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Mutant World and Son of Mutant World
A hardback, collector's edition of two graphic novels for mature readers. Out of print for more than thirty years, this is the definitive edition. Written by Richard Corben and Jan Strnad, illustrated by Richard Corben.
Mutant World is a post-apocalyptic tale about a mutant named "Dimento" and his quest for love and survival in a world that no longer harbors love for living things. In the course of his adventure he runs afoul of wild beasts, a religious fanatic, sewer creatures, mad scientists, and devious mutants determined to cheat him out of his hard-won foodstuffs.
Son of Mutant World centers on Dimento's grown daughter, Dimentia, her companion bear, Ollie, and a handful of other survivors on their journey to find safe haven on an island.
Son of Mutant World was collected as a graphic novel in Europe but it was never collected in the English language.
This book sets that situation straight, combining Mutant World and Son of Mutant World into one volume.
Bonus material: --the original covers to "Mutant World" and "Son of Mutant World" with and without the logo and bullets --vintage photos of Corben and Strnad from the era --photos from modeling sessions featuring Corben, Bruce Jones, and Karen Gilbertson alongside the panels based on the photos --Corben and Strnad's original introductions to the first "Mutant World" graphic novel
The pages are 8.25" x 11", printed on a 70# matte paper stock selected by Richard. The cover is black cloth with gold foil stamping and an inlaid color plate.
Mutant World is a post-apocalyptic tale about a mutant named "Dimento" and his quest for love and survival in a world that no longer harbors love for living things. In the course of his adventure he runs afoul of wild beasts, a religious fanatic, sewer creatures, mad scientists, and devious mutants determined to cheat him out of his hard-won foodstuffs.
Son of Mutant World centers on Dimento's grown daughter, Dimentia, her companion bear, Ollie, and a handful of other survivors on their journey to find safe haven on an island.
Son of Mutant World was collected as a graphic novel in Europe but it was never collected in the English language.
This book sets that situation straight, combining Mutant World and Son of Mutant World into one volume.
Bonus material: --the original covers to "Mutant World" and "Son of Mutant World" with and without the logo and bullets --vintage photos of Corben and Strnad from the era --photos from modeling sessions featuring Corben, Bruce Jones, and Karen Gilbertson alongside the panels based on the photos --Corben and Strnad's original introductions to the first "Mutant World" graphic novel
The pages are 8.25" x 11", printed on a 70# matte paper stock selected by Richard. The cover is black cloth with gold foil stamping and an inlaid color plate.
- GenresComics
160 pages, Hardcover
Published December 3, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 16, 2020
Richard Corben is my favorite artist.
This is must have volume that collects both Mutant World, originally from Warren and its sequel. If you are a serious fan you must buy this. I originally read mutant world when I was 12 years old.
This is must have volume that collects both Mutant World, originally from Warren and its sequel. If you are a serious fan you must buy this. I originally read mutant world when I was 12 years old.
August 23, 2021
"Keep faith with this world of ours. It's harsh. But it can be good, too."
Corben and Strnad's end-of-the-world beast with a heart earns a refresh with newer, better colors, cleaner paper stock, and a bit of historical context that can only come from the creators themselves. Little can be articulated on behalf of the awkward and childish creature that is Dimento, but one can return to MUTANT WORLD and SON OF MUTANT WORLD with an earnest eye toward discerning how egoistically intertwined hope, deceit, and good-natured recklessness tend to be when humanity is pushed to its limits.
Dimento, a hulking figure of middling intelligence, chances survival in this dangerous and mutated landscape. His primary quest is for food, day-in and day-out, but on occasion he encounters assorted travelers, hucksters, fools, proselytizers, and smithies of misfortune. To wit, no good fortune awaits the poor souls who must scavenge this hellscape. The sooner Dimento realizes he shouldn't trust strangers as much as he does, the less often he'll end up in a sewer of flesh-eating cretins or succumb to the jaws of a rabid wild dog.
The pitiable but relatable nature of Dimento's struggle for friendship and survival is tested and twined together with his constant run-ins with characters who belittle him at every turn, only to realize much later he's quite necessary to their survival. Will the busty and friendly Julie accede to Diemnto's honesty or will she abuse his kindness for her own gain? Will the scientist studying the cognitively challenged young man corrupt his ward for the sake of humanity or merely let things play out? Dimento's got heart and character. Too bad integrity is of little use in a world overrun by deadly creatures of all shapes and sizes.
The feverish colors of Corben and Strnad's MUTANT WORLD constitute a wayward, forced recollection of 1980s fantasy comics whose purview was ever the almost, the not-quite, the beyond, and the other. As the decades have turned over, so too have the way comics artists and storytellers have approached their craft. The same goes for the technology they use to articulate that craft. But here, readers can taste a bit of bygone creativity: bright, claustrophobic yellow-orange horizons clash with trippy blue-green grasses and shadows rendered in a deep, heavy purplish haze.
The sequel comic, SON OF MUTANT WORLD dispenses with the blended coloring techniques and tonal atmospherics in favor of more deliberately sequential panel art and more detailed characters. The variation in perspective, posing, and more is welcome, and likely reflects the artist's growth in the eight intervening years separating the previous title and the current one.
