The Elfquest Thread

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Elwing
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The Elfquest Thread

Post by Elwing »

I did a bit of cleaning yesterday, and stumbled across a large box full of about 15 years worth of Elfquests...I took a look at a few, expecting to find them a little to saccharine for my tastes nowadays, but no, I guess I still like them.
That is very solid writing, IMHO, and you gotta love the art. Not to mention this is (was?) an important indy comic wich created a lot of opportunities for others.
Anybody else here who misses the Pinis' pointy eared crowd? Have you even heard of it? Any favourite elfies? (Hmm, I wonder if Winnowill has any!)
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The Elfquest Thread

Post by Tyros »

hmmmmm I have not read those in years. I used to love them though, especially the 2nd graphic novel. Skywise was always my favorite character. I loaned a bunch of them to a friend a while back and she never returned them (and these where the hard to find color graphic novels), grrrrrrrrr...oh well I think I heard that they are being republished by DC now.....
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The Elfquest Thread

Post by Wolvertique »

Elfquest books are still available in my local Border's. The writing is good, though I was disappointed in Cutter. I never found him very exciting or interesting.
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The Elfquest Thread

Post by Bamf Bunny »

In my early teens, someone told me that the great thing about Elfquest was that the elves had only four fingers, but their hands looked really natural. I figured that if this was the strongest praise a fan could come up with I could safely ignore the series.

A couple of years later, a friend lent me the first run of twenty - everything there was, at the time - and I got my brother and sister hooked. Later, when I started collecting comics, I picked up the back issues. Even then, it was evident that quality control of the EQ-verse was poor - there was a collection of prose stories by various authors that was simply unreadable.

I looked forward to the second series but was let down by it. Pretty much all I remember about the second series was pages of gratuitous nude elf dancing. (If that's your thing, look for the TPB.)

Many years later - Pini works slow! - I riffled through some still-later series to see characters saying "the prong-horns are among the many-leaves" for "the deer are in the forest". Elvish must be even windier than Entish. I figured that if the characters weren't bright enough to name the things they saw every day, they weren't bright enough to have interesting adventures. The changes in Pini's art didn't help - the elves obviously had eyeballs as big as grapefruit, and looked grotesque.

I'm almost afraid to re-read the originals - I'm not sure if the later comiocs weren't as good, or if my expectations were lower when I was younger., and I'd rather enjoy my memories of Pini's art from that period.
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The Elfquest Thread

Post by taekwondodo »

I read a few of those as graphic novels when I was a teenager and remember having kind of a love/hate thing with them. I always loved the art, but some of the stories were pretty darned disappointing. Can't remember much any more other than to agree that their vocabulary was needlessly stilted. Why on earth they wouldn't have actual words for important things they saw/dealt with routinely rather than just describing them always confused me. I liked them anyway though.
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The Elfquest Thread

Post by Winnowill »

Ahem, I would have to say Winnowill is my favorite. ;) I also liked Strongbow and Clearbrook. I started reading Elfquest because of Xmen- Kitty Pryde was wearing an Elfquest t-shirt, I think. Plus there was a bamf talking to a fairy named Pini. I also liked the series called the Distant Soil. I don't remember if it was made by the same people or not.
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The Elfquest Thread

Post by Elwing »

Oh thank goodness, I'm not alone ;) Hmm. gratitious nude elf dancing :naughty
But it's a fact you can safely ignore anything that was not drawn and scripted by the Pinis themselves...
One thing I liked best about the series were the flawed good guys and the tragic bad guys. I have to admit to rooting for Rayek. He's a babe. Well, for somebody 3 feet tall with ears you can sail a boat with, anyway.:oops And I'd be cross too if some berserker ran off with my girlfriend like that!
Also, how many comics do you know in which the lead characters clearly grow older?
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The Elfquest Thread

Post by Bamf Bunny »

Originally posted by Winnowill
I also liked the series called the Distant Soil. I don't remember if it was made by the same people or not.
No, no, no, no, no!

A Distant Soil was created by Colleen Doran when she was a teenager. The Pinis' company WaRP Graphics picked it up to publish and distribute - it was the first non-Elfquest comic they'd done, and a preview appeared in EQ16, but things went very sour. Richard Pini apparently insisted on a number of changes - I don't know what the comic was like before, but people who do have said they were 100% unnecessary. Then, later, when Doran was justifiably unhappy with her treatment by the Pinis and wanted to take her book elswhere, Richard said that he was the co-creator of the characters and worlds that Doran had been writing for years before they met, and wouldn't let her. She eventually got the rights back and has been publishing ADS elsewhere. It hit its 20th anniversary a while back.

The ADS website is, what else, http://www.adistantsoil.com.
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The Elfquest Thread

Post by Sorte Springer »

AAARRG... Elfquest, the horror the horror! ( Runs away and hides under a piece of furniture)
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