ELRIC: THE BALANCE LOST FREE COMIC BOOK DAY EDITION — May 2011. Published by BOOM! Studios, a division of Boom Entertainment, Inc., 6310 San Vicente Boulevard, Suite 107, Los Angeles, CA 90048-5457. Text and illustrations of ELRIC: THE BALANCE LOST FREE COMIC BOOK DAY EDITION™ © 2011 Michael Moorcock. Excluding the unique creations of Chris Roberson, which are ™ and © Monkeybrain, Inc., all characters, the distinctive likenesses thereof, and all related indicia are ™ and © Michael Moorcock. All other material, unless otherwise specified, ™ and © 2011 Boom Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. BOOM! Studios™ and the BOOM! Studios logo are trademarks of Boom Entertainment, Inc., registered in various countries and categories. All characters, events, and institutions depicted herein are fictional. Any similarity between any of the names, characters, persons, events, and/or BOOM-STUDIOS.COM institutions in this publication to actual names, characters, and persons, whether living or dead, events, and/or institutions is unintended and purely coincidental. BOOM! Studios does not read or accept unsolicited submissions of ideas, stories, or artwork. For information regarding the CPSIA on this printed material, call: (203) 595-3636 and provide reference #EAST – 99999. PRINTED IN USA. Mel. NIB. Oh. Nay. That’s how I’ve been saying it for 30-some years now. Alice has Wonderland. There’s Middle Earth. Hyperboria may come to mind. Where I wanted to go was Melniboné -- perhaps that’s an overstatement. I wanted to be a fly on the wall because, frankly, the universe was too damn frightening and dark to actually want to go there, something might decide to kill me, or far, far worse...there’s a lot of fates worse than death in Melniboné. When Elric showed up, it was like everything was light beer and this was Scotch. I’d been listening to Celine Dion and then Led Zeppelin rolled up. I loved Lord of the Rings and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Elric showed up out of the mists of Norse Legend with a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack and changed everything. I missed the first appearance of Elric. I wasn’t born in 1961 when the first book was published, and I couldn’t read yet when he appeared in comic book form in the early issues of CONAN THE BARBARIAN from Marvel Comics (#14 and #15). That’s okay. When Elric first showed up, he was under the command of one of the seminal Silver Age writers, Roy Thomas, and the great Barry Windsor-Smith, but he had a weird red pointy hat that true Elric fans knew wasn’t appropriate. Elric and the kingdom of Melniboné make their comic book debut in “A Sword Called Stormbringer!” and “The Green Empress of Melniboné,” appearing in CONAN THE BARBARIAN #14 and #15. Windy City Comics publishes ELRIC: FALL OF THE DREAMING CITY, the first comic book entirely devoted to the Prince of Ruin. Elric appears in issues of HEAVY METAL MAGAZINE, starring in a comic written by Michael Moorcock and drawn by Frank Brunner. Another Moorcock eternal champion, Jerry Cornelius, also makes his first sequential art appearance in the magazine. You’ve got to understand something -- I was a pretty average Middle American kid growing up in the populous-but-has-a-small-town-heart city of San Antonio, Texas. I grew up about a 4-hour drive south of where Robert E. Howard, the Texan creator of Conan, grew up. Nowadays, the English-born Michael Moorcock lives in Bastrop, Texas -- an hour and 45 minutes north of where I used to ride my bike. Funny how it all comes together, isn’t it? It was all in my metaphorical backyard. Beautiful P. Craig Russell artwork on the cover. The flames, the gothic armor, wrapped up in a package that was a, ahem, graphic novel! Excuse me, what’s that? That’s right, the size of this original book was patterned after the European graphic novel format (mostly French) that was larger, magazine-sized, squarebound (no staples here!), longer in duration, and yes, God help us, more expensive. Slicker paper. Richer colors. Sharper images. It was only the second graphic novel that Mar- vel had ever published, right after THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN MARVEL. There had been a few before this -- ECLIPSE’S SABRE, which I had entirely missed. This was a world-shaking event. Real fantasy comics in a gorgeous, deluxe package that would presage the way most people enjoy the medium 30 years later. Part 1 of Roy Thomas and P. Craig Russell’s “The Dreaming City” is published in EPIC ILLUSTRATED #3. The first collection of “The Dreaming City” is released by Marvel Comics in a graphic novel format. Roy Thomas and P. Craig Russell’s run with the