Moorcock's Elric, from Boom!

about time too ...

ROBERSON BRINGS MOORCOCK'S ELRIC TO BOOM!

Official Press Release



For 40 years, Elric has thrilled comic book fandom beginning with Marvel Comics' CONAN THE BARBARIAN #15 in 1972. Neil Gaiman called Elric’s creator Michael Moorcock “my model for what a writer was” while Warren Ellis said he is one of the “eight core sites in my creative genome” — now, the godfather of the Multiverse concept brings one of the most critically acclaimed and most recognizable figures in the history of fantasy fiction back to sequential art with BOOM! Studios’ ELRIC: THE BALANCE LOST!

Written by SUPERMAN, iZOMBIE, and STAN LEE’S STARBORN New York Times bestselling scribe Chris Roberson, the adventure begins this May in an all-new, all-original FREE COMIC BOOK DAY edition that’s not simply a preview of the July series, but a prequel that will excite longtime Elric fans and serves an accessible entry point for the curious who have never experienced Moorcock’s saga.

Showcasing not just Elric, but Corum and Hawkmoon in a mammoth epic that uses Moorcock’s fascinating and intricate Multiverse as its tapestry, ELRIC: THE BALANCE LOST #1 follows the May prequel and premieres as a full-blown series this July with its first issue.

“Elric is in inspired hands. I'm enthusiastically looking forward to his appearance from BOOM! Studios,” said legendary Elric creator Michael Moorcock. “One of the best writers of his generation, Chris Roberson, will be writing a brilliantly conceived, entirely new Elric story in the grand manner! I can't wait!”

"Publishing Michael Moorcock's Elric feels like a dream come true," said Editor-in-Chief Matt Gagnon. "Even more so when Michael is as enthused as we are about the revival of one of his most classic creations. This year will be 50 years since the creation of Elric and BOOM! Studios aims to live up to the standard and tradition that Michael Moorcock has set."

ELRIC: THE BALANCE LOST features the return of Michael Moorcock’s legendary Multiverse, featuring some of the greatest fantasy characters of all time: Elric of Melniboné, Corum of the Scarlet Robe, and Dorian Hawkmoon in a brand-new story that will test the courage of the Eternal Champion! In this new series, the workings of Fate are being tampered with across the Multiverse, upsetting the Cosmic Balance. Elric of Melniboné must preserve the Balance and save the entire Multiverse from ruin. But no sooner has his journey begun than he is waylaid by dark forces and lost on the Moonbeam Roads. Elric finds himself stranded on a world where Chaos holds sway and where change is the only constant. Heroes are forced into action far and wide, but will they fight on the side of Law or Chaos?

ELRIC: THE BALANCE LOST FCBD EDITION ships this May for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, featuring an original prequel story by New York Times bestseller and SUPERMAN writer Chris Roberson and cover art by Erik Jones that leads directly into the first issue of the new ELRIC: THE BALANCE LOST this July.

About BOOM! Studios

BOOM! Studios (www.boom-studios.com)2009’s "Best Publisher” generates a wide-ranging catalog of multiple Eisner and Harvey Award-nominated comic books and graphic novels featuring some of the industry’s top talent, including Philip K. Dick's DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?, 20th Century Fox's 28 DAYS LATER and DIE HARD, The Henson Company's FARSCAPE, and the original Mark Waid series IRREDEEMABLE. This fall sees BOOM! teaming up with the legendary Stan Lee, creator of Marvel Comics’ characters Spider-Man, The Hulk, and The X-Men for a line of original superhero series, the legend’s first new original superheroes to go to print in nearly 20 years. BOOM!'s youth imprint, BOOM Kids!, is an undisputed industry leader, publishing Disney/Pixar's THE INCREDIBLES, CARS, and TOY STORY, as well as Disney's THE MUPPETS, DONALD DUCK, UNCLE SCROOGE and WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES. This year, BOOM! Studios celebrates its fifth anniversary.

this excites me, and even prompts me to buy the out of print Michael Moorcock's Multiverse by Simonson. I do hope that this lasts.

For some reason, with the subtitle of the work, it gives me a conan vibe. I haven't read the Conan books, but i've heard mix reactions to them having extended runs of the book set in specific parts of Conan's life. I kinda don't want them doing that with Elric, because there's really not that much of a life chronicled in the prose stories.