The tale of Dimento's daughter, Dimentia, focuses on her quest for escape (from a militant mutant named Mudhead) and refuge (from the looming war between Mudhead and a holdout reservation of humans and mutants). Dimentia is smarter and more worldly than her late father. And as she treks the grasslands and forests of this increasingly fertile land, accompanied by her pet grizzly bear, the young woman must learn all the best and worst the world has to offer, in quick succession, if she's to assemble a future for herself. Some such similar philosophies of experience can be said of other characters, too, who must prepare a face for the faces they must meet in their lonely attempts to endure a world that cares not for their survival.
Together, MUTANT WORLD and SON OF MUTANT WORLD are a strange but delightful brew. They are comics increasingly difficult to categorize, birthed from yester-century's heyday of fanzines, counterculture newsletters, and sci-fi/fantasy conventions, then newly arisen. And the art style, uniquely dependent on color, shadow, and timing, feel as if it belongs to another time, even if it shouldn't. And yet, the stories' steady if incremental exposure of humanity on an ever-broader arc toward solace must never be forgotten.
Corben and Strnad's end-of-the-world beast with a heart earns a refresh with newer, better colors, cleaner paper stock, and a bit of historical context that can only come from the creators themselves. Little can be articulated on behalf of the awkward and childish creature that is Dimento, but one can return to MUTANT WORLD and SON OF MUTANT WORLD with an earnest eye toward discerning how egoistically intertwined hope, deceit, and good-natured recklessness tend to be when humanity is pushed to its limits.
Dimento, a hulking figure of middling intelligence, chances survival in this dangerous and mutated landscape. His primary quest is for food, day-in and day-out, but on occasion he encounters assorted travelers, hucksters, fools, proselytizers, and smithies of misfortune. To wit, no good fortune awaits the poor souls who must scavenge this hellscape. The sooner Dimento realizes he shouldn't trust strangers as much as he does, the less often he'll end up in a sewer of flesh-eating cretins or succumb to the jaws of a rabid wild dog.
The pitiable but relatable nature of Dimento's struggle for friendship and survival is tested and twined together with his constant run-ins with characters who belittle him at every turn, only to realize much later he's quite necessary to their survival. Will the busty and friendly Julie accede to Diemnto's honesty or will she abuse his kindness for her own gain? Will the scientist studying the cognitively challenged young man corrupt his ward for the sake of humanity or merely let things play out? Dimento's got heart and character. Too bad integrity is of little use in a world overrun by deadly creatures of all shapes and sizes.
The feverish colors of Corben and Strnad's MUTANT WORLD constitute a wayward, forced recollection of 1980s fantasy comics whose purview was ever the almost, the not-quite, the beyond, and the other. As the decades have turned over, so too have the way comics artists and storytellers have approached their craft. The same goes for the technology they use to articulate that craft. But here, readers can taste a bit of bygone creativity: bright, claustrophobic yellow-orange horizons clash with trippy blue-green grasses and shadows rendered in a deep, heavy purplish haze.
The sequel comic, SON OF MUTANT WORLD dispenses with the blended coloring techniques and tonal atmospherics in favor of more deliberately sequential panel art and more detailed characters. The variation in perspective, posing, and more is welcome, and likely reflects the artist's growth in the eight intervening years separating the previous title and the current one.
The tale of Dimento's daughter, Dimentia, focuses on her quest for escape (from a militant mutant named Mudhead) and refuge (from the looming war between Mudhead and a holdout reservation of humans and mutants). Dimentia is smarter and more worldly than her late father. And as she treks the grasslands and forests of this increasingly fertile land, accompanied by her pet grizzly bear, the young woman must learn all the best and worst the world has to offer, in quick succession, if she's to assemble a future for herself. Some such similar philosophies of experience can be said of other characters, too, who must prepare a face for the faces they must meet in their lonely attempts to endure a world that cares not for their survival.
Together, MUTANT WORLD and SON OF MUTANT WORLD are a strange but delightful brew. They are comics increasingly difficult to categorize, birthed from yester-century's heyday of fanzines, counterculture newsletters, and sci-fi/fantasy conventions, then newly arisen. And the art style, uniquely dependent on color, shadow, and timing, feel as if it belongs to another time, even if it shouldn't. And yet, the stories' steady if incremental exposure of humanity on an ever-broader arc toward solace must never be forgotten.
August 22, 2020
This is a hardcover collection of the original Mutant World serial and its sequel, Son of Mutant World. Illustrated by the maestro, Richard Corben, and written by Jan Strnad, Mutant World and Son of Mutant World are surprisingly optimistic stories about mutants and humans struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
I'd never read Mutant World or Son of Mutant World in its entirety before, and it was a pleasant surprise to read it and realize that I had read a proper, adult, "graphic novel" that was published around the time Frank Miller started working on Daredevil at Marvel.
I'd never read Mutant World or Son of Mutant World in its entirety before, and it was a pleasant surprise to read it and realize that I had read a proper, adult, "graphic novel" that was published around the time Frank Miller started working on Daredevil at Marvel.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews