Michael Moorcock, despite not being as well-known as other fantasy authors nowadays, was really incredibly seminal to the genre. Not just Berserk, but Warhammer, Dungeons & Dragons, and countless others took inspiration from it. The Eternal Champion saga is to fantasy what Dune is to science fiction.
Ok, but how much coffee did you consume before starting it? I remember reading a preface to The City of the Beast where Moorcock detailed how much caffeine he ingested before starting the Kane of Old Mars trilogy.
Short and sweet, this is the first time I find your channel, and even if it is just a hobby, I hope you continue to put out this type of interesting content! :D
Corum is also the first time someone ever used the eyes flaring with rage as an illustratory effect. A lot of anime uses it today but i'm pretty sure Corum's eyes literally flaring a different color with his rage is one of the first uses of this trope and it also adds an alien feel to him as a different species of humanoid.
Good to finally hear someone with a better understanding of Berserk. I get tired of all the edgy clips and memes about a lone tough guy against the world, rather than a story of friendship, connection, and finding light in the darkness.
“Lone tough guy against the world” is early Berserk. Then it’s about finding light in the darkness. Both parts combined are about being tough until you can finally find that light.
The Japanese actually read books, they're not racist or anything and start calling American novels "a-BYYKK-usu!" the same way as all of you use" Anime" and "Manga" and falvorless "tex-mex" food or what you call "pizza". Amano's cover art is also on Vampire Hunter D that's a massive literary addition to Moorcock that USA largely ignores, on purpose, but it's the standard source to carry on this influence into the Japanese culture. Same as Ursula LeGuin and stuff like True Name in Spirited Away. However it's not exclusive and a replacement like star wars replaces Confucianism in USA, because Miura also draws from the art of Douglas Smith, for Geoffrey Maguire's Wicked, that is almost exclusively brand-wshed in USA as Harry Potter. Although, Naruto also draws a lot from Wicked, it's a huge novel in the literary community. Japan is just sophisticated enough that while they aired Legend of the Galactic Heroes, you were watching TMNT by TOEI without even the basic sense to call it "anime". To not bleed the credit of Glorious American Cartooning to its actual creators in Japan. Certainly not after the US executives took such strides to make sure TMNT 1987 is nothing like the original manga, in their was that geuinely would make China blush at their desk, bfore going back to making Miracle Star.
It's a shame Moorcock's works are not known more. Elric is litteraly a main inspiration for Warhammer (Chaos), Warcraft (Arthas) and Game of Thrones (Targaryen and Lannister) as well.
Plus Warhammer copied Moorcock's concept of Chaos/Order concept (the chaos sigil alone is the exact same thing). Early editions even had Gods of Order, but they were retconned to avoid... legal complications... Not saying Warhammer is a rip-off setting (Moorcock, Dune, Judge Dredd, etc...), it is more the ultimate fanfiction.
I once asked Michael Moorcock in a QnA something about the use of animal masks and symbolism on his Hawkmoon books. He told me that he doesn't remember much of that time because he wrote it essentially in two weekends. And he was interested in the cultural significance of masks and imagery at that time. What a madman. The book is thicker than my arm. Love him and his works
Masks are interesting, they are in essence effigies of the gods. The wearers embodying the divine in rituals akin to theatrical drama. My favorite theory for the mythos of masks, is the god with many faces, or the monomyth. It speaks to the trancendental pattern of truth held within human nature, present within our mythology. No matter what culture births a mythos, the points of similarity and the characters present serve as emmisaries of a truth beyond the peoples who tell them.
I’ve read some of Elric. It’s a shame Corum is barely talked about. You’re one of the few people who made a video about him. Motivates me to read Corum.
I got the series on graphic audio, it's beautifully done "a movie in your mind" is not overstating. The moorcock books are fantastic and corum instantly became a favorite
Something I discovered is a novel series called: "Casca" about the roman soldier who stabbed Jesus on the cross and so is cursed with immortality to wander from battlefield to battlefield. Cursed to be a mercenary forever. I'm convinced this series is the source of Casca's name and inspired Berserk somewhat.
@@____________838 Casca Rufio Longinus is his name in the book series. The soldier that stabbed Jesus was never actually named in the Bible. The name Longinus comes from the Gospel of Nicodemus, which is apocryphal.
That is St. Longinus, after piercing the side of Christ, blood and water spurts out and healed his one eye, which was blind. He later converted to Christianity and became a Martyr and Saint. These are from later accounts non-canonical to the Bible. There's also Gaius Cassius Longinus, a famous Roman Senator and one of the leading instigator in the assassination of Julius Ceasar. Cassius is sometimes translated to Casca. (St. Longinus is also known to be called Cassius.)
I'm happy to see you recommending Corum. I may like Elric more, but i can't deny that Corum is super memorable. I read it for the first time this year, after my father recommended me them. The world of Corum felt so bizarre and alien to me. It was familiar, yet quite different. I've come to like Elric more, purely because his character resonates more with me, but i won't deny that Corum is also a worthy work, deserving to be given a shot
Finishing up the Elric series on audiobook. I super recommend it to anyone who just wants some good fantasy. Its very dramatic and Elric is everyone's tragic genius first OC but is written extremely well. The first two books(elric, and sailor) have some good older audiobook adaptations and they have it all from dynamic narrator to cheesy synth. Its a great time and Elric was the initial inspiration for GoT's Targaryens. Once im done with those I'll def check out Corum!
