What do you think?
Rate this book
Dimwood is the next book in a series of deluxe graphic novels from renowned creator Richard Corben’s library to be published by Dark Horse Comics.
This special edition collects the never before published graphic novel Dimwood, and also features bonus material, restorations and an epilogue from long-time Corben collaborator Jose Villarrubia, letters by Nate Piekos of Blambot, and an introduction by Joe Lansdale, all presented in a gorgeous hardcover with a dust jacket.
In the densely vegetated forest of Dimwood, a young woman returns to her family home after many years’ absence. Xera has gaping holes in her memories of her childhood and family, as obscured and dim as the surrounding forest. In Dimwood Mansion, with its decaying, labyrinthine levels she seeks the missing pieces of her past and makes connections with mysterious disappearances and gruesome murders in this original gothic tale, Corben’s final graphic novel.
This special edition collects the never before published graphic novel Dimwood, and also features bonus material, restorations and an epilogue from long-time Corben collaborator Jose Villarrubia, letters by Nate Piekos of Blambot, and an introduction by Joe Lansdale, all presented in a gorgeous hardcover with a dust jacket.
In the densely vegetated forest of Dimwood, a young woman returns to her family home after many years’ absence. Xera has gaping holes in her memories of her childhood and family, as obscured and dim as the surrounding forest. In Dimwood Mansion, with its decaying, labyrinthine levels she seeks the missing pieces of her past and makes connections with mysterious disappearances and gruesome murders in this original gothic tale, Corben’s final graphic novel.
136 pages, Hardcover
Published June 10, 2025
3 people are currently reading
75 people want to read
About the author
Richard Corben
541 books149 followersAmerican illustrator and comic book artist best known for his comics featured in Heavy Metal magazine. He won the 2009 Spectrum Grand Master Award. In 2012 he was elected to the The Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 25, 2026
Legendary and, quite possibly, my favorite comic book artist of all time, Richard Corben has made a career on large-muscled heroes and big-bosomed damsels battling slimy Lovecraftian monsters, although that description---while true---is a bit reductive. Corben has contributed his artwork to titles ranging from "Hellblazer", "The Hulk", "Luke Cage", and "Ghost Rider". He has worked for DC, Marvel, and, most recently, Dark Horse Comics.
Best known for his early work in the adult magazine Heavy Metal, Corben has won many awards and accolades in the comic book industry, all of them well-deserved.
"Dimwood" is one of his first full-length graphic novels and, sadly, his last. He died in 2020.
The story---a young woman comes back to her family home only to discover a monstrous evil entity haunting the grounds---is a Gothic gory tale heavily inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, which were two major influences on his work in general.
Corben's style is hard to describe. There is always a somewhat cartoonish feel with the way he draws his characters, but it works to create an unsettling and distorted view of reality, perhaps as a way to offset the seriousness and dark nature of the story.
Dark Horse Comics has been publishing beautiful hardcover collections of Corben's work.
Best known for his early work in the adult magazine Heavy Metal, Corben has won many awards and accolades in the comic book industry, all of them well-deserved.
"Dimwood" is one of his first full-length graphic novels and, sadly, his last. He died in 2020.
The story---a young woman comes back to her family home only to discover a monstrous evil entity haunting the grounds---is a Gothic gory tale heavily inspired by Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, which were two major influences on his work in general.
Corben's style is hard to describe. There is always a somewhat cartoonish feel with the way he draws his characters, but it works to create an unsettling and distorted view of reality, perhaps as a way to offset the seriousness and dark nature of the story.
Dark Horse Comics has been publishing beautiful hardcover collections of Corben's work.
May 4, 2025
Corben was still at the top of his game when he passed away. It's wild to me that Corben (Bernie Wrightson comes to mind as well) can pass away while still creating artwork like this.
It took a few years to come out, I assume because DH was publishing the Den series and this was not quite completed. Jose Villarrubia finished the color and Corben's family continued his script on the final few pages. If I wasn't told, I wouldn't have noticed. Villarrubia does a fantastic job at Corben's style - not surprising after his work on the Den series.
The story is gothic horror - a focus in Corben's late career. This one felt stronger to me than Rat God, but its been awhile since I read that. Fairly typical tale for gothic horror, a woman comes back to her small town after decades away to attend a funeral. But there's a horror haunting the area!
