Elric #1 Error Edition

Pacific, published Date: April 1983.

This issue was part one (of six) titled "Out of the dreaming city" and was written by Roy Thomas (adapting the novel Elric of Melnibone by Michael Moorcock) with art by by P. Craig Russell and Michael T. Gilbert.

Prince Yyrkoon, cousin of Elric believes he should be on the throne of Melnibone, not Elric. While he plots, Elric and his lover Cymoril take a trip to the beach, where Elric dreams of the past, and fears for the future.

This is the error variant of Elric #1 that had several problems with the print quality. Below is a cover comparison showing the slightly darker and more orange color cover on the reprint (on the right):

The most noticeable difference is the back cover, which looks blotchy on the error copies and was reprinted with a border to remove those areas on the reprint (on the right):

Most of the internal pages look similar but on some the print looks a lot less muted on the reprints:

The error copies don't seem to have made it into the distribution chain, it seems that the publisher (Pacific) received a batch of comics to check and they were not happy with the paper or the print quality so asked that all the comics were pulped and reprinted. In Elric #2, the following paragraph appeared in the editorial mentioning "quality-control" problems:

In recent times, one of the comic's editors (Bill Schanes) confirmed that the first printing was destroyed due to the quality and the print reoriented on better paper stock. He also confirmed around 200 copies were not destroyed (presumably those sent to the publisher when the quality issues were noticed). Below is an envelope addressed to Jerry Weist that contained one of the error comics send from Pacific comics, in San Diego. Jerry later presented the comic, along with the envelope, to a collector who made the note below about the comic:

At the time of writing (end of September 2020), CGC had one grading for the "Error Edition" in their census, grading 9.4 (near mint). At that same time, the CBCS population report recorded no gradings of the Error Edition. These comics are pretty hard to find and none were for sale at the time of writing (over 37 years since they were printed!).