Broken Frontier

Richard Corben tackles a whole world by himself, but manages to get lost on the way.

Murky World, a one-shot by legendary Heavy Metal artist Richard Corben, is a unique story that might have best worked as a short tale in the aforementioned book. The plot is murky. There's nothing special about this odd land and the inhabitants of it; and the story largely takes a backseat to Corben's art. It's set on an unspecified world with unspecified inhabitants, all driven by unspecified goals, motives, and dreams. The only unifying theme seems to be greed, despite some semblance of a narrative existing at the heart.

Visually, Corben has some great concepts. The designs are unlike anything you've seen; any time something comes close to comparable to real world works, a curveball is thrown in that you just can't exactly put a name for it. Aborigine? Planet of the Apes? Futurama? There's a certain style for the world that comes close to what you've seen, but is unlike anything you've seen before. Part of it seems almost racist, with characters appearing to be generic 1930s depictions (more like caricatures) of black men that only pop up in "look at how racist the past was" stories, but given that the story is in black and white, that's almost absurd… if these specific characters weren't in subservient roles for many of their appearances. It's too easy to dismiss, and might be the over-analyzations of a reviewer, but it definitely catches your eye.

This book will and should only appeal to the fans of the artist and his visual work; the writing and plotting is a mess, and while the art stands out, it's so unique and polarizing that it won't reach general acceptance.