Did Yoshitaka Amano draw Elric?

When Japanese publishers brought Michael Moorcock's fantasy west-to-east, Amano became one of its faces. His illustrations for the Japanese Elric Saga began around 1984, and he also illustrated the Japanese editions of Moorcock's Corum books, the Erekosë saga and the Chronicles of Castle Brass, alongside Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun.

Elric, the albino emperor of Melniboné with his black sword Stormbringer, was almost suspiciously well matched to Amano's line: pale, androgynous, draped and doomed. The influence ran both ways. Amano has said that the first time he became involved with the world of fantasy, the world that would define his career, was through Moorcock's stories, and the imagery he built there naturally found its way into the fantasy work that followed.

Moorcock returned the compliment in public, more than once, celebrating Amano's covers, writing about them in 2006, and contributing a preface to one of Amano's art books on how the Japanese illustrations had stimulated his own imagination in new directions. Amano's Elric was later carried into a Western Moorcock collection as well, a rare case of a cover artist being re-imported along with the author.