My Cultural Diet

I’m a sucker for Michael Moorcock’s Elric stories. Grim nihilism, excessive violence, and purple-leaning prose notwithstanding, I just can’t quit the doomed albino warrior with all of his existential musings and endless woe. I haven’t had the best experience with Elric comics, but P. Craig Russell’s adaptation of Stormbringer, the apocalyptic conclusion of Elric’s saga (though Moorcock’s written more Elric novels since, like The Fortress of the Pearl), is a faithful adaptation of the original novel. Russell’s art is suitably trippy and psychedelic though sometimes, when I see a panel full of illustrated text, I get the sense that even Russell felt a bit outmatched by Moorcock’s heady prose. Also, special kudos to letterer Galen Showman, whose work gets properly ornate at times. Oddly enough, there are some minor deviations from the original text sprinkled throughout the graphic novel, typos that should’ve been caught by an editing pass. Nothing major, but given Russel’s otherwise devoted treatment of Moorcock’s text, they did give me pause and take me out of the story from time to time.

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