Wednesday, November 6, 2019

Jagreen the Red Horseman from Moorcock 1976


Another fantasy series I loved was the long history by British author Michael Moorcock telling the tales of his doomed wandering albino king, Elric. This fabulous but dreadful character was always fun to illustrate. There were many other characters and monsters offering a wide universe of opportunities for art. This one here is "Jagreen Lern, the Red Horseman of Death and Theocrat of Pan Tang." During the last quarter of 1976 I was a graduate student at Harvard and my advanced classical and ancient history studies gave me many thrilling ideas to illustrate while I ignored my papers and presentations. Warrior kings, mad prophets at oracles, women turned into giant worms, Dead Gods, Wild-men in chariots, this was Imagination at its best. Eventually the fantasy worlds won out and I extricated myself from Harvard in 1978.

Brown ink and tech pen with colored pencils on illustration board, 8" x 7", 1976.

1 comment:

Stacey said...

Very nice. I love the setting.