Michael Whelan does Elric of Melniboné

When it comes to cover art for fantasy novels, I normally think of bland adventurers hanging out in some painfully boring forest aided with over saturation of primary colors that are accented by an overly glossy polish on the painting. This is the case with a lot of novels that came out in the later 1980s and 1990s on TSR, and even some of the artists commissioned for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. But then there are always those artists who have a good sense of conceptual design, composition, and a strong sense of style tot he point where they wouldn't even need to use a signature to sign their works.

Enter Michael Whelan, fantasy artist supreme. Not only is he one of the better of the genre, but he's also one of the most productive. You can tell he loves what he does by the sheer output of paintings he's done. AND he has galleries of his work all over the nation, trying to break into the art world. I have a lot of respect for that. Amongst all of these art school dropouts trying to imitate Donald Judd *yawn, guess what- minimalism is over* there are people who are doing decent figuration work, but adding character to it. Although his character is more fantastic, nevertheless snobbish art elitist are looking at it and trying to convince themselves they shouldn't it like it because it's blatantly Fantasy-oriented and not pretentious in the least. But I digress

Michael Whelan is known for his art for fantasy novel series for Dragon Riders of Pern, Edgar Rice Burrough's Barsoom, Tad William's multiple series, Melanie Rawn's Dragon Star and Dragon Prince, and the DAW editions of Michael Moorecock's cult hero Elric of Melniboné in addition to Record jackets for Heavy Metal Bands Sepultura, Obituary, and these guys-



All four original albums by Cirith Ungol uses Michael Whelan's art he was commissioned for the Elric series as their cover art*. One opinion that i still have for most fantasy artists is that their best stuff is made in the earlier part of their career. Whelan breaks away from that to a degree, but I feel that his work from the 1970s-1980s is his strongest. The work he did for the DAW editions of Moorecock's novels are brilliant. Whelan is on the top tier of Fantasy artists not because of his technical abilities as an artists, but because he is one of finest fantasy artists with a sense of composition this side of Frank Frazetta. And that's saying a lot. But I think i understand why, because Elric is one of the the most badass character concepts since Howard's Conan of Cimmeria (the barbarian to you squares.) Check out this powerful image in full-


Elric of Melniboné is the albino emperor of a dissolving empire of a humanoid race (similar to elves, but evolved from cats?) who has to take "herbs"(drugs) to function normally because his body is terminally ill. He is estranged to the decadence of his race's culture and sees the human kingdoms as potential threats to his kingdom and everything else. And he wields a black-bladed long sword called the Stormbringer that drains Elric of his energy and health, but is powered by the souls of those who are slain by the Stormbringer's blade. I need to get every book.

With such a strong literary character, Whelan does wonder's with portraying him. In fact Michael Moorecock said that he's the only artist to depict Elric properly to his liking. And I feel that Whelan does justice by not only making strong compostions of elric being awesome, but also adds atmosphere, something that alot of fantasy artists never even attempt. He is truely a master of his craft, and I hope to own an original by him someday. Plus he can hang with Obituary, and that's okay in my book. Here's a gallery of his images of Elric.











And here's the Cirith Ungol sub-gallery-






*If you claim to like Metal and don't know who Cirith Ungol is, then you pose. Put down the burrito, stop listening to Municipal Waste and get Frost and Fire.