I owe a huge debt to the public library not far from my childhood home, because it was very well stocked with fantasy and science fiction paperbacks. So much of my early education in the classics of these genres came from books I borrowed from the library. To this day, I can still see the covers of many of them, such as this one, with its illustration by Michael Whelan.
My feelings about Elric have always been complicated. I love the ideas of the Elric novels and think the Young Kingdoms are a wonderful imagined fantasy setting, but I've often been less than enthusiastic about the execution of the stories. Likewise, I have a potent love/hate relationship with the character of Elric of Melniboné, finding him equal parts compelling and insufferable. I've come to believe that my feelings are precisely what Moorcock intended and, if so, kudos to him.
When I was in high school, I decided that I needed to own the Elric novels for myself. I trudged down to the Waldenbooks at the local mall and sought out the science fiction and fantasy section, hoping I'd find copies of the DAW editions I'd first read several years before. Alas, they were no longer in print. Instead, I found the silver Berkeley Books versions with artwork by Robert Gould.
Does this happen to anyone else? Is there a piece of artwork you saw that made such an impression on you that it's colored your ability to appreciate later illustrations of the same subject?
I had the second set (silver) of covers for the Elric books.
ReplyDeleteI was just discussing this the other day on the OD&D proboards. My mind's eye cannot "un-see" what it has seen, whether I like it or not.
Thus why I generally prefer books very light on art because some art can ruin a product/experience for me.
"...why have us do any more of your imagining for you?" OD&D- Afterward-Volume III
Whelan's covers for the Pern books are like this for me. Every version since those looks totally wrong to me.
ReplyDeleteVery much agreed
DeleteFor me, Elric is best represented by the 1963 collection The Stealer of Souls and by Stormbringer (1965). Much like the Conan paperbacks, the Elric collections published in the 1970's seem more uneven in their quality.
ReplyDeleteThe original, monochrome covers to D2 and C1 really caught my eye the first time I encountered them; when I found them again (and was able to get them), they had the later, multi-colour covers. I literally felt my crest fall . . . .
ReplyDelete(FWIW, I tend to prefer the Gould artwork for Elric: it captures Elric's physical delicacy [although Whelan does a good job of it here:
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/9/9f/LRCTTHNDFT1985.jpg
])
Some of the art in the Tolkien Bestiary has litterally burned away my ability to appreciate most Middle Earth art.
ReplyDeleteThe black and white Elves drawn in there are how the Eldar look for me, nothing else will do.
Jon Hodgson's work on The One Ring has incredibly captured the same spirit, I think.
On the other hand...
I have the Grafton edition of Elric, with the covers by Michael Whelan.
I love Whelan's atmosphere, but I have issues with how muscular Elric looks in some of his pieces (including the ultra-iconic Stormbringer cover we all love).
On the other hand Gould is fascinatingly hieratic, with an almost Tarot-like quality, but too airy.
As an avid Elric fan I'm never tired of seeing new versions of the albino prince (maybe with the exclusion of most manga-inspired takes). I even like the phrygian-hatted Elric drawn by Cawthorn, I think, that Moorcock notoriously despises.
That DAW edition was my first Moorcock book, bought at Waldenbooks before they were devoured by B&N. That said, I'm not married to it as *the* look for the character, although it's certainly striking. If I see any definite image in my head it's probably Dee's work in Deities & Demigods (bizarre shoes and all), although there's more than a bit of Kaluta, Windsor-Smith, and even Russell mixed it.
ReplyDeleteThe one (increasingly common) thing that really puts me off a book is the use of movie stills as a cover image. Whether it's Tolkien or Heinlein or Goldman, I don't want to buy a book with some jackass Hollywood director's vision of the characters on the front.
Completely agree. I wouldn't buy Lord of the Rings with the faces of the actors on the book covers. And that goes with any book series that's been made into a movie. A total turnoff.
DeleteFunny, that was my first Moorcock too and the Dee illustration is also the one that comes to my mind when I picture Elric.
DeleteI spend time at this tumblr account:
ReplyDeletehttps://meanwhilebackinthedungeon.tumblr.com/
mostly safe for work, if you are ok with nekkid druids, etc occasionally. but some of the art just calls to me, makes me want to unsheath some dice and get down to some OD&D
Absolutely (in answer to the column's question). Artwork on book covers gets me to at least pick up the book and read the back cover or the dust jacket to learn what it's about. The second cover shown here isn't compelling at all, so much so I doubt I'd have ever read the series if that had been the cover I'd seen for the book all those years ago. The DAW cover is far better, and compelled me to pick up the book and give it a look.
