Oct 27
Click for full imageMatthew’s Art Direction: So we’ll be requiring evil insect eyes and a bloomin’ great sword, oh yeah and an absurdly oversized helmet too…
Published 1987
(Average: 6.68 out of 10)
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Matthew’s Art Direction: So we’ll be requiring evil insect eyes and a bloomin’ great sword, oh yeah and an absurdly oversized helmet too…
Published 1987
(Average: 6.68 out of 10)Loading...
(9.25 out of 10) (9.18 out of 10) (9.01 out of 10) (8.97 out of 10) (8.93 out of 10) (8.93 out of 10) (8.93 out of 10) (8.92 out of 10) (8.88 out of 10) (8.88 out of 10)
Lastest Tweet
October 27th, 2011 at 9:10 am
That’s no “bloomin’ great sword”, that’s Stormbringer, devourer of souls.
October 27th, 2011 at 9:28 am
Derek: quite right! [sings] ‘Black bla-a-a-ade! Black bla-a-a-ade!’
October 27th, 2011 at 9:28 am
Fantasy Literature: The Prog Rock Album Cover Years.
October 27th, 2011 at 9:36 am
“Why, yes, I do keep getting my head stuck between automatic doors, how can you tell?”
October 27th, 2011 at 10:07 am
Moorcock is a big fan of Rodney Matthews (he of the Yes album covers amongst many others) and is quoted on rodneymatthews.com as saying
“Like only a few artists, Rodney Matthews frequently has the knack of exactly capturing not only the described detail of my scenes, but (much harder to accomplish) also of catching the exact mood of a piece.”
So there you go. This is what Moorcock was seeing when he wrote the Elric stories. What a fun time we all had in the ’60’s. 😮
October 27th, 2011 at 10:30 am
On the cover you can see depicted Elric’s main weapons:
STORMBRINGER, the soul-sucking sword;
MIGRAINE-BRINGER, the too-tight helmet which gives him his permanent dark mood.
October 27th, 2011 at 11:52 am
And the spiky font of toothy spikeness. It’s meant to grab you.
The figure looks like a Warhammer mini.
October 27th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Crazy art, but some brilliant writing.
October 27th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
“Rodney Matthews (he of the Yes album covers amongst many others) ”
You’re thinking of Roger Dean. Though Matthews certainly did his share of album covers, mostly metal, which makes sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Matthews
October 27th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Judging from the form of his skull I would say the hat sits a little bit too tight. Only a little bit.
October 27th, 2011 at 6:02 pm
I guess every artist has to put his own stamp on Elric in some way. Nose lip and chin this time around.
October 27th, 2011 at 8:06 pm
That really is the mother of all font problems. It hurts my brain.
October 27th, 2011 at 8:49 pm
The font! The font! It hurts us!
And I know the Elric tales are much beloved, but I have trouble getting through them. I keep thinking “No wonder Elric is such a petulant ass, the DM is totally railroading him.”
October 28th, 2011 at 6:20 am
Insect arms, too, from the looks of it.
October 28th, 2011 at 1:41 pm
“And I know the Elric tales are much beloved, but I have trouble getting through them. I keep thinking “No wonder Elric is such a petulant ass, the DM is totally railroading him.â€
In my experience, the Elric books are kinda like Rush. Once you start getting laid regularly, they don’t make much sense anymore.
October 28th, 2011 at 10:59 pm
@Michael Toland – You’re right, I had mixed him up with Roger Dean – and their styles are quite different too. In my defence, I don’t own any records with covers by either artist
October 31st, 2011 at 5:21 pm
@Derek, you would think that a sword call Stormbringer would be responsible for, well…bringing storms? Why wouldn’t someone just name their sword with the proper description like “Soul Devourer”, or “Soul Sucker”, or “Sharp Piece of Metal”?
October 31st, 2011 at 11:02 pm
Insufficient Gravitas. Can’t see a demon going around with a name like “pointed stick”
November 1st, 2011 at 6:47 pm
@Muttley, I could see it….and then I would see said demon run from fear after meeting The Knights That Say Nee!
November 1st, 2011 at 9:12 pm
This kind of reminds me of Chakan: The Forever Man. I wonder if Robert A. Kraus took any inspiration from Elric.
Anyway, while this cover is definitely weird, I wouldn’t call it BAD. Honestly, I really like the artwork. But I can definitely imagine it getting some glances from passers-by.
February 12th, 2012 at 8:26 am
It’s done by Rodney Matthews…
Therefore, it’s cool…
Kind of like that Frazetta thing… His “Mothman”/”Fire Demon” era…
“Fraz, baby, you’ll get no “a Roman Centurion should wear…”garbage from us! Just send us some of these offbeat paintings you do now and again, we’ll have one of our hacks hammer out some kind of a story for it!”
Like check out Lin Carter’s “The Black Star” with a Frazetta cover.
“Gay… Gay… GAY!!!” – but with Fraz doing it, it’s too COOL!
April 11th, 2014 at 1:43 pm
‘Hey, man…is it cool…is it, like, cool if I just perch up here for a while? Is it cool? Are you cool with it? I’m just askin’. I don’t want to bring you down or nothin’. You sure we’re good?’
August 2nd, 2015 at 1:52 pm
The rest of the cover I’ll buy, but why has Elric had his eyes replaced by sports car headlights?
August 25th, 2015 at 12:22 am
@Tom Noir: His eyes aren’t sports car headlights. He’s wearing a pair of tacky Elton John sunglasses.
October 3rd, 2015 at 11:31 am
Which came first? The novel, or the pinball table with the built-in Polaroid?
October 4th, 2015 at 1:17 pm
@Dead Stuff. The novel:
“‘Flash Dragon’ demonstrates the following tropes-
Plagiarism: The sorceror on the backglass art is a direct lift from Rodney Matthews’ depiction of Elric Of Melnibone.”
Plagiarism is a trope, apparently. Is there anything whatever left that TV Tropes *doesn’t* consider a trope?
October 5th, 2015 at 11:35 am
@Rachel: apparently, they consider ‘rhetorical questions’ as a trope. 😉
I’d also like to point out that plagiarism could be a GSS tag.
July 13th, 2016 at 8:49 am
I can’t imagine seeing this and taking a picture for this goofy website instead of buying it right away.