It took a few years to come out, I assume because DH was publishing the Den series and this was not quite completed. Jose Villarrubia finished the color and Corben's family continued his script on the final few pages. If I wasn't told, I wouldn't have noticed. Villarrubia does a fantastic job at Corben's style - not surprising after his work on the Den series.
The story is gothic horror - a focus in Corben's late career. This one felt stronger to me than Rat God, but its been awhile since I read that. Fairly typical tale for gothic horror, a woman comes back to her small town after decades away to attend a funeral. But there's a horror haunting the area!
June 30, 2025
For fans of the very essence of mature Corben work, Dimwood is a must read.
I don’t know when I found out about Corben. Perhaps maybe around high school, but really it wasn’t until a friend who was a diehard fan of Corben and Kirby really cemented him in my mind. Perhaps I wasn’t really getting it yet because I had already seen Frazetta who inspired everyone and Bisley who Corben and Frazetta were direct influences of his adrenaline fueled style. Eventually I took to studying his work and reading most of his work. I gravitate toward the horror more than the fantasy even though often they seem to intersect. My favorites being “House on the Borderland” and “A Boy and his Dog.” Other shorts I loved came from a Twisted Tales comic and undoubtedly his Hellboy work is perhaps my favorite to reread over and over again.
I think Dimwood continues off his work from Shadows on the Grave which was a collection of short horror that pays homage to the work he did for Creepy and Eerie and those old EC horror comics. These stories seem to come from a time period that Corben enjoys where old cars, old mansions and swamps or creepy forests are characters themselves. No cellphones or landmarks of a modern world exist. A pre-War World II world that Vincent Price would feel at home.
Dimwood is an enjoyable read. It doesn’t break any rules. Corben in his later 1/3 of his life seemed to gravitate toward grotesque protagonists with an almost fisheye view of the world. Nothing seems to have straight lines. The world is anxiety fueled with deep dark shadows at almost every panel. The monsters with huge long arms and hairy bodies. A zombified rat-like creature not unlike an others he’s drawn before. I would guess that Corben’s own mortality inspired this kind of obsession. Skin of women stretched and pulled even when they are young. Gravity seems to be a very potent physical science in this world.
A beautiful collaboration between Corben’s family and longtime colorist and Corben enthusiast, Jose Villarrubia who was a teacher at the art school I happen to go to in the later 90s.
I don’t know when I found out about Corben. Perhaps maybe around high school, but really it wasn’t until a friend who was a diehard fan of Corben and Kirby really cemented him in my mind. Perhaps I wasn’t really getting it yet because I had already seen Frazetta who inspired everyone and Bisley who Corben and Frazetta were direct influences of his adrenaline fueled style. Eventually I took to studying his work and reading most of his work. I gravitate toward the horror more than the fantasy even though often they seem to intersect. My favorites being “House on the Borderland” and “A Boy and his Dog.” Other shorts I loved came from a Twisted Tales comic and undoubtedly his Hellboy work is perhaps my favorite to reread over and over again.
I think Dimwood continues off his work from Shadows on the Grave which was a collection of short horror that pays homage to the work he did for Creepy and Eerie and those old EC horror comics. These stories seem to come from a time period that Corben enjoys where old cars, old mansions and swamps or creepy forests are characters themselves. No cellphones or landmarks of a modern world exist. A pre-War World II world that Vincent Price would feel at home.
Dimwood is an enjoyable read. It doesn’t break any rules. Corben in his later 1/3 of his life seemed to gravitate toward grotesque protagonists with an almost fisheye view of the world. Nothing seems to have straight lines. The world is anxiety fueled with deep dark shadows at almost every panel. The monsters with huge long arms and hairy bodies. A zombified rat-like creature not unlike an others he’s drawn before. I would guess that Corben’s own mortality inspired this kind of obsession. Skin of women stretched and pulled even when they are young. Gravity seems to be a very potent physical science in this world.
A beautiful collaboration between Corben’s family and longtime colorist and Corben enthusiast, Jose Villarrubia who was a teacher at the art school I happen to go to in the later 90s.
July 31, 2025
Dimwood was the final project the late, great Richard Corben was working on before he passed in 2020. Those who knew Corben closely were shocked by his passing, since by all accounts, he seemed lively and energetic in his final years. And after reading Dimwood, that assessment fits because this work is just as sharp, as bold and as frenzied as any Corben work from decades prior. A mishmash of horror tropes that Corben pulled from his time adapting Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft stories and building out similar horror stories in works like Rat God and Ragemoor, the story in Dimwood feels familiar enough. Xera, a woman long absent from her childhood home and family, stumbles upon her long lost brother after her car breaks down in the mysterious forests of Dimwood. Now reunited with her relatives, Xera begins to discover unsettling things as Corben slowly unveils new horrors in the labyrinthine and decaying halls of her childhood home.
