Elric of Melnibone leapt from the fertile mind of English writer Michael Moorcock in 1961, and has captured the imagination of fans, writers and artists ever since. The doomed albino has done it again, this time with a new graphic novel series that Moorcock himself calls in his foreword "the best graphic adaptation of the story."
That is a stunning thing to read. Elric has been painted, drawn, sketched and adapted by a host of A-list creators in the past 50-plus years, including Yoshitaka Amano, Howard Chaykin, Michael Kaluta, Mike Mignola, Frank Miller, P. Craig Russell, Walter Simonson and Michael Whelan.
But this new series, launched Sept. 16 with "The Ruby Throne" (Titan Comics, $12.99), lives up to the hype. Written by Julien Blondel and illustrated by Robin Recht, Didier Poli and Jean Bastide, this four-part graphic novel series really brings home Elric's violent, decadent world.
And what a world it is. Elric isn't just a prince of crumbling Melnibone, but of science fantasy itself. Elric is a forerunner to a great many fantasy characters, and for good reason: He's fascinating. Elric is a melancholy figure, one who knows he's doomed.
As a prince of Melnibone, he watched his people sink into a cesspool of personal vice and corruption — which he was helpless to prevent, being too weak to live without constant support from various drugs, herbs and sorcerous sacrifices. Challenged by his cousin Yyrkoon not only for the throne but for Elric's consort Cymoril (Yyrkoon's sister), events are set into motion that bring Elric into the service of Arioch, Lord of Chaos, and unite him with the cursed sword Stormbringer, which provides Elric with the strength he needs at the cost of his conscience — for Stormbringer feeds on the souls of those he cuts down.
Moorcock touches on this and numerous other fascinating topics in his foreword — alone worth the price of admission for Elric fans. So how does Moorcock himself explain Elric's longevity?
"Although written in a form favored by what at the time was a very small group of authors, including [J.R.R.] Tolkien and [Robert E.] Howard, it was in the position to influence the genre as they did," he said in an e-mail interview. "I wrote Elric after being immersed for years in Norse, Celtic and other mythologies, rather than reading a supernatural adventure story and deciding to write one like it."
In the foreword, Moorcock wrote of Elric's internal conflicts as versions of his own — those of a young lad in post-empire England, dealing with an older generation immersed in nostalgia for the power of the past. "My dialogue with my nation and her culture is what powers many of my books," he wrote. "Whether directly or, as here, symbolically."
One aspect of "Ruby Throne" that is both fascinating and repulsive is the depiction of Melnibone's loathsome lack of morality. "This is perhaps the first graphic version of Elric fully to capture the sense of utter decadence I tried to convey in the books," Moorcock wrote in the foreword.
He continued in his e-mail: "Elric's people believe they are superior to humans. Their superiority is self-referential and tells itself that humans are less civilized, sensitive and creative than Melniboneans. It's the attitude that powered slavery and still powers arguments against equality. A nation which lies to itself and becomes introspective and isolated as a result of those lies is, to me, a far more decadent society than one which believes in 'free' or 'perverse' love. Elric is specifically about my experience of empires in decline. Some are in decline even when they believe themselves at the height of their power."
