BLOODSTAR, le chef-d’œuvre de fantasy de Richard CORBEN d'après Robert E. HOWARD

Out of print for 40 years but never reissued since, here finally is BLOODSTAR, Richard CORBEN's 1975 masterpiece, inspired by the work of Robert E. HOWARD, founding figure of the Fantasy genre. After almost ten years of research and negotiations to find the rights holders and the original material, we are finally able to offer you this magnificent work often considered, including by the author himself, as one of his most beautiful creations, but also as one of the best adaptations ever made of a work by R. E. HOWARD. Thanks to this campaign, we will be able to realize together a luxurious edition at the height of this sublime "graphic novel" conceived by Richard CORBEN and to propose it to you in its magnificent Black and White and original greytones, directly restored from the original material by the dedicated expert Jose VILLARRUBIA, and such as it was never published to date in France. Final design of the limited edition of BLOODSTAR with its exclusive tip-in : THE STORY: BLOODSTAR is based on the short story Valley of the Worm, by Robert E. HOWARD, originally published in February 1934 in the pulp magazine WEIRD TALES. Transposed by CORBEN in a post-apocalyptic world where men have fallen back into barbarism and have forgotten all memories of our civilization, this work tells the epic story of BLOODSTAR, fierce warrior of the AESIR, and the trials he will face, set up in his path both by men and by a merciless environment, to carve his legend as it will be sung through time. THE CAMPAIGN: As in our previous campaigns, the objective of this campaign is that ALL contributors have access to a beautiful edition that offers them the best reading conditions to (re-)discover and appreciate this masterpiece. This edition will be in large format (22x30), printed on a beautiful coated paper, with a hardback cover, and will be protected by a luxurious silk-screened cloth box. We will also include with this edition : - an exclusive tip-in, - A 24-page iconographic booklet, composed of reproductions of original artpages, as we found them and as they were rescanned by Jose VILLARRUBIA, and other material. - Sets of goodies: postcards and bookmarks, representing close-ups in color of striking illustrations from the original art, which will allow you to appreciate in detail the beauty and richness of CORBEN's graphic work. This edition will be printed in 1050 numbered copies, of which 1000 copies will be sold during this campaign. If you are even more numerous to pledge, don't worry, we will be happy to increase the print run at the end of the campaign. Once the campaign is over, there will be no more reprints of this book, so don't miss it! The Complete BLOODSTAR Limited edition offer with tip-in, sets of postcard and bookmarks. ABOUT THE AUTHORS: Richard CORBEN : His huge career spans over almost fifty years of independant comics creation. He has graced the pages of many fanzines or magazines (such as the cult CREEPY, EERIE & VAMPIRELLA magazines published by Warren Publishing, or HEAVY METAL). Among his most famous classic personal works are ROWLF, the saga of DEN, the NEW TALES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS, or MUTANT WORLD... He also has produced several stories for Marvel or DC comics or famous characters such as Hellboy for Dark Horse Comics. But as a true independant artist, his main drive has been to create his own stories, while constantly developing his own storytelling and art techniques. As such, his carrer has never taken an easy path, but it has led to his unique style being followed faithfully by fans across the world and through the years. After years of unavailability of his creations in France, his latest works have been published by DELIRIUM since 2013, enabling his peers and the French readers to rediscover his stunning production. Always at the peak of his art (as displayed in RAGEMOOR, SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, RATGOD, SHADOWS ON THE GRAVE and MURKY WORLD), he was then awarded the prestigious Grand Prize of the Angoulême Festival in 2018. Richard passed in Dec. 2020. Richard Corben and the original painting of the cover of Bloodstar (1976). Photo: Roy Inman. Robert E. HOWARD (1906-1936) is one of the founding fathers of the modern fantasy genre. His work is incredibly rich and of considerable volume, despite a short production period of about 15 years. Dozens of short stories were published in the pulp magazines of the time such as Weird Tales, Argosy or Oriental Stories, and cover a wide range of genres from pure fantasy, to historical adventures, oriental adventures, fantasy, horror, boxing... His characters and his unique writing style have marked the imagination of generations of passionate readers and are now widely part of popular culture, with iconic creations such as CONAN THE BARBARIAN, KULL the Atlantean King, the puritan adventurer SOLOMON KANE and many others. A magical author by his ability to transport us into fictional universes of incomparable evocative power, we owe the discovery of most of his work in France to François TRUCHAUD, both as translator and editor. ABOUT THIS EDITION OF BLOODSTAR : A major creation of CORBEN, BLOODSTAR is an incredibly strong and rich work in many ways. A few years ago, CORBEN confided to us, with a touch of bitterness, that this work was one of the most beautiful he had done, along with DEN and SPIRITS OF THE DEAD. A touch of bitterness, as the original publisher of BLOODSTAR ceased his activities in the early 80s, which prevented the book from being reprinted ever since. Fascinated as much by Richard CORBEN's work as by R.E. HOWARD's, DELIRIUM has been working for nearly 10 years to find the original rights owner, convince him to come out of his publishing retirement, locate the original art and bring back to life this fantasy masterpiece, fusional creation of two authors who could only meet as they share the same perception of human nature, civilization and a similar passion for the genre itself. (Let us thank here José VILLARRUBIA who gladly accepted to scan the works and do the first works of restoration, once we started making decisive progress in this editorial project) We find in BLOODSTAR both the strength and the epic style of HOWARD and the spectacular and evocative drawings of CORBEN, and the alchemy between them "is total" as pointed out by François TRUCHAUD. If he has adapted the original text with passion in a meticulous work with a masterly rendering, CORBEN has also developed it further, driven by the inspiration of his wife DONA to whom he has dedicated this work. As we mentioned in the previous lines, this edition of BLOODSTAR will also include a foreword by François TRUCHAUD. Even though he passed in 2020, we had intended to work with him on this new edition right from the start, nearly 10 years ago. In anticipation of this project, he had written a brilliant trademark foreword which we are glad to finally publish in this edition, even though the particularly long research and negotiation times have unfortunately deprived us of a greater collaboration. Let us pay tribute to him on this occasion, because it is indeed thanks to his work and his boundless passion that Robert E. HOWARD's writings arrived in France in the 1970s. Arousing readers' passions and publishers' or translators' vocations still at work today on the creations of one of the true fathers of Fantasy, François TRUCHAUD translated himself with an unequalled epic style Robert E. HOWARD's works and first published them in an impressive 36 books collection (!) while working as editor of the mythical NéO Fantastique collection. A large part of these translated stories has still not been republished to this day! As for the translation of BLOODSTAR, we eventually had the pleasure to entrust it to Doug HEADLINE who also worked closely with François, who shares similar passions for literary genres and whose innate writing style is as naturally suited to fantasy and the work of Robert E. HOWARD.