a fun book. The post-apocalypse, primitive society, great and strange beasts of the land, legends of danger and tragedy, forbidden love, a friendship that crosses all social boundaries, a friend's betrayal, giant snakes, huge devil worms, plagues, wars, Corben's voluptuous female figurework (Frank Cho fans take particular note), Howard's savory storytelling, a lost child, an insane old man and a mano-e-mano struggle for all the cards against the most powerful evil known to man to cap things off in style.



Yeah, this fucking rocked. And frankly, between this and Corben's recent issue of Solo, I'm about to become a rabid fan of his work. I'm definitely gonna track down the upcoming trade of his Bigfoot book for IDW... I've already got the Hulk book he did with Azzarello... I'll have to try House on the Borderland... the rest will require some research. If any of you dear readers are better versed than I in the ways of Corben, please drop a suggestion on me.

If you wanna try and find this, your best bet is probably bookfinder.com (one of my favorite sites of all time). Though my softcover copy from Green Apple Books was a mere ten bucks, you can snag about a $20 hardcover through the search results I found here and here. I also tracked down a cool informational page with some Jess Nivens'-style background notes, right here.

Ah, Richard Corben. Is there anything about you that isn't deadly cool?