"The Oval Portrait"

8 pgs. Appeared first time in Creepy #69 (1975). Reprinted in Eerie #86 (1977) and in Edgar Allan Poe (1985).
Story: Edgar Allan Poe, Adapt: Rich Margopoulos. Art: Richard Corben (no signature). Lettered by hand (Warren).

BR: as "O retrato oval" in Kripta #22 (1978).
DK: as "Det ovale portret" in Edgar Allan Poe [DK] (1976) and Gru Album #2 (1977).
FRA: as "Le portrait oval" in Creepy [FRA] "annual serie" #25 and Edgar Poe [FRA] (1981).
GER: as "Das Ovale Portrait!" in Edgar Poe [GER] (1981).
ITA: as "Il ritratto ovale" in Funnies #9.
NL: as "Het Ovale Portret" in Creepy [NL] Special: Edgar Allan Poe [NL].
SPA: as "El retrato oval" in Vampus #77 (1978), and as "El retrato ovalado" in Creepy [SPA] rinde tributo a Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Corben obras completas #4 (1985).
YUG: as "Ovalni portret" in Stripoteka #873 (1986).

Style: Black line with zipatone (oval portrait graytones). Genre: Horror. Time Span: Gothic past. Nudity: Hidden (hidden nudity on pg 6, full dressed voluputuous girl on pgs 4–8).
Keywords: Duel. Haunted house. Love. Devoded painting.
Story Origin: Edgar Allan Poe short story, "The Oval Portrait".
Synopsis: After duel wounded winner goes into deserted house, from where he finds the oval portrait and a book about the horror story of that painting.
Comment: Comics is full of brilliant B&W frames, cinematic mood and action. Corben uses again his manoeuvre: zooming into man's iris of the eye to find girl's face and zooming further into girl's iris finding back to man's face. Interesting story of Poe contains no dialogue at all.
Adaptation: Since I've never read any Edgar Allan Poe original short stories, I bought 15th Oct. 2003 The Complete Illustrated Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Hard Bound, 976+8 pgs, Chancellor Press, England, 2003). This story is the opening for the comics book Edgar Allan Poe. The adaptation of Rich Margopoulos is honouring the original text. The short story starts with the very same lines Margopoulos' adaptation starts (on title page). Texts of first pages are exactly taken from the short story, only the end Margopoulos had to recreate some lines according the original story line. But the complete prologue you cannot find from Poe's short story; you have to read it between lines. Also "the oval portrait" is repeated in comic adaptation more often than in the original text (difference of formats!). Poe's short story ends with the punch line, "She was dead", though in adaptation version concludes with the act of reading the story of the book, "As I have previously stated, it was a tale of both love... ...and horror!!". In Poe's original version the entire last chapter was the story of the book. That is, again, the difference of the formats. The Corben/Margopoulos adaptation is a successful one, both graphically and literally.

"The Oval Portrait!"