The story moves in a brisk fashion, and though the horror concept isn't anything novel or particularly terrifying by any means, Corben's focused yet eccentric lines provide enough of the atmospheric vibe needed to make this work. José Villarrubia, who colors a lot of Corben's later works, helps complete some of the latter pages in the book, though much of the color work not done by Corben himself is done by his daughter Beth. The colors are as crisp and as luxurious as ever, making Dimwood seem like work from a cartoonist in their prime, not someone who was pushing 80 years of age at the time. It's fantastic that we can still get some "new" Corben work, which I'm sure many of my fellow fans of the artist will really appreciate.
The story moves in a brisk fashion, and though the horror concept isn't anything novel or particularly terrifying by any means, Corben's focused yet eccentric lines provide enough of the atmospheric vibe needed to make this work. José Villarrubia, who colors a lot of Corben's later works, helps complete some of the latter pages in the book, though much of the color work not done by Corben himself is done by his daughter Beth. The colors are as crisp and as luxurious as ever, making Dimwood seem like work from a cartoonist in their prime, not someone who was pushing 80 years of age at the time. It's fantastic that we can still get some "new" Corben work, which I'm sure many of my fellow fans of the artist will really appreciate.
October 12, 2025
Spectacular art and a creepy horror story by this famed creator...his last, which was not quite complete when he died
December 26, 2025
Top-notch, visionary art alongside fairly clunky writing but still, reading the late, legendary Richard Corben is always worth the price of admission.
July 31, 2025
Pure Corben -- for better or worse.
June 19, 2025
Richard Corben (1940–2020) looms as a legend in comic art; an Eisner Hall of Famer, Angoulême Grand Prix recipient, and Spectrum Grand Master. Famous for underground fantasy like Den and early graphic novel Bloodstar, he pushed boundaries with sensory, grotesque visuals. In Dimwood, he handled both script and art duties, with Nate Piekos (Blambot) re‑lettering the final edition—Piekos is early Dark Horse favorite for hand‑crafted, atmospheric type that fits gothic horror. Colorist/restorer José Villarubia, and longtime Corben collaborator, helped salvage Corben’s final, unpublished work into shape; his touch plus an intro by Joe Lansdale gives the book extra cred. It’s a deluxe Dark Horse hardcover with restorations, bonus epilogue, and lush dust jacket, marking its place in the Corben Library series, joining Murky World, Den, and Rowlf
In Dimwood, Xera, a young woman, returns to her ancestral home in Dimwood after years away, emotionally adrift and experiencing deep memory gaps. The family mansion looms like a moss‑draped beast, corridors twisting as if alive, mirroring the murky horrors locked in her subconscious. As she explores, she finds signs of old tragedies; disappearances, unsolved murders, whispers of something inhuman. The line between her fractured memories and the forest’s own malevolence blurs. Is she uncovering buried truths or reliving nightmares? Without spoiling specifics, Dimwood unfolds as a gothic mystery soaked in atmosphere. It’s less a plot‑driven chase and more a descent into a haunted psyche with Corben’s art rising in tension as Xera inches toward the core of her past and the mansion’s cursed legacy.
Corben’s final tale hinges on the interplay of memory, decay, and psychological hauntings. The forest isn’t just backdrop, but rather a living symbol of buried horrors. Moss‑choked limbs within the wood echo Xera’s own obscured mind, as if the landscape physically guards what she must rediscover. The mansion, twisting inward, feels like a visual metaphor for introspection; each panel’s angles and shadows press claustrophobically on the reader, a perfect inversion of the typical sweeping graphic panel. This is horror that seduces through environment and suggestion.
Stylistically, Corben’s use of chiaroscuro and painted textures remains unmatched. The panels breathe, not roar. There are muted palettes, jagged linework, anatomical distortions that go beyond grotesquerie into emotional symbolism. A dripping tear may be drawn as an oil map; a rotting stairbanister may gasp with life. When violence appears, it’s rarely gory for gore’s sake. It punctuates emotional beats. He doesn’t film the violence; he focuses on the aftermath, the psychological scars, the fossil of fear left in memory.
