(Top left: Art by Michael Whelan / Top right: Art by P. Craig Russell / Bottom left: Art by Kent Williams / Bottom right: Art by Walt Simonson)
Sounds cool, doesn’t it? Is this a lush, hardcover art book that you’re missing? No, it’s not missing. It doesn’t exist. As far as I know, no publisher has seriously approached Mike Moorcock about it. But wouldn’t it be an amazing art book if it did? Think about the greats that have illustrated Elric over the years…. Michael Whelan, Yoshitaka Amano, Brom, Walt Simonson, P. Craig Russell, and Robert Gould, just to name a few of the legions of artists in Elric art history. And speaking of legions, think about the armies of Moorcock fans worldwide. What Moorcock fan wouldn’t covet a book like this? Heck, what fantasy art fan wouldn’t? Sounds to me like a smash hit waiting to happen. 🙂
Great idea, John. I just might take you up on it. It’d be a lot of work to track down all the rights, though. How much spare time do you have. 🙂
Moshe
Hi, Moshe —
How you doin’ over there? Hah! I’m just an artist. I don’t know anything about rights, other than my own. 🙂
In all seriousness though, while I probably won’t be a good candidate to track rights, I can help connect appropriate parties with many of the living artists and of course Mike himself. Probably best for each of them to answer about rights for themselves, but I can help shorten the connection time.
In addition, I hastily assembled a 50-image slideshow presented at Coastcon this year. Mike and I did a panel where we talked Elric art and it was good times. That slideshow could be a basic start for someone building a list of essential Elric imagery to include, but it would only be a start and should in no way be considered a definitive presentation. There’s a LOT of stuff I didn’t include because it was only an hour-long panel.
I’m actually hella-busy right now doing the cover art for the sixth ELRIC Del Rey volume, but please feel free to holler at me anytime if I can be of assistance. I’ll do what I can.
myfirstname [at] johnpicacio [dot] com
(no spaces of course)
That would be awesome…
As someone new to Elric (and to Moorcock’s work), I am hungry for images of the character and would welcome such a book. Mike’s writing is so visual and lush, it simply begs for the characters to come to life before your very eyes, and the first step to this comes from the magic that flows from an artist’s pen.
I commented on Moorcock’s Miscellany about this, but felt compelled to do so here, too.
dasNdanger
Thanks, Charles, Thanks, das — well said. 🙂
Sounds great. Sign me up!
I simply MUST (sorry caps) second Moshe’s idea. As a “former/re-formed” animator of the lowest degree, I’ve always seen Mikes’ stuff in my own mind at least as being best portrayed in animation. No fancy Tom Cruise w/ a platinum wig, no heavy computer-generated sequences, no a true “cartoon” for adults if you will.
This would be a marvelous idea and would preserve the various ways that Elric has been seen by many different people the world over. (Since of course NO live-action movie will even get close to satisfying as many exisiting fans as animation would.)