Den (comics)

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Heavy Metal Magazine cover featuring the strip's main early characters: The Queen, Den and Catherine Wells

Den is a fantasy comic book series by Richard Corben.

It is about the adventures of a young man who is whisked to a fantasy world named Neverwhere where he is changed into a naked, muscled and sexually well-endowed adventurer who is hunted by powerful forces, threatened by dangerous creatures and lusted after by impossibly beautiful, naked, large-breasted women.

"Den" is an acronym of the young man's real name: David Ellis Norman.

The Den saga originated from a 1968 short film entitled Neverwhere (the first graphic novel would share the same title), animated and produced by Corben at his native Calvin Studios in Kansas City, Kansas, United States. Den then graduated to a short feature in an underground comic book.

The series was a major feature in the early Heavy Metal magazine in the late 1970s and it was adapted in a highly condensed fashion in the Heavy Metal animated film.

Corben began self-publishing Den through his company Fantagor Press in the 1980s, beginning with Children of Fire, which was later revealed to be the prequel to the Heavy Metal-era Den adventures. Corben followed this with an ongoing Den series which did not have the full frontal nudity that was the hallmark of the original Heavy Metal strips. Corben went back to the adult content with DenSaga, which filled in some of the details between Children of Fire and Neverwhere/Muvovum.

The Den series was published in the following graphic novels and serials, in order:

Neverwhere
Muvovum
Children Of Fire
Dreams (compilation of smaller color Den comics)
Elements (second compilation of further smaller color comics)

DenSaga Vol 1-4

All the above books are out of print.

The latest incarnation of Den appeared in Penthouse Comix as "Denz", following another individual taking on the mantle of Den. This series had a more humorous tone than the previous entries in the saga.