Symbolically, Xera’s memory gaps parallel deep trauma. Her journey becomes a metaphor for digging up repressed self. The forest’s creatures are barely glimpsed, yet their presence is more potent than full exposure. These unseen forces resonate with cosmic or fairy‑tale dread, peeling reality’s wallpaper. The result is oppressive—an immersive psychogeographical exploration.
Culturally, Dimwood echoes the revival of gothic horror steeped in nature’s sublime terror. In contrast to sanitized ghost stories, this presses into the roots: a reckoning with history, legacy, and inner decay. There’s cultural weight here: the idea that land, family, and history intertwine, binding the living to unspoken sins. Dimwood is unapologetically an atmosphere‑first experience. For those tired of derivative stories, Corben’s final work feels both familiar and alien: gothic yet psychedelic, grounded yet dream‑logic. It refuses convention, offering neither neat resolution nor punch‑the‑monster ending. Instead, it delivers a haunting indentation into your subconscious long after the last page.
This is the kind of book that knows your brain better than your taste buds: slow‑burn, intentionally muddled pace, trading kinetic whiplash for creeping dread. Corben’s environments are characters, a fungal breathing wall, a rotting floor that seems to pulse under foot, but some readers may find the lack of conventional scares frustrating. If you need an explicit monster reveal or a high‑octane climax, Dimwood plays you like a fiddle. That said, this subversion of expectations is precisely where it thrives: it lingers in corners, eavesdrops on echoes, thrives on ambiguity. Refreshing as a breath of moldy air.
This thing sags toward the center. The middle third stretches memory sequences and forest wanderings longer than strictly necessary. One can lose narrative grip. That said, it’s deliberate: the pacing mirrors Xera’s fractured mind. Personally, I got restless, but then that discomfort slid into unsettling immersion. Your mileage may vary depending on tolerance for “hall‑of‑mirrors pacing.”
Xera isn’t a thrill‑seeker; she’s a haunted soul. Her character growth is quiet, less about overcoming and more about mapping the terrain of guilt and loss. You won’t root for her in a classic hero’s journey, but her internal logic holds. Supporting characters are more like ghosts, or thoughts in her head, glimpsed, felt, but never explained. This supports theme but leaves wanting more relational meat. I wanted stakes beyond memory, some hint of emotional investment with living people, not just memories and shadows.
Corben’s line work and painting still set the gold standard. Each page echoes portent, nothing is gratuitous. The re-lettering by Piekos gives voice to memory’s fragmentation: speech balloons twist, dribble, jitter. It’s the rare case where lettering goes beyond legibility into emotional layering. Villarubia’s restoration doesn’t sanitize Corben’s weirdness: he amplifies it. Colors seep into shadows instead of canceling them. Every gutter feels like a potential trap.
This is a horror for brains, not bowels. It’s about uncanny, not gore. Disappearances and implied violence hang as unresolved notes. The terror here is psychological gravity. So, if you’re craving immediate jolts, this isn’t it. An audacious final work that honors Corben’s strengths, textural horror, psychological depth, environment‑driven dread, while occasionally wearing thin in narrative propulsion. It’s one of those rare books that feels like an experience rather than a story, and for those of you who burn for weirdness and grit, that’s a virtue.
TL;DR: Dimwood is a slow-burn gothic psychodread soaked in Corben’s textural art. It’s a grotesque plunge into memory and decay, with Xera’s fractured psyche delivering a haunting, mature horror tale. It’s for fans of decadent atmosphere and weirdness, a rare treat.
Recommended For: Creeps who jerk off to Goya’s Black Paintings and think House of Leaves needed more gore.
Not Recommended For: Folks who want monsters front-and-center or narratives tied with a tinsel ribbon.
In Dimwood, Xera, a young woman, returns to her ancestral home in Dimwood after years away, emotionally adrift and experiencing deep memory gaps. The family mansion looms like a moss‑draped beast, corridors twisting as if alive, mirroring the murky horrors locked in her subconscious. As she explores, she finds signs of old tragedies; disappearances, unsolved murders, whispers of something inhuman. The line between her fractured memories and the forest’s own malevolence blurs. Is she uncovering buried truths or reliving nightmares? Without spoiling specifics, Dimwood unfolds as a gothic mystery soaked in atmosphere. It’s less a plot‑driven chase and more a descent into a haunted psyche with Corben’s art rising in tension as Xera inches toward the core of her past and the mansion’s cursed legacy.
