Jim Steinman On: "Bat Out Of Hell" Cover Art

Design Concept: Jim Steinman
Illustration: Richard Corben

Certain words immediately come to mind in regard to Corben's art - heroic, majestic, multidimensional, tactile, cinematic, erotic, obsessive - but for me, most of all, his images seem not so much created as 'unleashed'. They possess the muscular density and abandon of rock'n'roll as well as the formal stylization and luxuriant turbulence of opera.

In Corben's worlds, the 'acoustic' has been banished - everything is gloriously amplified. Every frame seems to be born either directly before, during, or after an ecstatic moment of action - and the specific nature of the action is ultimately far less important than the explosive release it provides.

The sexual richness of Richard Corben's work is overwhelming - this is a world that is endlessly horny for wonder and magic.

The intertwining of light and dark forces here, of love and decay, of unknown altars and inescapable tombs, of unchained gods and insatiable demons, of unending dreams and unyielding nightmares - all this is dazzling. With Corben, not only is anything possible - it is inevitable.

And to use some of my own lyrics:

Everything is permitted,
Nothing ever is taboo,
And there is always something shattered
When there is something breaking through.