I feel like his Chronicles of Corum really deserve a modern adaptation of some kind, there so psychedelic and mature and require an artistic dedication that lots of modern fantasy media has left behind.
those pixel art landscapes look amazing, and i love this recommendation. Never heard of Moorcock, Elric or Corum, but sounds interesting and i will be checking the comics out :)
This guy looks exactly like the Fire Knights in Elden Ring! I’m convinced that Miyazaki read Moorcocks books in his youth. He’s mentioned how he read English fantasy novels but as far as I know not too many specific examples. And as Berserk was a huge inspiration for FromSofts dark fantasy games it’s just awesome to see works that inspired Berserk itself also directly into FromSoft games.
There’s no way Miyazaki didn’t tbh. Elden ring especially is absolutely saturated with Moorcock stuff, given that George R R Martin has also cited Moorcock as a primary inspiration. One pointed example is the Carian Knight Moongrum - an unambiguous homage to the Eternal Champion character Moonglum. In fact, it might not even be a homage but more like a straight up rip of the name, as the ‘L’ sound isn’t really native to the Japanese language, so in the Japanese translations of the Eternal Champion Miyazaki would have read the word ムーングラム, which would have been said aloud as ‘Mūnguramu’, so from the Japanese perspective he didn’t even change the name at all!
Having finished the old and new Elric comics, along with the audiobook, his best story to me, is the Fortress of the Pearl, where he feels a lot more hopeful and positive on his outlook, rather then being his typical sardonic self. Its also just a really cool story. Sadly that all gets taken away from him in subsequent tales to where he becomes a shell of a man, but still fights against chaos in his dying world. Concerning Corum, I know very little, but I did collect all the old comics and I'm excited to jump into them.
Interesting comparisons, although for the arm-loss-detail it's quite known that Miura used the Evil Dead movies and posters as reference for Guts. But also a *lot* of Go Nagai manga influences (including "swiping" entire pages and panels but in his own style): Devilman Violence Jack and *especially* for the Eclipse, Eye loss and Behelit visuals: Susano Oh Go Nagai was also big on black haired berserking protagonist vs chill/psycho blonde rival/antagonist. For style influence in particular Go did "fan" comics of Dantes Inferno, including that particular style of pencilling/hatching that Miura was so fond of. As for another potential influence worth checking out, the Getter Robo manga artist Ken Ishikawa version of Makai Tenshi in 1986 (also known as Demonic Resurrection: Procession of the Saints). A bloody Dark Fantasy tale of people similar to Apostles/God Hand returning and unleashing hell in ye medieval Japan, including a rather blonde bishonen-type. Featuring a black haired, one-eyed, ronin samurai protagonist decked out with trick weapons and a big honking sword. It got some gruesome imagery, but Makai Tenshi + Susano Oh are *very* proto Berserk. Well worth reading!
i literally pumped my fist in joy when i heard you say corum. Its incredible to me how unbelievably influential all of the books Moorcock wrote were on scifi as a whole. corum and elric in particular are responsible for so much of the shape of what dungeons and dragons eventually became (ex. the eye and hand of vecna are an explicit reference to the eye of rhynn and the hand of kwll), but the elric books were almost completely out of print until really recently, like a couple years ago, and i think that the corum books are still out of print. its a shame really how much of a poor reputation older scifi has right now when theres a lot to love there. also fun thing about the pronunciation of "kwll," Moorcock took a lot of inspiration from Welsh for the names of a lot of things in the corum books. In Welsh, "W" is actually a vowel sound, making specifically the long O sound in "school" and "good," and "Ll" is actually a single letter, which makes an L sound with a kind of breathy H sound at the beginning, so "kwll" would be pronounced something more like Koohl. Which is pretty... cool ;)
We highly recommend reading the actual books as well, starting with the Elric Saga which lays the cosmological groundwork for Moorcock's -Uni-Multiverse. See also Von Bek and of course; _The Eternal Champion_ trilogy.
Dude, awesome recommendations! Super interesting. And no apology needed for not being active -- just thankful that your hobby involves sharing cool stuff with us in the first place :)
I’d say further that Corum is a big corner stone of the cosmic underpinnings of Moorcock’s multiverse since the newer comics reveal where the eye and hand come from
The first trilogy sets it straightforward. They were books before comics but from what I see they are not exactly the same. At least some characters that appear in the books don't appear in the comic and viceversa.
@@christophermiller8381Michael moorcock appears in appendix N (the appendix in which Gygax lists all the inspirations for D&D) so actually, it always go back to the eternal champion…
I will look into this series and I really appreciate the Nazca pic as your channel pic. It's awesome how much writers take inspiration from each other and can expand different worlds.
I love me some Michael Moorcock. It's good to see him discussed, as his work has always been a deepcut, despite influencing fiction literature maybe as much as Tolkien has.
Darker? Have you finished corum? I haven't read berserk but corum loses EVERYTHING he had but his life and cape in the beginning. All of his races pride removed one by one with each horrific sighting and then doomed to serve gods he does not trust. A strong contrast to his eternal companion this series in that corum does not trust nor wish to serve gods and let fate guide him as his companion does here, to the point Jarrie knows he will take up multiple personalities and identities to serve his role.
@@elgatochurro I know, I've read all of Corum's books. But Corum's torment started when he was already a young adult, while Guts was literary born into it.
