Elric Of Melnibone is, after Conan, THE major Sword & Sorcery character, and in many ways is almost the anti-Conan. He's a sorcerer as well as a warrior, and spends an awful lot of time brooding about the bad lot he's been dealt in life. Two things our favourite Cimmerian would never be seen doing.
He's also the main entry point for most readers into creator Michael Moorcock's vast Multiverse of characters, and is everybody's favourite version of that particular cycle's Eternal Champion.
He's one of the great characters in fiction, endlessly fascinating and three-dimensional, but hasn't always been served well in comics. Possibly because his saga has a definite ending, it's hard to do a lot of stories about him, so those that have been done are perhaps seen with a more critical eye than a longer lasting character like Conan.
One artist absolutely born to draw Elric is Craig Russell, who joins with ace adapter Roy Thomas here for
While The Gods Laugh. Not only is this the archetypal Elric story in terms of it's definition of both his and his world's view, it's a perfect introduction to the doomed prince, telling you everything you need to know about him.
Russell here contributes an absolute tour de force, and rarely is an artist so well suited to a character. Every once in a while, talk of an Elric movie is banded around, and last time I checked Paul Bettany was up for the role, apparently a choice Moorcock himself was keen on. Although, of course, no less a thesp than Luke Goss played what was really a version of the albino warrior in the 2nd Hellboy movie:
Whoever ends up with the role, and if it ever even gets made, could do worse than study Russell's art here. This is Elric in the absolute, living flesh.
