The Michael Moorcock Library - Elric Vol.1: Elric of Melniboné

The Michael Moorcock Library - Elric Vol.1: Elric of Melniboné by Roy Thomas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Michael Moorcock Library - Elric Vol.1: Elric of Melniboné reprints Elric #1-5 from Pacific comics, adapting the novella of the same name by Michael Moorcock.

I loved P. Craig Russell's version of Stormbringer when I read it a couple months ago so my wife bought me this for our anniversary.

Story wise, I think Roy Thomas did a great job adapting the classic Elric origin. All the elements were there and he kept what was needed. Thankfully, there were not huge captions of text and he let the artists do the heavy lifting.

While I would have preferred PCR by himself, he and Michael T. Gilbert share the art chores on this. At first, PCR does the layouts and inks and MTG does the pencils but the workload becomes blended over time and the series gets better as it goes on. It's clear neither artist actually read the original Moorcock stories since Yrkoon is a ginger and the Amereen and the surroundings aren't nearly gloomy and hopeless enough but they did a good job on the art, all things considered.

Compared to the masterpiece that was Stormbringer, I can't rate this higher than a 3 or 3.5 at best. It's hard to fault the artists, though. PCR honed his craft for another, what, 15 years before drawing Stormbringer? For the time it was created, I can't imagine a better adaptation of the source material.

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