Corben’s final tale hinges on the interplay of memory, decay, and psychological hauntings. The forest isn’t just backdrop, but rather a living symbol of buried horrors. Moss‑choked limbs within the wood echo Xera’s own obscured mind, as if the landscape physically guards what she must rediscover. The mansion, twisting inward, feels like a visual metaphor for introspection; each panel’s angles and shadows press claustrophobically on the reader, a perfect inversion of the typical sweeping graphic panel. This is horror that seduces through environment and suggestion.
Stylistically, Corben’s use of chiaroscuro and painted textures remains unmatched. The panels breathe, not roar. There are muted palettes, jagged linework, anatomical distortions that go beyond grotesquerie into emotional symbolism. A dripping tear may be drawn as an oil map; a rotting stairbanister may gasp with life. When violence appears, it’s rarely gory for gore’s sake. It punctuates emotional beats. He doesn’t film the violence; he focuses on the aftermath, the psychological scars, the fossil of fear left in memory.
Symbolically, Xera’s memory gaps parallel deep trauma. Her journey becomes a metaphor for digging up repressed self. The forest’s creatures are barely glimpsed, yet their presence is more potent than full exposure. These unseen forces resonate with cosmic or fairy‑tale dread, peeling reality’s wallpaper. The result is oppressive—an immersive psychogeographical exploration.
Culturally, Dimwood echoes the revival of gothic horror steeped in nature’s sublime terror. In contrast to sanitized ghost stories, this presses into the roots: a reckoning with history, legacy, and inner decay. There’s cultural weight here: the idea that land, family, and history intertwine, binding the living to unspoken sins. Dimwood is unapologetically an atmosphere‑first experience. For those tired of derivative stories, Corben’s final work feels both familiar and alien: gothic yet psychedelic, grounded yet dream‑logic. It refuses convention, offering neither neat resolution nor punch‑the‑monster ending. Instead, it delivers a haunting indentation into your subconscious long after the last page.
This is the kind of book that knows your brain better than your taste buds: slow‑burn, intentionally muddled pace, trading kinetic whiplash for creeping dread. Corben’s environments are characters, a fungal breathing wall, a rotting floor that seems to pulse under foot, but some readers may find the lack of conventional scares frustrating. If you need an explicit monster reveal or a high‑octane climax, Dimwood plays you like a fiddle. That said, this subversion of expectations is precisely where it thrives: it lingers in corners, eavesdrops on echoes, thrives on ambiguity. Refreshing as a breath of moldy air.
This thing sags toward the center. The middle third stretches memory sequences and forest wanderings longer than strictly necessary. One can lose narrative grip. That said, it’s deliberate: the pacing mirrors Xera’s fractured mind. Personally, I got restless, but then that discomfort slid into unsettling immersion. Your mileage may vary depending on tolerance for “hall‑of‑mirrors pacing.”
Xera isn’t a thrill‑seeker; she’s a haunted soul. Her character growth is quiet, less about overcoming and more about mapping the terrain of guilt and loss. You won’t root for her in a classic hero’s journey, but her internal logic holds. Supporting characters are more like ghosts, or thoughts in her head, glimpsed, felt, but never explained. This supports theme but leaves wanting more relational meat. I wanted stakes beyond memory, some hint of emotional investment with living people, not just memories and shadows.
Corben’s line work and painting still set the gold standard. Each page echoes portent, nothing is gratuitous. The re-lettering by Piekos gives voice to memory’s fragmentation: speech balloons twist, dribble, jitter. It’s the rare case where lettering goes beyond legibility into emotional layering. Villarubia’s restoration doesn’t sanitize Corben’s weirdness: he amplifies it. Colors seep into shadows instead of canceling them. Every gutter feels like a potential trap.
This is a horror for brains, not bowels. It’s about uncanny, not gore. Disappearances and implied violence hang as unresolved notes. The terror here is psychological gravity. So, if you’re craving immediate jolts, this isn’t it. An audacious final work that honors Corben’s strengths, textural horror, psychological depth, environment‑driven dread, while occasionally wearing thin in narrative propulsion. It’s one of those rare books that feels like an experience rather than a story, and for those of you who burn for weirdness and grit, that’s a virtue.
TL;DR: Dimwood is a slow-burn gothic psychodread soaked in Corben’s textural art. It’s a grotesque plunge into memory and decay, with Xera’s fractured psyche delivering a haunting, mature horror tale. It’s for fans of decadent atmosphere and weirdness, a rare treat.