Likewise, i wonder how all of this will be collected. As far as i know, Corum and Hawkmoon aren't specifically Elric characters, but rather, Moorcock characters. Am i right?

yea, correct ck. but they are parts of the eternal champion. reading multiverse should give you an idea of moorcock's eternal champion concept. here's what i found on wiki:

i have the vague idea of the Eternal Champion, yeah. I read City of the Beast, which i heard features a facet of the Eternal Champion. It was a warrior on mars type story.

If that's Elric holding the sword, Simonson imagines him bulkier than any other interpretation i've seen. I always picture Elric as being slender, and young. That pic makes him look middle aged, almost. But the pic is orgasmalicious, and it will be mine within the week.

i'm just glad someone's finally doing this. elric is a sword sorcery hero different from most sword sorcery heroes imo. most tend to be like conan, buffed dumb (but with street smarts) jocks, while elric is sickly and frail, morally ambiguous (he accepts arioch help and offers him souls he'd slained), betrays his co-conspirators, relies on dark magic. not that i don't like conan, he's my favorite sword and sorcery hero still, but there are too many conan clones out there.

i concur. I always picture Elric as a proto-John Constantine. With more of a moral code. The betrayal in the first Elric story set his characterization for me, but after that, he was fairly heroic, i thought. HE did frequently give souls to Arioch, but weren't they evil people he would kill? And of course, when he tried to give up using Stormbringer, it would weaken him, and he would falter. Blast, i just wanna read it some more!!

yea, in that picture he does look older.

i've been putting off hunting for that book (i think i have 4 of the singles, but it's incomplete). but with this new series coming out, i'm going to keep my eyes out for that trade.

yea, it's such a great concept. a good comic series could compell a movie imo. and it's about time too if it did.

hek, a franchise of movies. With how movies are done these days, like the marvel method, if you will.

yea, in that picture he does look older.

i've been putting off hunting for that book (i think i have 4 of the singles, but it's incomplete). but with this new series coming out, i'm going to keep my eyes out for that trade.

it's out of print right now, but i was impatient. It's slightly possible that DC might try to reprint it, if there's a chance that it would sell copies in conjunction with BOOM! doing the new series. I don't know if BOOM! wants to buy the rights to that mini, though.

yea, in that picture he does look older.

i've been putting off hunting for that book (i think i have 4 of the singles, but it's incomplete). but with this new series coming out, i'm going to keep my eyes out for that trade.

it's out of print right now, but i was impatient. It's slightly possible that DC might try to reprint it, if there's a chance that it would sell copies in conjunction with BOOM! doing the new series. I don't know if BOOM! wants to buy the rights to that mini, though.

that's a definite possibility. boom seems to have come into money. they got stan lee on board, and also some pretty big names to participate in their latest comic / character launches.

unlike virgin comics or the previous crossgen comics, i hope they can sustain operations. it's a tough industry, more quality comics is always welcome. keeps dc and marvel on their toes.

and i am always interested in non-big 2 comics. Though i still go for the big 2 every now and then.

nice.

i certainly think Simonson's style changed quite a bit in the intervening 10 years before his Thor run. And for the better.

yea.

well, i just read the FCBD issue. It's ok. More for people who have no preconceptions of Elric, i think.

This is making me kinda doubt the upcoming ongoing, i think. This looks like Elric's status quo is that he himself travels between the alternate worlds, which was never ever something he could do in the one prose book i read. And as we already knew, this series will be featuring other aspects of the Eternal Champion (this issue pretty much just tells us about Order vs Chaos and the different parts of the Eternal Champion).

But this issue leads you to believe that Elric just serves the idea of Order Vs Chaos. Apparently he is just there to make sure the Ballance remains, and not really pick a side. But that's not how it is at all, at least i don't think so.

Elric was a servant of Chaos at the beginning of the prose series. And then by the end of his life, he is fully a servant of Order. And that's great. A character going through a change.

This is...i don't know. Doing things differently, i guess? I will still pick up the trade when this ongoing starts getting collected, but this is not true Elric, methinks.

This post has been edited by comixkid2099 on May 7 2011, 08:48 PM

that sounds kind of bad.

i'm still gonna pick up the first trade. This is mostly just letting you know what the status quo is in the upcoming title. It is different from what we Elric fans are already familiar with, and i wish this had been more close to what we perceived Elric as, but i don't think it's "bad". I wish it had been better though.

elric: the lost balance
from BOOM! by chris roberson and artist francesco biagini



you were referring to this, ck?

yeah the FCBD issue is a prologue of sorts to that.