[4] After working as a professional animator at Kansas City's Calvin Productions, Corben started writing and illustrating for the underground comics, including Grim Wit, Slow Death, Skull, Rowlf, Fever Dreams and his own anthology Fantagor.

[8] In 1975, when Moebius, Druillet, and Jean-Pierre Dionnet started publishing the magazine Métal Hurlant in France, Corben submitted some of his stories to them.

Also in 1975, a selection of his black-and-white underground comix stories was collected in hardcover as The Richard Corben Funnybook from Kansas City's Nickelodeon Press.

The saga of Den is a fantasy series about the adventures of a young underweight nerd who travels to Neverwhere, a universe taking inspirational nods from Robert E. Howard's Hyborian Age, Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom and H. P. Lovecraft's horror dimensions.

This story was adapted in a highly abridged form, in the animated film Heavy Metal, where Den was voiced by John Candy in a humorous interpretation of the character that Corben found excellent.

Corben's collaborations are varied, ranging from Rip in Time with Bruce Jones, to Harlan Ellison for Vic and Blood, to the Mutant World titles, Jeremy Brood, and The Arabian Nights with Jan Strnad.

[11] Due to the sexual nature of Corben's art, it has been accused of being pornographic, a description he disagreed with, preferring to call his work "sensual" instead.

[13] Corben did the cover of Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell, Jim Steinman's Bad for Good and a movie poster (based on a layout compositional sketch by Neal Adams[14]) for the Brian De Palma film Phantom of the Paradise.

Ever the independent, Corben would work with rocker Rob Zombie and Steve Niles in 2005 on a project for IDW Publishing called Bigfoot.

[18][19] The film stars Robert Picardo and Samuel Hunt and features the voices of Patton Oswalt and Patrick Warburton.

Corben was the special-effects/animation technician for her prize-winning film entry Siegfried Saves Metropolis in a contest sponsored by Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine in 1964 (see issues #34 and 35).

[26] Beginning concurrently with the 2019 festival in January, a 250-piece collection of his original artworks was put on display at the Musée d'Angoulême, the exhibit ending March 10, 2019.