Recommended For: Creeps who jerk off to Goya’s Black Paintings and think House of Leaves needed more gore.
Not Recommended For: Folks who want monsters front-and-center or narratives tied with a tinsel ribbon.
June 17, 2025
Narratively, pretty standard gothic horror short story fare, but I got it for the Corben art and it delivers. The late period smooth coloring thing is weird to me but I love Corben so much I'm intrigued by the variety and exploration even tho I prefer his more stippled textural approach. An analogous feel to early cinematic 3d animation. An artist and technician intrigued by the artificial perfection of digital art who hasn't yet learned that nobody likes perfection.
The disgusting monsters are top shelf, and I'm always enchanted by his blend of exaggeration and realism. Sometimes he'll have the most intricate, expressive facial musculature you've ever seen one panel away from a face so distorted you wonder if he can actually draw. His shameless embrace of wildly horny borderline caricatures of human bodies and sexuality is fascinating. Nobody in history has been more dedicated to drawing muscley torsos and heaving busoms. The story is 100% sexless, but there are two heroic grandparental figures who are both consistently drawn like fetish porn. I laughed out loud at the barely contained enormous honkers on this round-faced kindly granny and the shimmering pecs on the avuncular older man who constantly finds ways to rip his shirt off. In print this story is as racy as an M.R. James story about a nervous bishop, but Corben simply must draw hot bods.
There's one image of Corben in the afterword penciling this book with sculpted character maquettes for reference. I didn't realize that was how he worked, I'll have to see if I can find more of his sculptural work online.
The disgusting monsters are top shelf, and I'm always enchanted by his blend of exaggeration and realism. Sometimes he'll have the most intricate, expressive facial musculature you've ever seen one panel away from a face so distorted you wonder if he can actually draw. His shameless embrace of wildly horny borderline caricatures of human bodies and sexuality is fascinating. Nobody in history has been more dedicated to drawing muscley torsos and heaving busoms. The story is 100% sexless, but there are two heroic grandparental figures who are both consistently drawn like fetish porn. I laughed out loud at the barely contained enormous honkers on this round-faced kindly granny and the shimmering pecs on the avuncular older man who constantly finds ways to rip his shirt off. In print this story is as racy as an M.R. James story about a nervous bishop, but Corben simply must draw hot bods.
There's one image of Corben in the afterword penciling this book with sculpted character maquettes for reference. I didn't realize that was how he worked, I'll have to see if I can find more of his sculptural work online.
June 20, 2025
The final work of a comic book genius.
When Richard Corben died, he left an unfinished story, DIMWOOD. Thankfully, his widow, Dana and daughter, Beth stepped in along with his colorist José Villarrubia to finish it. Specifically, the last 23 pages needed to be finished. They look fine, but there are little bits where you can tell it was Villarrubia copying Corben's style. Just little things. Nothing that distracts from the final product. The story deals with long lost daughter Xera returning home to reunite with her brother Noah and face her mother's death. Like his previous works RAT GOD and RAGEMOOR, the Lovecraftian tale deals with a family and staff bound to a haunted house/region of land. All the Corben hallmarks are here. Muscular heroes, tastefully naked heroines, grotesque monsters and lush, organic scenery that seems to consume the panels they occupy. Is DIMWOOD his best work? No. But it shows that even at the end of his life he was still putting out high quality storytelling that's impossible to dismiss. A fitting end to an amazing career.
When Richard Corben died, he left an unfinished story, DIMWOOD. Thankfully, his widow, Dana and daughter, Beth stepped in along with his colorist José Villarrubia to finish it. Specifically, the last 23 pages needed to be finished. They look fine, but there are little bits where you can tell it was Villarrubia copying Corben's style. Just little things. Nothing that distracts from the final product. The story deals with long lost daughter Xera returning home to reunite with her brother Noah and face her mother's death. Like his previous works RAT GOD and RAGEMOOR, the Lovecraftian tale deals with a family and staff bound to a haunted house/region of land. All the Corben hallmarks are here. Muscular heroes, tastefully naked heroines, grotesque monsters and lush, organic scenery that seems to consume the panels they occupy. Is DIMWOOD his best work? No. But it shows that even at the end of his life he was still putting out high quality storytelling that's impossible to dismiss. A fitting end to an amazing career.