@@michaelstar7556 I don't really see how that changes much Both are such a loss of innocence, but one was a retelling and corum went through many phases leading up to what he became. It's even stated "you fight like a Mabden". Corum lady of his noble race almost no different from the humans
Corum is genuinely one of my favorite fantasy characters. It's fun, creative, fast and doesn't waste your time. Big fan of the books and I especially loved the second Corum trilogy. I also recommend the audiobooks, they add music, sound effects and every character is played by different voice actors with different accents coresponding to the Celtic/Irish folklore the story is inspored by. Its really fun stuff.
I read the Corum novels when I was a teenager, and I loved it. I thought he was a fascinating character. His ability to lift his eyepatch to see those whom he had slain in the past and then use his grafted-on hand to summon them forth to fight for him was just amazing to the younger me. Thanks for reminding me of Moorcock's Corum!
Fun fact : Michael Moorcock wrote a song for the band Blue Oyster Cult, about the Eternal Champion. The song is called Veteran of the Psychic Wars, and it's fire ! (of unknown origin lmao...)
He wrote three songs for Blue Oyster Cult: Black Blade, Veteran of the Psychic Wars, and Great Sun Jester. He also wrote two albums for Lemmy era Hawkwind, those two albums being Chronicle of the Black Sword and Warrior on the Edge of Time.
I remember First Comics. They did a lot of interesting stuff before Marvel saturated the market wit various X-clone comics and First couldn't compete. The Mignola work in Corum was gorgeous. Thanks for the retrospective.
Saw a video by yours recommended and all I have to say; you are one the first user I've came across to have an icon from the ill-fated Jikuu Tenshou Nazca AKA the show that's more known having two clips from it be featured in MITM.
I do need to read Corum at some point, but I've always deeply loved Moorcock's work. Hawkmoon might be my favorite series out of all of his just because of how unique it is, seemlessly mixing science fiction and sword and sorcery fantasy in an alternate world where the brutal dictatorship of England sought to colonize every single continent they touched
I think another manga you might like to discuss is claymore. It's pretty similar to berserk and it's basically monster human hybirds hunting down demons while they slowly succub to losing their humanity.
Corum was how I started with Moorcock, after a random birthday present from a neighbour, no 2, Queen of the Swords. After I had got No.1, I was hooked! Elric, Hawkmoon, Oswald Barnstable (Steampunk yeah!) When the comic adaptation came along, it was mind blowing! Got into Berserk many years later, but which ever way you come, you won’t leave!
Corum is my favorite Eternal Champion. I love Elric but I find Corum to be a more likable character. I would highly recommend the audio drama for Corum, as well. It's excellent, and the theme song for the audio drama is an instant classic, it was also sampled in the song "Arioch, Knight of the Swords", from the band Claymorean.
All those D&D players that knew the Eye and Hand of Vecna are going to LOVE this one. OF NOTE: please read the "Overthinking Cowboy Bebop" page that talks about the hand and eye themes in the anime. You will find a connection with this, and also with LotR! Highly recommended.
Speaking of inspiration, lets not forget about the REAL Guts--Goetz Von Berlichingen, The Iron hand! A German mercenary captain who had lost a hand and used working prosthetic hands for various uses.
Super gorgeous looking comic, I'm definitely gonna check it out. I'd recommend reading Coda by Simon Spurrier and Matias Bergara if you want another fantasy story with amazing art
Corum was indeed revolutionary as it inspired the more horror oriented authors who released their projects just a few years after Corum and the term Dark Fantasy was born.
Regarding the comparison between Conan and Moorcocks characters: It seems that Elric was deliberately designed as an anti-Conan, a physically weak sorcerous albino emperor from an ancient civilization more advanced than its surroundings, brooding, conflicted, who ends up abandoning his throne, and so on, rather than a strong, dark-haired, carefree barbarian who ends up gaining a throne.
I think what really makes berserk a one of one isnt just the themes of fate and evil but also the characters. The Best scenes of berserk in my opinion are the more subtle ones like when Griffith scratches himself in the water or when guts kills the kid. These scenes carry berserk and really add so many layers into the characters
7 in total actually. The quest for Tanelorn is the endgame for the 4 eternal champions Elric, Erekose, Hawkmoon and Corum. (or 8 if you count sailor on the seas of fate from Elric's perspective)
It's also was a big inspiration for Warhammer and The Elder Scrolls universes, not so sure about Berserk to be honest but that's where a lot of more modern fantasy settings taking its root.
I read the Elric books in the early 80s and the Hawkmoon books later. I still own those and a few others like the Eternal Champion and I've always loved them.
This is the first video of yours I've seen UA-cam recommended it to me seem all right if you're looking for something weird and out of the way i would look up the abolethic sovereignty it's a 4th edition D&D Trilogy series kind of blew me away with how good it was it's one of those 10% of D&D books that are good I've only read the first two so far but I will soon be getting into the Third
the only of moorcock's works ive read is the eternal champion, because i heard it parallels attack on titan. i thought it was really quite good. definitely need to read more of his work
I definitely see the berserk comparison, it takes a very similar approach to these older fantasies. I felt the similarities to elric, as a doom hero that's always trying to cling to humanity despite all the odds and sorrow he faces.
Can you recommend additional dark fantasy titles? I'm big into Conan and Red Sonja, and I know of Elric. Thanks for mentioning Corum and Hawkmoon. I'll check those out.
Kane by Karl Edward Wagner is classic Dark Fantasy in the vein of Conan and Elric. The books are out of print and a bit hard to find, but are well worth reading if you get your hands on a copy of them. I'd also recommend the Broken Empire trilogy by Mark Lawrence and Beyond Redemption by Michael R. Fletcher for something more modern and still in print.
Conan wasn't dumb. Kull though was far deeper in his philosophical musings. Robert E. Howard was physically active man that was also very well read for his time. So it came to reason that a lot of his characters where similar in that respect.
Conan is a very good character despite being written for pulp magazines aimed at horny teenagers. The guy has an entire phylosophy despite being a simple warrior, he's even VERY progressive for the time, being a man who despite banging ladies left and right ONLY accepts doing it with consent, there's times where slaves offer him sex for rescuing them, and because it's the only way they know how to thank people, and Conan being a giga chad rejects them.
1:25 Wow, if you told me this art style was an influence on Final Fantasy I wouldn't doubt you for a second. That looks *just* like a FF box cover - the pose, the choice of colour, the armour style...
I don’t suppose anyone out there can you answer me a question maybe out of nowhere. When I was a kid in the 70s, it was a comic book. I had found in one of those three pack bags. It was a horror anthology.. the one host was it a gorgeous female vampire and the other was an old man I think maybe a scientist. And then the first issue they told the female vampires history. It might’ve been gold key comics, but that’s just a guess may have been another company altogether. I know that’s not much to go on. Maybe somebody else remembers it
I clicked this video because with my limited library of comics the art in the thumbnail popped out as something I'd want to have on my bookshelf next to my hellboy collection. And then you tell me Mignola drew it? This is something I'd read and really drink in the art and paneling as much as the story.
wow this video's getting alot of views, thanks. just like croum i made it in 2 weeks
Michael Moorcock, despite not being as well-known as other fantasy authors nowadays, was really incredibly seminal to the genre. Not just Berserk, but Warhammer, Dungeons & Dragons, and countless others took inspiration from it. The Eternal Champion saga is to fantasy what Dune is to science fiction.
Ok, but how much coffee did you consume before starting it? I remember reading a preface to The City of the Beast where Moorcock detailed how much caffeine he ingested before starting the Kane of Old Mars trilogy.
Short and sweet, this is the first time I find your channel, and even if it is just a hobby, I hope you continue to put out this type of interesting content! :D
wait His and Her Circumstances the only anime I've watched with my family is related to Neon Genesis? ok I'll watch this video now. great vid btw~
the outro song is Adesso e Fortuna ~炎と永遠~
Corum is also the first time someone ever used the eyes flaring with rage as an illustratory effect. A lot of anime uses it today but i'm pretty sure Corum's eyes literally flaring a different color with his rage is one of the first uses of this trope and it also adds an alien feel to him as a different species of humanoid.
Good to finally hear someone with a better understanding of Berserk. I get tired of all the edgy clips and memes about a lone tough guy against the world, rather than a story of friendship, connection, and finding light in the darkness.
“Lone tough guy against the world” is early Berserk. Then it’s about finding light in the darkness. Both parts combined are about being tough until you can finally find that light.
“Michael Moorcock was a - oh no, he’s still alive -“
Instant sub. I laughed so hard I woke my roommate up 😂
I had the same Mandela Effect with him^^
@@rKhael53 even more proof that the supposed mandela effect is just an issue of misremembrance
@@superhetoric That’s partly because people keep misusing the term “Mandela effect”, which is supposed to be a specific kind of misremembering.
Yoshitaka Amano did artwork for Corum books covers and some of the other eternal champions. I always liked his interpretation of Corum best.
The Japanese actually read books, they're not racist or anything and start calling American novels "a-BYYKK-usu!" the same way as all of you use" Anime" and "Manga" and falvorless "tex-mex" food or what you call "pizza".
Amano's cover art is also on Vampire Hunter D that's a massive literary addition to Moorcock that USA largely ignores, on purpose, but it's the standard source to carry on this influence into the Japanese culture. Same as Ursula LeGuin and stuff like True Name in Spirited Away.
However it's not exclusive and a replacement like star wars replaces Confucianism in USA, because Miura also draws from the art of Douglas Smith, for Geoffrey Maguire's Wicked, that is almost exclusively brand-wshed in USA as Harry Potter. Although, Naruto also draws a lot from Wicked, it's a huge novel in the literary community.
Japan is just sophisticated enough that while they aired Legend of the Galactic Heroes, you were watching TMNT by TOEI without even the basic sense to call it "anime". To not bleed the credit of Glorious American Cartooning to its actual creators in Japan. Certainly not after the US executives took such strides to make sure TMNT 1987 is nothing like the original manga, in their was that geuinely would make China blush at their desk, bfore going back to making Miracle Star.
@@sboinkthelegday3892
Oh no.
Not the racism.
Dawg what
@@Quanlor ai or someone had a bad day I guess
@@sboinkthelegday3892The Japanese aren’t racist? lol ok weeb
It's a shame Moorcock's works are not known more.
Elric is litteraly a main inspiration for Warhammer (Chaos), Warcraft (Arthas) and Game of Thrones (Targaryen and Lannister) as well.
Plus Warhammer copied Moorcock's concept of Chaos/Order concept (the chaos sigil alone is the exact same thing). Early editions even had Gods of Order, but they were retconned to avoid... legal complications...
Not saying Warhammer is a rip-off setting (Moorcock, Dune, Judge Dredd, etc...), it is more the ultimate fanfiction.
Elric clearly also inspired Kain from the Legacy of Kain games.
Used it for inspiration for two of my characters Alaric and Agaric
Just ignore the Sidhe of Celtic lore that proceeds both.
@@greenknightable I mean everything is a little biased on something else in some way. But I get your point.
ETERNAL CHAMPION MENTIONED ! 🎉🥳
I once asked Michael Moorcock in a QnA something about the use of animal masks and symbolism on his Hawkmoon books. He told me that he doesn't remember much of that time because he wrote it essentially in two weekends. And he was interested in the cultural significance of masks and imagery at that time. What a madman. The book is thicker than my arm. Love him and his works
Masks are interesting, they are in essence effigies of the gods. The wearers embodying the divine in rituals akin to theatrical drama.
My favorite theory for the mythos of masks, is the god with many faces, or the monomyth. It speaks to the trancendental pattern of truth held within human nature, present within our mythology. No matter what culture births a mythos, the points of similarity and the characters present serve as emmisaries of a truth beyond the peoples who tell them.
I’ve read some of Elric. It’s a shame Corum is barely talked about. You’re one of the few people who made a video about him.
Motivates me to read Corum.
I got the series on graphic audio, it's beautifully done "a movie in your mind" is not overstating.
The moorcock books are fantastic and corum instantly became a favorite
Something I discovered is a novel series called: "Casca" about the roman soldier who stabbed Jesus on the cross and so is cursed with immortality to wander from battlefield to battlefield. Cursed to be a mercenary forever. I'm convinced this series is the source of Casca's name and inspired Berserk somewhat.
Casca… I’m guessing Longinus was a variant name?
@@____________838 Casca Rufio Longinus is his name in the book series. The soldier that stabbed Jesus was never actually named in the Bible. The name Longinus comes from the Gospel of Nicodemus, which is apocryphal.
@@ValiareTheForsaken01 thanks for the info.
That is St. Longinus, after piercing the side of Christ, blood and water spurts out and healed his one eye, which was blind. He later converted to Christianity and became a Martyr and Saint. These are from later accounts non-canonical to the Bible.
There's also Gaius Cassius Longinus, a famous Roman Senator and one of the leading instigator in the assassination of Julius Ceasar. Cassius is sometimes translated to Casca. (St. Longinus is also known to be called Cassius.)
I've read a bunch of these!!!! This is the first time I've seen someone else mention this in the wild.
This really inspires me, to go back to my childhood, to find something I thought was awesome at that age and make a story out of it.
Do it.
I dare you.
(Removes Trousers in Defiance)
"wrote three books in two weeks" *cries as a grrm fan*
Holy crap!
Physical deformities, giant black sword, doomed existence, hot girlfriend he can never be with...?
Guts really IS an Eternal Champion!!
Or Eöl the dark elf from the Silmarillion.
Now the question is; does he take more after Corum or Elric?
@@a_happyteddy_bear3101 Corum
@@greenknightable Eöl is straight up a villain. Guts and Eternal Champions tend to be classic heroes or antiheroes.
*copy
I'm happy to see you recommending Corum. I may like Elric more, but i can't deny that Corum is super memorable. I read it for the first time this year, after my father recommended me them. The world of Corum felt so bizarre and alien to me. It was familiar, yet quite different. I've come to like Elric more, purely because his character resonates more with me, but i won't deny that Corum is also a worthy work, deserving to be given a shot
I actually think the opposite, Corum is more relatable to me because he has more personality. I love Elric but he can be a bit morose and edgy.
hawkmoon >>>>>
“Yall want a book with pictures in it.”
You just gained a subscriber
So THAT'S what my ex meant when she said she wanted Moorcock... 🤔
😂
🗿
From the moors?😢
I don’t know how to tell you this… BUT YOU’RE RIGHT!
You call your left hand your ex?
Finishing up the Elric series on audiobook. I super recommend it to anyone who just wants some good fantasy. Its very dramatic and Elric is everyone's tragic genius first OC but is written extremely well. The first two books(elric, and sailor) have some good older audiobook adaptations and they have it all from dynamic narrator to cheesy synth. Its a great time and Elric was the initial inspiration for GoT's Targaryens.
Once im done with those I'll def check out Corum!
Michael Moorcock's eternal champions are incredible.
I feel like his Chronicles of Corum really deserve a modern adaptation of some kind, there so psychedelic and mature and require an artistic dedication that lots of modern fantasy media has left behind.
There is a song about Corum called "the prince in the scarlet robe" by Domine
those pixel art landscapes look amazing, and i love this recommendation. Never heard of Moorcock, Elric or Corum, but sounds interesting and i will be checking the comics out :)
This guy looks exactly like the Fire Knights in Elden Ring! I’m convinced that Miyazaki read Moorcocks books in his youth. He’s mentioned how he read English fantasy novels but as far as I know not too many specific examples. And as Berserk was a huge inspiration for FromSofts dark fantasy games it’s just awesome to see works that inspired Berserk itself also directly into FromSoft games.
There’s no way Miyazaki didn’t tbh. Elden ring especially is absolutely saturated with Moorcock stuff, given that George R R Martin has also cited Moorcock as a primary inspiration. One pointed example is the Carian Knight Moongrum - an unambiguous homage to the Eternal Champion character Moonglum. In fact, it might not even be a homage but more like a straight up rip of the name, as the ‘L’ sound isn’t really native to the Japanese language, so in the Japanese translations of the Eternal Champion Miyazaki would have read the word ムーングラム, which would have been said aloud as ‘Mūnguramu’, so from the Japanese perspective he didn’t even change the name at all!
Having finished the old and new Elric comics, along with the audiobook, his best story to me, is the Fortress of the Pearl, where he feels a lot more hopeful and positive on his outlook, rather then being his typical sardonic self. Its also just a really cool story. Sadly that all gets taken away from him in subsequent tales to where he becomes a shell of a man, but still fights against chaos in his dying world.
Concerning Corum, I know very little, but I did collect all the old comics and I'm excited to jump into them.
Interesting comparisons, although for the arm-loss-detail it's quite known that Miura used the Evil Dead movies and posters as reference for Guts.
But also a *lot* of Go Nagai manga influences (including "swiping" entire pages and panels but in his own style):
Devilman
Violence Jack
and *especially* for the Eclipse, Eye loss and Behelit visuals:
Susano Oh
Go Nagai was also big on black haired berserking protagonist vs chill/psycho blonde rival/antagonist.
For style influence in particular Go did "fan" comics of Dantes Inferno, including that particular style of pencilling/hatching that Miura was so fond of.
As for another potential influence worth checking out, the Getter Robo manga artist Ken Ishikawa version of Makai Tenshi in 1986 (also known as Demonic Resurrection: Procession of the Saints). A bloody Dark Fantasy tale of people similar to Apostles/God Hand returning and unleashing hell in ye medieval Japan, including a rather blonde bishonen-type. Featuring a black haired, one-eyed, ronin samurai protagonist decked out with trick weapons and a big honking sword.
It got some gruesome imagery, but Makai Tenshi + Susano Oh are *very* proto Berserk. Well worth reading!
i literally pumped my fist in joy when i heard you say corum.
Its incredible to me how unbelievably influential all of the books Moorcock wrote were on scifi as a whole. corum and elric in particular are responsible for so much of the shape of what dungeons and dragons eventually became (ex. the eye and hand of vecna are an explicit reference to the eye of rhynn and the hand of kwll), but the elric books were almost completely out of print until really recently, like a couple years ago, and i think that the corum books are still out of print. its a shame really how much of a poor reputation older scifi has right now when theres a lot to love there.
also fun thing about the pronunciation of "kwll," Moorcock took a lot of inspiration from Welsh for the names of a lot of things in the corum books. In Welsh, "W" is actually a vowel sound, making specifically the long O sound in "school" and "good," and "Ll" is actually a single letter, which makes an L sound with a kind of breathy H sound at the beginning, so "kwll" would be pronounced something more like Koohl. Which is pretty... cool ;)
We highly recommend reading the actual books as well, starting with the Elric Saga which lays the cosmological groundwork for Moorcock's -Uni-Multiverse. See also Von Bek and of course; _The Eternal Champion_ trilogy.
Dude, awesome recommendations! Super interesting. And no apology needed for not being active -- just thankful that your hobby involves sharing cool stuff with us in the first place :)
I’d say further that Corum is a big corner stone of the cosmic underpinnings of Moorcock’s multiverse since the newer comics reveal where the eye and hand come from
The first trilogy sets it straightforward. They were books before comics but from what I see they are not exactly the same. At least some characters that appear in the books don't appear in the comic and viceversa.
4:26 You lost the Berserk, but gained the old school D&D.
It all goes back to D&D somehow.
@@christophermiller8381Michael moorcock appears in appendix N (the appendix in which Gygax lists all the inspirations for D&D) so actually, it always go back to the eternal champion…
@@christophermiller8381 D&D basically pioneered the fantasy genre
@@christophermiller8381Not really. In this case, it goes back to Moorcock.
Hand and Eye of Vecna...
I will look into this series and I really appreciate the Nazca pic as your channel pic. It's awesome how much writers take inspiration from each other and can expand different worlds.
0:47 LotR also had evil from the start of it's creation due to Melkor disrupting the song of creation I think, called the "Music of the Ainur".
I love me some Michael Moorcock. It's good to see him discussed, as his work has always been a deepcut, despite influencing fiction literature maybe as much as Tolkien has.
Finally Someone says it!! Guts is actually a human variant of Corum but with a darker life.
Darker? Have you finished corum?
I haven't read berserk but corum loses EVERYTHING he had but his life and cape in the beginning. All of his races pride removed one by one with each horrific sighting and then doomed to serve gods he does not trust.
A strong contrast to his eternal companion this series in that corum does not trust nor wish to serve gods and let fate guide him as his companion does here, to the point Jarrie knows he will take up multiple personalities and identities to serve his role.
@@elgatochurro I know, I've read all of Corum's books. But Corum's torment started when he was already a young adult, while Guts was literary born into it.
@@michaelstar7556 I don't really see how that changes much
Both are such a loss of innocence, but one was a retelling and corum went through many phases leading up to what he became. It's even stated "you fight like a Mabden". Corum lady of his noble race almost no different from the humans
No it is not . What a moronic conspiraton lmao
@@elgatochurroRead at least up through the eclipse. What Griffith does is absolutely fucked.
I just found out about your videos from my recommendations, and the quality you put into your videos is amazing short, easy to jump into
4:21 guts using his behelit to see causality theory is getting more merit by the day.
Before watching, the thumbnail looks like Corum to me.
Edit: hell yeah, Corum. And all the Eternal Champions.
Corum is genuinely one of my favorite fantasy characters. It's fun, creative, fast and doesn't waste your time. Big fan of the books and I especially loved the second Corum trilogy.
I also recommend the audiobooks, they add music, sound effects and every character is played by different voice actors with different accents coresponding to the Celtic/Irish folklore the story is inspored by. Its really fun stuff.
I’ve never seen your content before, but it’s a fucking joy finding this. Hope you can make more in the future.
Literally clicked expecting Mignola-esque art. Wasn't disappointed.
Berserk: inspired by Moorcock's works
The Witcher: "inspired" by Moorcock's works
I read the Corum novels when I was a teenager, and I loved it. I thought he was a fascinating character. His ability to lift his eyepatch to see those whom he had slain in the past and then use his grafted-on hand to summon them forth to fight for him was just amazing to the younger me. Thanks for reminding me of Moorcock's Corum!
Fun fact : Michael Moorcock wrote a song for the band Blue Oyster Cult, about the Eternal Champion. The song is called Veteran of the Psychic Wars, and it's fire ! (of unknown origin lmao...)
moorcock's musical endeavors are underrated!
@@superhetoricand a song about Stormbringer called Black Blade.
He wrote three songs for Blue Oyster Cult: Black Blade, Veteran of the Psychic Wars, and Great Sun Jester. He also wrote two albums for Lemmy era Hawkwind, those two albums being Chronicle of the Black Sword and Warrior on the Edge of Time.
Warhammer also got the a lot of chaos stuff like the 8 pointed star from this works
Happy to see you post whenever you can
Finally, it is noticed, great video!
I remember First Comics. They did a lot of interesting stuff before Marvel saturated the market wit various X-clone comics and First couldn't compete. The Mignola work in Corum was gorgeous. Thanks for the retrospective.
You have excellent taste in both literature, and pixel art backgrounds. Kudos.
Saw a video by yours recommended and all I have to say; you are one the first user I've came across to have an icon from the ill-fated Jikuu Tenshou Nazca AKA the show that's more known having two clips from it be featured in MITM.
Very interesting, I really like the artwork. Thank you for the recommendation and the informative video
Micheal Moorcock is the KING authentic and original just the best
I do need to read Corum at some point, but I've always deeply loved Moorcock's work. Hawkmoon might be my favorite series out of all of his just because of how unique it is, seemlessly mixing science fiction and sword and sorcery fantasy in an alternate world where the brutal dictatorship of England sought to colonize every single continent they touched
Really good well edited and summarised video(sorry I cant say anything because my brain is too brainrotted) I hope the algorithm pushs it more
I think another manga you might like to discuss is claymore. It's pretty similar to berserk and it's basically monster human hybirds hunting down demons while they slowly succub to losing their humanity.
I'm really enjoying the music in the background tbh
Dude this is so fucking cool. I have to read this. The aesthetic is just peak art. It’s so beautiful
Cormum is GOATED. Happy to see some content on it
Corum was how I started with Moorcock, after a random birthday present from a neighbour, no 2, Queen of the Swords. After I had got No.1, I was hooked! Elric, Hawkmoon, Oswald Barnstable (Steampunk yeah!) When the comic adaptation came along, it was mind blowing! Got into Berserk many years later, but which ever way you come, you won’t leave!
samurai shodown backgrounds! I love them
YES!! YES!! MICHAEL MOORCOCK BABY!!! I have these comics and they are incredible!!
Corum is my favorite Eternal Champion. I love Elric but I find Corum to be a more likable character. I would highly recommend the audio drama for Corum, as well. It's excellent, and the theme song for the audio drama is an instant classic, it was also sampled in the song "Arioch, Knight of the Swords", from the band Claymorean.
All those D&D players that knew the Eye and Hand of Vecna are going to LOVE this one.
OF NOTE: please read the "Overthinking Cowboy Bebop" page that talks about the hand and eye themes in the anime. You will find a connection with this, and also with LotR! Highly recommended.
Speaking of inspiration, lets not forget about the REAL Guts--Goetz Von Berlichingen, The Iron hand! A German mercenary captain who had lost a hand and used working prosthetic hands for various uses.
Dude, I neither want an epileptic cramp nor do I want to pause the video to read what's on screen. Chill with the cut timing :D nice video anyways
I have read Corum and i thought i was the only one who thought Berserk shares some similarities with Corum
Super gorgeous looking comic, I'm definitely gonna check it out. I'd recommend reading Coda by Simon Spurrier and Matias Bergara if you want another fantasy story with amazing art
Background Music: _"Earth"_ by *Susumu Hirasawa* of the Berserk Album.
Thanks for putting me on bro. Might buy the first issue
Corum was indeed revolutionary as it inspired the more horror oriented authors who released their projects just a few years after Corum and the term Dark Fantasy was born.
Michael Moorcock is a dark fantasy legend!
Regarding the comparison between Conan and Moorcocks characters: It seems that Elric was deliberately designed as an anti-Conan, a physically weak sorcerous albino emperor from an ancient civilization more advanced than its surroundings, brooding, conflicted, who ends up abandoning his throne, and so on, rather than a strong, dark-haired, carefree barbarian who ends up gaining a throne.
Sometimes I just love the algorythm, then I'm reminded it's still watching.
I think what really makes berserk a one of one isnt just the themes of fate and evil but also the characters. The Best scenes of berserk in my opinion are the more subtle ones like when Griffith scratches himself in the water or when guts kills the kid. These scenes carry berserk and really add so many layers into the characters
Corum does not end on a more optimistic note. There are six books in total.
7 in total actually. The quest for Tanelorn is the endgame for the 4 eternal champions Elric, Erekose, Hawkmoon and Corum. (or 8 if you count sailor on the seas of fate from Elric's perspective)
It's also was a big inspiration for Warhammer and The Elder Scrolls universes, not so sure about Berserk to be honest but that's where a lot of more modern fantasy settings taking its root.
I loooove me some early Mignola! Gotham by Gaslight and the Fafrd & Grey Mouser…such great reads! Plus the original rocket raccoon!
I read the Elric books in the early 80s and the Hawkmoon books later. I still own those and a few others like the Eternal Champion and I've always loved them.
Great video. I love Elric but I really need to give Micheal’s other work a shot.
This is the first video of yours I've seen UA-cam recommended it to me seem all right if you're looking for something weird and out of the way i would look up the abolethic sovereignty it's a 4th edition D&D Trilogy series kind of blew me away with how good it was it's one of those 10% of D&D books that are good I've only read the first two so far but I will soon be getting into the Third
Corum is amazing I suggest getting the drama audiobook it's fantastic.
"Ya"ll want a book with pictures" I feel attacked!! 😂😂😂 2:16
the only of moorcock's works ive read is the eternal champion, because i heard it parallels attack on titan. i thought it was really quite good. definitely need to read more of his work
I definitely see the berserk comparison, it takes a very similar approach to these older fantasies. I felt the similarities to elric, as a doom hero that's always trying to cling to humanity despite all the odds and sorrow he faces.
4:30 I think seeing the dead he slaught his pretty much the same as the dead spirits guts has to face every night.
This video helped me identify a lot of the art in my Pinterest boards
You should check out the Hawkmoon comic… some real nightmare fuel there.
Can you recommend additional dark fantasy titles? I'm big into Conan and Red Sonja, and I know of Elric. Thanks for mentioning Corum and Hawkmoon. I'll check those out.
Ever read Glen Cook's Black Company books?
Black Moon Chronicles, Slaine The Horned God, Requiem: Chevalier Vampire and Bastard
Douglas Smith's scratchboard art of Batman, Gregory Maguire's 'Wicked', and various historical battle scenes.
The Prince of Nothing by R. Scott Bakker
The First Law by Joe Abercrombie.
Kane by Karl Edward Wagner is classic Dark Fantasy in the vein of Conan and Elric. The books are out of print and a bit hard to find, but are well worth reading if you get your hands on a copy of them. I'd also recommend the Broken Empire trilogy by Mark Lawrence and Beyond Redemption by Michael R. Fletcher for something more modern and still in print.
Elric is awesome but I loved the 6 Corum novels even more. That poor man goes through absolute Hell.
Conan wasn't dumb. Kull though was far deeper in his philosophical musings. Robert E. Howard was physically active man that was also very well read for his time. So it came to reason that a lot of his characters where similar in that respect.
Conan is a very good character despite being written for pulp magazines aimed at horny teenagers. The guy has an entire phylosophy despite being a simple warrior, he's even VERY progressive for the time, being a man who despite banging ladies left and right ONLY accepts doing it with consent, there's times where slaves offer him sex for rescuing them, and because it's the only way they know how to thank people, and Conan being a giga chad rejects them.
Big ups The Last Blade
1:25
Wow, if you told me this art style was an influence on Final Fantasy I wouldn't doubt you for a second. That looks *just* like a FF box cover - the pose, the choice of colour, the armour style...
because it's a piece by yoshitaka amano
@@superhetoric Nice! My eyes don't deceive me! :)
I don’t suppose anyone out there can you answer me a question maybe out of nowhere. When I was a kid in the 70s, it was a comic book. I had found in one of those three pack bags. It was a horror anthology.. the one host was it a gorgeous female vampire and the other was an old man I think maybe a scientist. And then the first issue they told the female vampires history. It might’ve been gold key comics, but that’s just a guess may have been another company altogether. I know that’s not much to go on. Maybe somebody else remembers it
moorcock is one of my favorite writers his imagination is out of this world
We need more people to talk about Michael Moorcock. He's big but not as big as he should be.
I just read Berserk to understand Berserk.
I literally screamed upset when I saw you mention First Comics but didn't show Anerican Flagg!
Nice fighting game backgrounds
The graphic audio of Corum is off the chain.
I clicked this video because with my limited library of comics the art in the thumbnail popped out as something I'd want to have on my bookshelf next to my hellboy collection. And then you tell me Mignola drew it? This is something I'd read and really drink in the art and paneling as much as the story.
Elric is one, if not the best fantasy novel!
I read Elric this year, great little book. I am reading more of him
"Michael Moorcock was a- Ohnohe'sstillalive-" That got me way more than it has any right to, just something about the very abrupt interruption.