The Long Run takes place outside of our normal continuity of episodes, and features table discussion of an entire work or long selection of a series. In the fifth episode of this bonus series, we talk about Elfquest, by Wendy and Richard Pini. For this episode we read the first three story arcs: The Original Quest, Siege at Blue Mountain, and Kings of the Broken Wheel. All of Elfquest is available to read digitally for free at elfquest.com.
Elfquest is set on the neolithic “world of two moons”. The story begins with a group of elves, known as the Wolfriders, being driven from their forest home. They soon discover that they are not the only tribe of elves in this world, and—after resolving some of their cultural differences with these other elves—set out on a quest to discover more about their world, find out if other elves exist, and perhaps learn more about the origin of their species.
First released in the late-1970s and 80s and published independently, Elfquest is a brilliant and beautiful work of comic art, and has been hugely influential to the indie comic scene. It is weird and wild, beautifully illustrated, and incredibly different from almost anything else published before or since. It is definitely not your typical fantasy story.
For more about Elfquest (including some major spoilers!), you can read our blog post, Elfquest, and Conceptual Space.
Our hosts on this episode are Andrew Chard, Joe Preti, Tobiah Panshin, and Cade Reynolds.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:53:24 — 52.0MB)
Hey Guys – Great podcast! Elfquest is amazing. A few bits of reaction:
–Dark Horse is republishing the first three story arcs (Original Quest, Siege, Kings) in big fat, graphic novels in the original black and white — which you should totally give a try, because Wendy’s inking is stupendous. The first 720-page book is slated to be out in August 2014. You can pre-order it at http://amzn.to/KmEn9j
–Totally agree with all your comments about character and clothing design. Wendy is the one of the best of all time when it comes to this.
–Also totally agree that Wendy’s page and panel design and genius.
–The coloring of the Original Quest on the Elfquest website was done digitally by Wendy in the mid 2000s under DC for the 4 archive books they published. The Siege and Kings coloring is from the mid 80s printed books and done in a flat animation style, not by Wendy (and suffers for it IMO).
–DEFINITELY ask Wendy about her experience reading manga and watching anime as a kid in the 60s when you see her at Emerald City.
–You can read Wendy’s “Stormbringer: Law and Chaos” art book about her attempt to create an animated film from Michael Moorcock’s Elric stories at http://www.masque-of-the-red-death.com/law_and_chaos/
–Would LOVE for you to do a podcast on the Final Quest, currently being published by Dark Horse. Issue #2 comes out this week and it’s off to an amazing start.
Hey there! Thanks for leaving the reply.
I wanted to clarify that I (Cade Reynolds) did not know it was originally printed in Black and White, however my first experience of Elfquest was in the digest size editions from Dark Horse (I think that’s who published it). I had thought at the time that it was only in black and white to be cheaper to print, but its great to see that the intent of the black and white was because that is how it was originally published. I am looking forward to this new edition and cant wait to experience it how it was intended.
When the Final Quest is finished, I will absolutely recommend we read it to discuss on the podcast if Tobiah doesn’t beat me to it. Thanks again for the comment and listening. This is why we do it in the first place and love to get people’s reactions and comments. Discussion is always good for the industry as a whole, regardless if the topic is well known or not.