10 Reasons Why Elfquest Rules
Posted by Rob Beschizza
Wendy and Richard Pini, creators of long-running indy comic series Elfquest, are making the whole caboodle available free of charge at their website. New issues will be posted weekly until 30 years’ worth is online.
Comment from BoingBoing and Metafilter remind us why this is one of the best comics you’ve never heard of, but here’s a quick primer on why it rules.
• With Dave Sim’s Cerebus, it was among the first self-published comics to make it big, booting down the door for new talent the nation over. Its success as a graphic novel in mainstream bookstores helped infect the American mainstream with a European-esque appreciation for comics. Women actually read this. Women.
• Wendy Pini’s art is a melting pot of comics, manga and classical illustration. And she’s been at it since before most people had even heard of manga…
• The feral, omnisexual, hallucinogen-guzzling protagonists aren’t Tolkien-derived clichés, but a freakish medley of european lore, native american myth and hippy free love.
• No superheroes, magic wands or other arbitrary magics. It’s consistently plotted to tight rules of engagement and expertly crafted by the same wife-and-husband team thats been doing little else since 1977.
• It’s a neat blend of high fantasy and science fiction: the “elves” are aliens who wanted to impress us by appearing as angels, but got stuck in a genetic disguise by their slaves’ violent rebellion.
• All the fashions in it are either from the 1970s or the 1930s: everyone is either a pimp in furs and leather or something sculpted by Erté. They just don’t make ‘em like this any more.
• Winnowill is the best arch-villainess since Maleficent Cthulhu.
• It’s not over: the story’s final showdown, the creators write, has been written but not yet published.
• 6,000 pages of full-color classic indy brilliance free of charge. Precedent set.
• Issue #17’s Elf Orgy. If nothing else, a great name for a punk band. (Brownlee has already demanded scans, but I don’t have a copy to hand — any fans out there who can do the honors?)
Categories: Shameless Promotion, 70s, Imaginary Friends, Bisexual Elves, Leather Flares, Folklore, Calling All Ectomites, Orgies, Comics, drugs!, Retro, Communism
Posted at 4:52 pm on March 26, 2008
13 Comments -
Fun fact: Rob Beschizza met his wife on an Elfquest message board.
Comment by John Brownlee — March 26, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
Oh ElfQuest! I first read the entire hardcover series over two days when I was 11. 7 years later I was following my ElfQuest spawned dream to art school, pursuing a degree in cartooning, wherein Jessica Abel totally snarked at me about that in her class. Phooey!
But my god, EQ was a revelation! Violence! Sex! Magic! No downtalking, strong female characters, brown people (in fantasy? In the 70s?), drawn by a woman. Seriously, one of my biggest influences, and unlike Abel, I ain’t the least bit embarrassed.
Comment by Wendalyn — March 26, 2008 @ 7:43 pm
My god, I remember this. Barriers broken, yes: blacks in fantasy was just the beginning. Loads of things we don’t notice anymore.
And, yes, so much fapping.
Comment by Jacob — March 26, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
Sold. Anyone who’se this manically obsessed with anything has got to be right! I’ll give it a go.
Comment by Scott — March 26, 2008 @ 8:41 pm
u guys shud read real high fantasy comics like Jughed
Comment by ForteenYO — March 27, 2008 @ 2:20 am
I read the first six issues for the first time the other day. Whatever genre-shattering allure and transgressive brilliance this series may have once held, its aged incredibly badly.
Comment by John Brownlee — March 27, 2008 @ 3:38 am
This horrible strip has left me bored and annoyed for thirty years. I don’t know why I don’t like it, I just don’t. I wish I did.
Comment by Mogothe Mugger — March 27, 2008 @ 6:57 am
Who gives a shit what something “represents?” The only thing that matters if it’s worth reading.
That’s the attitude I went into it with and, um, well, I sort of liked it. I just sat there laughing at how twee it was. Then I realized I’d been reading it for 3 hours.
It’s like Star Wars. You know it’s pulp, and it’s aged so bad it has to be repainted every 5 years, but it’s too good to stop. It’s the characters, they grow on you.
Comment by Belt Sander — March 27, 2008 @ 7:35 am
Well, you know what the say …… can’t spell self without ELF. Or shelf for that matter. Hmmmm, what if ELF was a swear word? Like, “Go Elf yourself, Brandon! And stop showing me your elf’n ear-hair! I don’t care about your doofus hipster ambitions!! And while you’re at it, stop picking up your mail in your wife’s kimono!! No one wants to see those chalky, vein & hair vined stems you call legs playing ping pong with your banana hammock!!”
Wait, what was my point again? Damn. Fail.
Comment by otep — March 27, 2008 @ 6:32 pm
Elfquest was a staple of my adolescence - so colorful, so sexy, so beautifully drawn and complicated. Perfect fodder for a little girl obsessed with fantasy realms and costumes.
I rediscovered the box of them in my parents’ attic as an adult and was inspired to go on an eBay spree buying up the full-color glossy compendiums that were published in the mid-eighties. Even now, every time I pick one up, I can’t put its dog-eared loveliness down.
Shade and sweet water!
(Did I just reveal exactly how dorky I actually am? Whoops. At least I’m not alone.)
Comment by Choklit Chanteuse — March 27, 2008 @ 7:27 pm
You want to see the elf orgy? I’m glad to help…I just scanned in and uploaded pages 12-16 of issue #17 (yes, the original black-and-white one) here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25067460@N05/
Enjoy!
Comment by cognitive dissident — March 27, 2008 @ 11:10 pm
[…] is you needed them, Ectoplasmosis has posted 10 Reasons Why Elfquest Rules, just to make sure you know why you should be […]
Pingback by The Great Geek Manual » Geek Media Round-Up: March 28, 2008 — March 28, 2008 @ 6:33 pm
Cerebus. Elfquest.
Comment by kromag — April 1, 2008 @ 10:55 pm