albino sorcerer continues with issue #1 of ELRIC, released by Pacific Comics. Issue #1 of ELRIC: SAILOR ON THE SEAS OF FATE is released by First Comics, who continues to publish Elric comics through 1989 with the series ELRIC: WEIRD OF THE WHITE WOLF, ELRIC: THE VANISHING TOWER, and ELRIC: BANE OF THE BLACK SWORD. It was a relic from an alternate universe. I can still If you hadn’t guessed, for a guy who’s six-foot-two picture Elric emerging, his hands raised, his mouth and well over two hundred pounds, I could never open as he cast a spell. People didn’t do magic in relate to the Barbarian with a physique more like comics that was so cool. Yeah, there was Doctor a defensive lineman. I mean, wear some armor, Strange, but he was a superhero who hung out with dude. Why are you getting your hands dirty? I loved Spider-Man. Elric was pure, undiluted fantasy with- the elegant spires of Melniboné, with its Dreaming out the artifice of capes and tights. Elric was from City, and the romantic nomenclature: “Sailor on an alternate world that probably roasted Hobbits the Seas of Fate” just sounds so much better than in massive, debauched occultic ceremonies. “Cimmerian” to me. Don’t get me wrong, Conan is a triumph of literature. But I was always an Elric guy This wasn’t just a barbarian who could swing a at heart. sword, this guy could kill you with his mind. I’m going to say it again. He can murder you with his That’s the mythology, of course. That he’s a reverse- mind. Conan -- where Conan is physically fit, Elric is frail. Dorian Hawkmoon, the Duke of Köln, makes his comic book debut in the graphic adaptation of HAWKMOON: THE JEWEL IN THE SKULL. Eternal Champion Corum Jhaelen Irsei makes his first appearance in comics in THE CHRONICLES OF CORUM, drawn by a young Mike Mignola. Two years later in CORUM: THE BULL AND THE SPEAR, a young Jill Thompson would take the reins. Dark Horse/Topps publishes the first of the 7-issue ELRIC: STORMBRINGER, issue #0 of which is a short semi-autobiographical story written by Neil Gaiman on the influence Moorcock’s work had on him as a young man, entitled “One Life Furnished in Early Moorcock.” DC Comics publishes the first issue of the highly ambitious MICHAEL MOORCOCK’S MULTIVERSE, a 12-issue series written by Moorcock himself. Michael Moorcock writes a second series for DC Comics, entitled ELRIC: THE MAKING OF A SORCERER, drawn by Walt Simonson. Where Conan is brute survival of the fittest, Elric Gaiman’s ode to Elric in “One Life Furnished in Early is refined and cerebral. While Conan celebrates Moorcock”. Agreed, Neil. You got a much earlier violence, Elric broods on it and wrestles with forces start than me -- the comics had to lead me to the frightening and morally ambiguous. books -- but this is me tipping my hat to you, sir. Turning my head sideways, I can now see shades of Word is that Moorcock put a bit of Kullervo from Finnish mythology into Elric, and there’s definitely Elric himself in Dream, Gaiman’s generation-defining the breath of The Broken Sword, Poul Anderson’s lead character in Sandman. The prince of a kingdom, 1954 novel, in there. The Albino thing is from Monsier driven by conflict, to make hard choices...Oh, yeah, and Zenith. Go Google it all. For a kid growing up in the there’s the skin-color thing, right? suburbs, it was modern, frightening, alluring, sexy, And then, of course, the delightful Elric parts of dangerous, and altogether intoxicating. MULTIVERSE and ELRIC: MAKING OF A SORCERER from DC Comics with the legendary Walter Simonson Did I mention that his sword had a mind of its own brings us up to date. and forced him to kill people so it could eat their souls? So, let me raise my Shiner Bock in your direction, When early direct market publisher Pacific Comics Mr. Moorcock. Thank you for the mind-bending put out a monthly comic book series, it was mind- journey. Thank you to Roy, Barry, Craig, Michael, shattering. You mean I can get Elric every month? Walter, and now to a new creative team taking the And it’s Craig Russell and Michael T. Gilbert? reins. For the audience that has picked this up, if this is your first time to Melniboné, beware -- dragons When the series migrated to First Comics and started sleep under Imrryr awaiting a call to war. It is not for adapting the novels, I had to find the source material the faint of heart. If you have been before, welcome and devour it all. Suddenly, they started publishing back. Remember the ley lines you used to get here. Hawkmoon and Corum, opening up these new worlds With the wrong incantation, you might find yourself to me...I spent many nights rolling up Dungeons and somewhere else across the multiverse..