I’ve always had a fondness for Michael Moorcock’s Elric character. He’s an anomaly in the sword and sorcery genre: a melancholic , physically frail drug addict who, in order to survive, has to rely on sorcery and on souls fed to him by his vampiric, insatiable and ultimately treacherous sword. Rather than victory, he brings death and disaster to those around him, including the people he loves. In short, he’s the anti-Conan. Elric’s run in comics hasn’t been as successful as Conan’s, but then that’s cerebral limey writers for you.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep isn’t Philip K Dick’s best novel, but, thanks to Blade Runner, it’s by far his most famous. This adaption retains all the novel’s text, and is clearly a labour of love. Sadly, it’s also not very good for precisely those reasons.
You would think publishers would learn by now. Every so often they get the bright idea of commissioning a well-known author to write a comic, under the misapprehension that the ability to write a novel automatically results in the ability to write a good comic. You can count the numerous casualties who have attempted this in the past, and you’ll find their efforts lying in many a book store bargain bin. Will Clive Barker’s Hellraiser change that trend?
Unlike Carl Barks, Disney’s other great comic book artist, relatively little of Floyd Gottfredson’s work is readily available. This makes the reprinting of two early works in this comic especially welcome.
So Stan the Man is still trying to re-create Marvel of the early sixties. Why? All I can think of is that he has been treated as badly as he has treated other creators (mostly Kirby) over the decades and he’s trying to set up a financial legacy.
