I came across some cool old Corben comics, a couple more Rip in Time issues, #s 4 and 5 from 1987, and an issue of Slow Death #4, which, being from 1972, counts as from the Underground comic era in my mind (my issue is a post-1976 reprint):
Getting two more Rip in Time issues makes me want to get the one I don't have, #3, someday, to have all 5. They're really pretty good, showcasing the departed Mr Corben in a middle part (late 80s) part of his career.
The
Slow Death is incredible. I really dig the cover, and I'd bet the
"aliens discovering remains of the long-gone human occupation of Earth"
trope was much more fresh over 50 years ago. It's not just Corben, it's
got Irons and Jaxon and Metzger and Sheridan, and sex and weed too.
Amazing to consider the times this was from and how things are now. A
couple pages of the Corben story "The Awakening":
(There was also a reprinting of The Awakening in the Rip in Time #4, though the print quality was lesser than in the Slow Death #4)
Even more amazing to me, is a poem at the back, contributed by soldiers serving in Vietnam.
Truly horrifying, the truths told here, as I recall what it was like for me and the world around me back then (I would turn 14 in 1972, the Vietnam war was ever-present in the media and the politics, not just the underground comics, and the tide had shifted over the previous few years to growing anti-war sentiment across the societal landscape). Life magazine had been running lists and photos of US war dead, and I recall the January 21 1972 issue, highlighting the single US casualty that week, and that my mom wept at the futile sorrow of it. It would still be a couple years before the US exited Vietnam, and the damage to the US and Vietnam has been lasting.
Somehow I lived through those times. I was too young for the draft, and too old for selective service by the time it was reinstated. Another bit of my relatively good fortune.
Mr Corben was so prolific over his long but too short career, that I could spend the rest of my life seeking out his work. But I won't. Enough to enjoy coming across a few things in my wanderings, that I can loosely claim have some Heavy Metal Magazine connection, and enjoy realizing how fundamental Mr Corben was to my departed favorite mag.
