Elric of Melniboné

When I saw this on the reading list I got incredibly excited, so I’m sorry if this is somewhat preemptive. I’ll probably end up writing about this again as this post is likely to be less about the history of it, and more why it is important to me as a piece of literature and as a comic and what I loved about it.
Reading the tales of the albino, Elric of Melniboné, his sword Stormbringer and the tragic tales that followed him are some of my fondest memories. My dad collected the comics before I was born, so as I grew up I had an entire collection of his stories available for me to read. I don’t think he was missing any - I remember how proud he was of it. I think he still has them in their plastic sheets, hidden somewhere in his house. Before that, however, I remember my dad reading all the books to me, and this must have been before I could read well enough to do it on my own so I must have been quite young. Whatever my age (and I now question if they were entirely appropriate considering how old I must have been but I think I turned out well enough so it can’t have been too damaging…) I loved them and they hold an important place in my heart not only because they are an epic and wonderful collection of stories but because it makes me smile thinking about sitting in front of the fire, or in bed while my Dad would read to me. My heart also feels a little heavy too, because it has been so long since I got to sit and do the simple things with my family. I see my Dad maybe twice a year now, and I feel the weight of that now as I think about all the things we used to do together.
So, I’m sure you can see why this character means a lot to me - and I think that is the power of art and literature, and I think that is also why sometimes these recurring comics and books (and I’m sure the same applies to movie sequels), who follow one character for a long time can be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, the characters become real people to us, each story exploring them more thoroughly, testing them and showing us more about them - about how they choose to deal with a situation. At the same time, it has potential to be milked, the same stories wrapped up in different paper for the sake of commercial gain or just pressure to appease a fanbase. I think the way they went about approaching an Incredible sequel is the right attitude towards the whole thing. Before they announced Incredible II I remember reading that when asked if they intended to make a second one they said something along the lines of  ‘Only if we find the right story to tell about our characters, we resolved the family problems they were having in the first one, we can’t retell that’. Either way, I think the stories they told of Elric were fantastic ones and if that has a slight bias on it because of its personal relevance then so be it.