Jerry Cornelius

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Jerry Cornelius is the chameleon-like anti-hero of several SF - Pop Art novels of British SF and fantasy author Michael Moorcock .

The androgynous dandy Cornelius can travel through the countless parallel worlds of the " multiverse ", where he sometimes experiences bizarre adventures. In Moorcock's narrative multiverse, the character also appears in other spellings and incarnations, such as "Jherek Cornelia" in "Dancers at the End of Time" and as Jhary-a-Conel in the Corum novels; but mostly the initials "JC" stay the same. In Moorcock's Dr. Who- novel "The Coming of the Terraphiles" shows up a space pirate named "Captain Cornelius"; As early as 1965, the author published articles in the New Worlds magazine , which he published at the time and which also published the first Jerry Cornelius story ("Preliminary Data", beginning of the novel "The Final Program"), under the pseudonym James Colvin.

The first Jerry Cornelius novel The Final Program (1968) was made into a film in 1973 with Jon Finch in the lead role. Moorcock encouraged other authors (such as his colleague Norman Spinrad ) to use the figure freely. Among other things, he explained the free availability of the character for other writers in the renowned SF magazine New Worlds . In 1971 an anthology ( "The Nature of the Catastrophe" ) with Jerry Cornelius stories by various authors was published. The French draftsman Moebius also used the character in his experimental SF comic The hermetic garage of Jerry Cornelius (OT Le garage hermétique , 1979), the second volume about Major Grubert . The comic author Bryan Talbot used the character of Jerry Cornelius and took him as a template for the title character of his 1987 comic series The Adventures of Luther Arkwright .

Due to the open nature of the "series" and Moorcock's tendency to let Jerry Cornelius and his shadows appear at various points in his multiverse, an exact assignment of the individual stories and novels is difficult; normally the four novels of the "Cornelius Quaret" are considered to be the backbone of the Cornelius verse. These are:

  1. Miss Brunner's last program (OT: " The Finale Program ") - ISBN 3-404-22034-X .
  2. The Cornelius recipe (OT: " A Cure for Cancer ") - ISBN 3-404-22036-6 .
  3. A murder for England (OT: " The English Assassin ") - ISBN 3-404-22039-0 .
  4. The Laughter of the Harlequin (OT: " The Condition of Muzak ") - ISBN 3-404-22041-2 .

In addition to these four novels, the following volumes of novellas have been published in German under the title Die Jerry Cornelius Chroniken :

  1. Entropy Tango (OT: " Entropy Tango " and " The Distant Suns ") - ISBN 3-404-22051-X .
  2. The question of the alchemist in The Opium General (OT: " The Alchemist's Question ") - ISBN 3-404-24109-6 .

Trivia

  • Hawkwind's song "Needle Gun" was named after Jerry Cornelius' favorite weapon.
  • Jerry Cornelius also makes a guest appearance in Alan Moore's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen".
  • The Berlin band “JC Quartett” (2012/13) inevitably apologized for the absence of the singer and band leader, Jerry Cornelius.
  • The song "Entropy Tango" by the band Spirits Burning is based on the Novella of the same name; Michael Moorcock also participated in the recording of the song.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Jeff Vandermeer, SJ Chambers: The Steampunk Bible . Abrams Image, 2011, ISBN 978-0-8109-8958-0 , pp. 69-70 .