ReplyDeleteThey had the books with Gould covers in my high school library so that's my first impression of them. I thought it made them look more fantastical than the then (80's) current "Renfaire" look typified by Darrel Sweet (Michael Whelan had moved in that direction by that point as well).
ReplyDeleteThe old Puffon covers for the Earthsea trilogy are similarly etched in my psyche. Nothing else I've ever soon on the cover of the series even comes close.
ReplyDeletehttps://grevel.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/LeGuin.01.jpg
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Heh! I remember that first one from public school!
DeleteNever saw that one before. That first one is the stuff of nightmares. If I ever play an aaracocra PC I'm cribbing that for my character's image. :)
DeleteRon Wolotsky’s art for paperbacks of the Chronicles of Amber are most evocative for me, even if they’re not the way I actually picture the stories in my mind’s eye. I only owned the Avon paperback of Nine Princes for a long time but picked up all the others from used bookstores just for the front and back covers.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/e/ea/NNPRNCSNMB1982.jpg
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Those were my Amber books too. Both stylized and stylish, and looked great as a set.
DeleteI really hope Hollywood never notices that series...or really anything by Zelazny, who doesn't deserve to be pissed on any more than Damnation Alley already did.
If they did a faithful rendition, I think Roadmarks would work well. But your skepticism is warranted, I fear.
DeleteRoadmarks, hmmm. Maybe David Lynch if someone has veto power over any crazy changes he tries to make? It'd almost certainly never get made though, the story's too out there for Hollywood even today.
DeleteGreat read, though.
I wonder if One night In Lonesome October might be doable even for the bottomless stupidity that is the modern film industry?
You’re ahead of me; I wasn’t even thinking about a director.
DeleteAs I recall, Roadmarks doesn’t rely on the interior voice of a narrator, unlike many of Zelazny’s novels. Nine Princes seems particularly problematic; how would a movie communicate Corwin’s experience of years of blindness and imprisonment?
And Roadmarks ticks a lot of action flick boxes: dinosaurs and time travel, a martial arts fight involving a cyborg, magic and dragons, robots and AIs... But would enough of the audience get the joke of Red’s goal (the Greeks winning the Battle of Marathon)?
There's no perfect artist for LOTR for me, perhaps because I read the Ballantine paperbacks first and was allowed to imagine the characters for myself.
ReplyDeleteWhelan's Elric was my first Elric. Especially Sailor on the Seas of Fate and Stormbringer. But Brunner's Chaosium work blew that all away. I do like the arrogant, sophisticated Melnibonean decadence of some of Gould's covers. And Erol Otus' Theleb K'aarna will live forever.
Whelan's covers for the Del Rey Lovecraft collections were a great first impression that waned with time.
And Frazetta's Conan is the only Conan.
Those Del Rey Lovecraft covers would have held up well if they bore any resemblance to the contents of the stories within.
DeleteBut have you seen the current Arkham House hardcovers? Ye gods, what were they thinking? At The Mountains of Madness is particularly hideous:
http://www.arkhamhouse.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=0-87054-038-6
I had the Brunner Elric portfolio when I was younger, took me three months to save up enough chore money to buy. Was one of many irreplaceable things lost in a flood about a decade later. Sad memories.
DeleteRegarding LoTR, I like the somewhat abstract Tolkien covers. Everything else feels small.
Delete@DickMcGee: Ugh. Sorry to hear that.
Delete@Ruprecht: Good point.
@Bonnacon: You're right about Whelan's Lovecraft covers! And that Arkham House stuff is dreadful, and I don't mean it in a good way.
Whelan's Barsoom covers are definitive for me. Other versions, before or since, just don't quite match that vision of Mars as it exists in my head now.
ReplyDelete100% agreed. Although I will admit to a nostalgic fondness for Gil Kane's efforts in the Marvel comic series. Nowhere near Whelan's work, but Kane was a man who really knew how to draw an over-the-top punch.
DeleteFor me it was Frazetta again. His Dejah Thoris makes a hell of a first impression.
DeleteWhen I was a teen I had all the DAW books Elrics with yellow spines and overly-muscular Elric. Then a few years later the other editions came out including a new title or two I hadn't seen in the DAW batch, books that slipped in between the others in order. I don't know if I was over Elric or if I just didn't want those ugly books on my shelf but I gave them a pass.
ReplyDeleteThe Lensman covers by Jack Gaughan from the 50's are the ones that call out to me.
ReplyDeleteThe old Kane novels with their Frazetta covers really solidified my idea of Kane. The new versions on Kindle look like someone who has not read the books just picked random pics of some shirtless guy with a sword. I feel sorry for readers just now being exposed to Karl Edward Wagner today...
ReplyDelete