Read
June 19, 2025Dimwood: about the only terrain bearable on a day this hideously warm, but also the last, unfinished graphic novel by Richard Corben, here completed by his daughter Beth (script) and Jose Villarrubia (finishes). The story is bog standard modern gothic – a woman goes back home for her mother's funeral and is confronted with her family's ghastly secret history – but oh, that sinister forest and the looming house look so satisfactorily creepy that it hardly matters. The people, on the other hand...one of the reasons I never fully got into Corben was that his characters often had a texture suggesting they were made not of human flesh, but some sort of fungal mass. And ironically, here, in a mycelial horror story where that would have made perfect sense for once, he's not done anything of the sort. Still, the leads do mostly seem to be descended from a union between Shelley Duvall and Lurch. It's an unusual choice, but in an atmosphere this heightened, it just about works.
July 14, 2025
This is must for fans of the late Richard Corben, with his last work being a masterclass in gothic horror set to his own vivid and unique style. A foreword by Joe R. Lansdale only sweetens the pot.
I will say that if you are new to Corben, this might not be your best introduction. Corben's unique style, with extremely exaggerated features, even for the main character, takes some getting used to, and you might want to read some of his other works (like Hellboy: The Crooked Man) first before diving head in.
That said, there's a lot to love in this final volume, which features an appropriate amount of dread and gore for fans of the genre, all illustrated one last time by a master of the genre.
I will say that if you are new to Corben, this might not be your best introduction. Corben's unique style, with extremely exaggerated features, even for the main character, takes some getting used to, and you might want to read some of his other works (like Hellboy: The Crooked Man) first before diving head in.
That said, there's a lot to love in this final volume, which features an appropriate amount of dread and gore for fans of the genre, all illustrated one last time by a master of the genre.
August 14, 2025
Richard Corben was a fascinating author and artist. I love reading his work but he drives me insane. He is a fun storyteller and a singular artist but I don’t know if he’d get lazy or rushed but sometimes you look at a page and wonder what the hell he was even doing. He got more exaggerated and grotesque as he went on and since this was made at the end of his life, everyone and everything is all stretched out and twisted, like a bunch of homunculi in a haunted house. The plot itself was ok and was a good setting for his art, but like all his works, it’s like he got bored or rushed and things don’t always make too much sense.
February 22, 2025
Richard Corben's final work. It's a tale of gothic horror. Corben died before he could quite finish it, leaving Jose Villarubia to color the final 20 some pages. It's about a woman who returns to her ancestral home after her mother's death. We soon find out there is a monster roaming the countryside killing people. It's solid stuff and unlike a lot of artists later in life, Corben never lost a step in his art. It still looks the same as it did 50 years ago.
August 23, 2025
Corben's final project is a gothic horror tale about a young woman returning to the family mansion for her mother's funeral. The home is in a vast, overgrown woods and there seems to be some sort of creature prowling the area, killing and even eating people. The art is about as strong as in any of Corben's other work and even though the last few pages were unfinished when he died (and eventually finished by others), the story is largely seamless.
September 27, 2025
Finally in print, Corben's last work is a lovingly crafted gothic horror tale with family at its core, which is perhaps fitting as his daughter worked alongside her father here. Also worth mentioning here is that the meta-story created by the Corben Library has been a wonderful experience, and I am sure will continue to be so, with the bonus materials in each volume adding greatly to this experience. Hopefully the series will continue for a while yet!
October 27, 2025
So conflicted about this book. On one hand, I loved the weird artwork and moments throughout the main story. There was a lot of fun gore and strange gothic twists, but I never really "got" what was going on in the story. It felt, at times, disjointed and that took me out of the reading. I would recommend it any fan of the art and genre, however, don't go into it looking for cohesiveness.
June 21, 2025
The very last gothic tale from the master Richard Corben, Dimwood possesses countless pages of weird anatomical studies as Corben is well known for. Truly our loss that this is it. Gonna hunt down all the Den Graphic Novels and reread them now.
November 17, 2025
I dug it. Corbens art is top notch no matter what. Some panels in this book feel like they're made of clay which is super cool. Overall the story was fine, nothing too complicated but intriguing enough to lead me to finish it.
August 3, 2025
Didn’t like at all
October 17, 2025
A typical gothic story to a certain extent but Corben's touch is pretty obvious.
December 13, 2025
Found a way to pull out the thesaurus and hit every horror descriptor by page 1. Good art, so-so story.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews