Let's start with the cover this time. Heavy Metal Presents? Howard Chaykin? You know what that means...Boobies!
Full frontal nudity, in fact. But only the girls of course. We're not perverts or anything. There's some salty language too, which I actually found rather off-putting. The default language of fantasy, whether high, heroic, urban or science, remains discreet, if not utterly chaste.
According to his introduction, Moorcock gave Chaykin a detailed outline and then left him alone. I can't help wondering if the outline specified that little valentine on our hero's chest. I confess it makes it hard for me to take him seriously. The top-knot, which you can't really see here, doesn't help either. These things are a matter of taste, of course, and a lot of things that work in prose fail utterly when presented visually. A good illustrator makes it work or works around it or, often, just ignores it completely. Chaykin is in fact a very good illustrator. Maybe exposure to superhero comics warped his judgment. Compared to, say, Jack of Hearts our hero is dressed quite conservatively.
Flowers begins where Phoenix in Obsidian ended, with Urlik Skarsol (formerly Erekosë, formerly John Daker) alone on an endless plain of ice. Without further ado the Eternal Champion is drawn to his next Balancing Act...
"For my next trick (draws black blade) I will require a sacrifice from the audience."...and finds himself in Hell. Seriously. That's what the barbaric natives call their desolate land. They identify the Champion as Clen of Clen Gar, Lord of the Dream Marches, which lie, it turns out, to the East, across a modest sea. East of the Marches, it turns out, lies a land called Heaven. Students of Moorcockology will get no extra credit for pointing out the obvious: that the balance represented by the messy, vulnerable Marches, not the extremes of Heaven or Hell, will turn out to be where it's at.
*Drum-roll*
*Scream*
"Ta-Dah!"
Erekosë and Urlik Skarsol were both Sleepers under the Hill, legendary heroes called from Death or something like it to aid their people in a time of crisis. It's never made entirely clear, but when Lord Clen returns to the Dream Marches he doesn't seem to have been missing for very long at all, perhaps a matter of months. Maybe for this very reason (if you need one) the Champion quickly acquires or recovers Lord Clen's memories, which saves a lot of time.
Briefly, Lord Clen finds out that the hordes of Hell are marching on Heaven with overwhelming force, and the Dream Marches, which form a kind of buffer zone, are their first target. Without aid the Marches are doomed, so he rides off to petition Heaven for help.
Lord Clen has a black blade but nothing much is made of it this time around. It doesn't get a name or a history. It writhes a little at one point but it never demands souls or blood or even Krispy Kreme.
Chaykin painted Flowers and I have to say I wish he had drawn it. The backgrounds are fantastic and he achieves some amazing effects. The problem I have is with the faces. Chaykin is great at drawing distinctive, expressive faces that reveal character, but I think this early painted work (his first?) lacks consistency in that regard.
But that's a quibble. His lay-outs are dynamic and varied and he makes great use of two-page spreads. In close-ups Lord Clen tends to look like the young Burt Lancaster, and Ermizhad -Hold it, is that supposed to be Ermizhad? Ermizhad with her "elfin" features, high cheekbones and slanted, pupil-less eyes flecked with blue and gold? Ermizhad with her black hair? Oh well. Maybe the Champion's memories are getting a little scrambled.
Flowers is good enough to make me wish Moorcock had written a novella instead. However beautifully painted, this still feels like a sketch.
Oh yeah, in the introduction Moorcock reminisces about his early comics work. I can't resist passing on this sentence:
I also did a great deal of scripting for a weekly called Bible Story, which was one of the best-paying markets at the time, and was distinctive in that everyone who worked on it became, after a while, a thoroughgoing atheist.
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