Elfquest
Elfquest is a comic book property created by Wendy and Richard Pini in 1978, and still owned by them. It is a fantasy story about a community of elves and other fictional species who struggle to survive and coexist on a primitive Earth-like planet with two moons. Several published volumes of prose fiction also share the same setting. Elfquest was one of the first comic book series to have a planned conclusion. Over the years Elfquest has been self-published by the Pinis through their own company Warp Graphics, then Marvel Comics, then the Pinis again, more recently DC Comics, and, since 2013, Dark Horse Comics. All issues of Elfquest published prior to 2014 are available online for free.
Publication history
The first Elfquest story, "Fire and Flight", appeared in February 1978 in the underground comic book Fantasy Quarterly, published by Lansing, Michigan-based IPS. That company closed after publishing the first issue of Elfquest. Sandwiched between the two parts of the Elfquest story was a brief story written by T. Casey Brennan and illustrated by Cerebus the Aardvark creator Dave Sim titled "Doorway to the Gods". The quality of the publication was disappointing to Wendy and Richard Pini. The interior was printed on newsprint, and the cover was printed, in a limited color palette, on only slightly heavier, uncoated paper stock.WaRP Graphics
The poor quality of this publication convinced the Pinis that they could produce a higher quality publication on their own. After borrowing money in order to start WaRP Graphics, the Pinis started publishing with Elfquest #2. It was printed magazine-size with glossy full-color covers and a character portrait print on the back cover by Wendy, a format that continued throughout the series' entire run. This story continued the Elfquest tale started in Fantasy Quarterly. Later, the Pinis' company WaRP Graphics reprinted the story from Fantasy Quarterly as Elfquest #1 with a new front cover and full-color portrait print for the rear cover.This series was one of the early successes that marked the establishment of a phase in underground comics in which a new genre of alternative independent comic books emerged that were closer in content to mainstream comics. Elfquest was also one of the first comic book series that had a prearranged conclusion. It was highly praised for its innovative themes. The fact that a female artist/writer was the creative principal of the series was also notable.
The original series – generally referred to as "The Original Quest" or "OQ" – ran for 20 magazine-size issues, released three times a year. Color compilations followed, published by the Donning Company under its Starblaze imprint as Books 1-4. Two more series were published in a reduced comic book-size format, but still in black and white: Siege at Blue Mountain and Kings of the Broken Wheel, later collected and published in color by Warp Graphics under its Father Tree Press imprint as part of a second edition of the graphic novels as Books 5-8. The stories take place three years after the original quest.
Warp Graphics explosion and implosion
In the 1990s, the Pinis rebranded slightly and then began to publish multiple titles concurrently, many with overlapping storylines, showcasing the work of new artists and writers on the series. The color titles New Blood, Hidden Years, and Shards for the most part carried the main storyline forward from the prehistoric to the medieval period of the World of Two Moons, occasionally featuring non-canonical stories. The historical background of the Wolfriders was filled out in Blood of Ten Chiefs, Two-Spear, and Kahvi. The future of Abode was explored in The Rebels and Jink, set at a time when humans have reached space and colonized other worlds and the elves have all but disappeared. A fifth tribe of elves, the WaveDancers, was introduced only to be redacted from continuity. A one-shot issue re-introduced the sea elves with a new cast of characters. The first ten issues of Hidden Years were collected in two color volumes, Hidden Years and Rogue's Challenge. Selected stories from the first ten issues of New Blood were collected as New Blood and Bedtime stories. Towards the end of their runs, in the mid-1990s, most of these titles reverted to black and white in North America, though some were published in color in Europe.In large part as a response to the shrinking direct market in the mid-1990s, continuing storylines were collapsed together into a single 64-page anthology series introduced by the one-shot Metamorphosis. The new series was simply titled Elfquest, and ran for 33 issues.
Other media
The series has also served as the basis for three novelizations and five Blood of Ten Chiefs short story anthologies. The music CD A Wolfrider's Reflections is an album of folk songs based on elements from the original quest. Several collectibles, calendars, apparel, a role-playing game, and figurines have been sold over the years. The full-length novel ElfQuest: Journey to Sorrows End, which included both text and several black-and-white illustrated plates, was published in Playboy in 1982, and by Berkley in March 1984.Marvel
In 1985, the original series was republished by Marvel Comics' Epic imprint in 32 installments. Distributed on newsstands, this gave the series much-desired mass-market exposure. Because of Marvel's 22-page format, these new editions featured additional bridging pages which broke the narrative at different points than in the original Warp comics, which contained 32 pages of story. Marvel's license was only for the original series, which was already completed, so none of the sequels followed suit. Most of the additional material was incorporated into subsequent print collections and the online edition.DC Comics
In March 2003, after 25 years of self-publication, the Pinis licensed all publishing and merchandising rights in the series to DC Comics, although the Pinis retained ownership and creative control.DC's publication of Elfquest material began in July 2003 with The Elfquest 25th Anniversary Special, reprinting the first issue of Elfquest with new computer coloring and lettering by Wendy Pini and two short interviews with the Pinis. This was a teaser for The Elfquest Archives, hardcover color compilation volumes which were released beginning in November. This series planned to reprint the first eight graphic novel collections in glossy format with new coloring and lettering. Fans complained that the publication schedule was disappointingly slow. Volume 2 was originally scheduled to appear in fall 2004 but after some delays was finally released in March 2005, 16 months after Volume 1. Part of the reason for the delay is that Wendy Pini was undergoing hip replacement surgery.
Meanwhile, September 2003 saw the publication of Elfquest: Wolfrider Volume 1, beginning a series of bimonthly manga-sized black-and-white reprint collections which arrange the story into chronological order for the first time, beginning around 600 years before the events in the original series. Wolfrider Volume 2 is followed chronologically by Elfquest: The Grand Quest Volume 1, the first in a series reprinting the original storyline, including the additional art drawn for the Marvel version. In this series, the original artwork has been rearranged into new panel layouts for clarity in the physically smaller manga format, which sometimes involved Wendy Pini adding extensions to the original artwork. Some sections of the original artwork are not included, for example in ElfQuest: The Grand Quest Volume 11, a standalone story involving Tyleet and her adopted human son Little Patch is not in the volume, though later in Volume 13 Tyleet mentions Little Patch constantly while discussing the dream she had while encased for 10,000 years by the Preservers.
Another book, Elfquest: The Searcher and the Sword, was published in July 2004. Critical reaction was generally favorable; the major criticism leveled at the book is that it is overpriced for its size.
After the four-issue comic series Elfquest: Discovery, published in 2006, no more new stories appeared until the Final Quest, beginning in 2012.
Online release
In March 2008, Warp Graphics began uploading previously published stories to. They intended to make the entire series available online over the course of 2008, but the issues proved too numerous to upload within the year. Uploading of all comics was completed in March 2009.In September 2012, the latest series' Final Quest prologue story began publication at a rate of one page per week at Boing Boing. Only about half of the prologue appeared there, deliberately, as a teaser leading to the print and digital publication planned for 2013 by Dark Horse Comics.
Final Quest
In October 2013, Elfquest Special: The Final Quest was published as a one-shot by Dark Horse Comics. It included the material originally seen at Boing Boing plus the rest of the Final Quest prologue. The Final Quest series began publication by Dark Horse Comics, with the first issue released on January 22, 2014. The entire Final Quest series ran for 24 issues. The final issue, #24, was released on February 28, 2018, exactly 40 years after issue #1 of the Original Quest was first released.Stargazer's Hunt
In November 2019, a new series debuted from Dark Horse Comics. Titled Elfquest: Stargazer's Hunt, the story focuses on Skywise.Background and setting
The world in which the series takes place – eventually called Abode by its human inhabitants, but originally referred to as the World of Two Moons – superficially resembles Earth, with geography that is marginally similar. There are some unusual prehistoric survivals among the fauna, and in early storylines Abode could have been described as Earth with two moons, hence its original name. As the story moves forward and Abode's history develops, it becomes apparent that its human culture and technology is distinguished by the twenty thousand years of influence by the elves, who have left an indelible mark on human society.The elves of Elfquest are descended from highly advanced humanoid aliens called High Ones by their descendants. When their homeworld's natural resources became depleted due to overpopulation, they went spacefaring in order to find new planets to settle. Some of them returned to their dead homeworld, and ended up awakening their immense psycho-kinetic psychic powers and biological immortality. They eventually resumed spacefaring to explore the wider universe, using telekinesis to create egg-shaped vessels and pilot them to new worlds, adapting to any ecosystem by shifting their own shapes and metabolisms. As companions, they brought two of the last surviving animal species from their home, both of which gradually evolved during the journey into two more races of sapient near-immortals: the insectoid Preservers and the simian-descended Trolls.
After journeying to many different worlds, one of these vessels came to Abode, where human civilization had reached a level that was almost identical to Europe's medieval period on Earth. Observing the humans, the High Ones saw the humans' artwork and literature depicted angels, deities, spirits and other ethereal beings which suggested to the High Ones that others of their kind had previously visited that world. In order to facilitate contact with the humans, before landing on the world, the High Ones deliberately formed themselves like elves and reshaped their egg-vessel to resemble a beautiful floating castle that matched the native architectural idiom, so that they could stay long enough to seek out more information about the previous visitors. The palace itself consists of two main parts: the magical material of which it is made, and two magic scrolls that contain all the history of the High Ones. The palace is also where the souls of dead elves come together to spend the rest of their existence.
Also by this time, the evolved simians had become resentful of their subservient status and wished to permanently remain on the world. As the High Ones began to make the 'castle' descend, the simians violently rebelled, disrupting the High Ones' telekinetic controls enough to hurl the entire vessel and its contents back through time to Abode's paleolithic era. Staggering out from the crash-landing, the High Ones found that their psychic powers were greatly weakened on Abode, leaving many of them unable to defend themselves from the prehistoric cave-dwelling humans who fearfully attacked them. Forcibly dispersed away from the massacre outside of the palace-shaped vessel, many of the initial elf survivors soon died, unable to adapt to the new, hostile environment; the others gradually gathered into several widely scattered tribes. The known tribes include the Wolfriders, Sun Folk, Gliders, Go-backs, and the Wavedancers. The High Ones' evolved-simian servants also fled, mainly into networks of caverns where they became larger and established themselves as the subterranean race of Trolls, treasure-seeking miners and metalsmiths whose original links to the High Ones were forgotten.
The main story begins 10,000 years later, with elves and other beings having adapted with great difficulty to their home. Each tribe of elves has its own set of adaptations and traditions, and most of them are unaware that any of the other tribes even exist.