ElfQuest is one of those late-70s/early 80s indie comics that became a crossover success to audiences that normally did not purchase comics. Instead of being super-heroes, cartoon animals, funny teens, or a navel-gazing autobiography, it was an elaborate science fantasy. It was one of the earlier American comics to display art influenced by the styles seen in Japanese manga. Female comics fans found it was one of the only books that even realized they existed.
While the book sort of derailed itself in the late 90s, much of the earlier stuff is well-worth reading.
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Larry Elmore is justifiably miffed over LucasFilm brazenly ripping off notable elements of his popular character then warping and distorting said elements into *shudder* Jar-Jar Binks.
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Not enthused about a film (unless, of course, it actually turns out to be good).
A lot of Elfquest's coolness came from the TLC they put into their books -- Wendy doing ALL the art (I remember when it took 4 months for a book to come out!) Later when the Pinis stopped doing all the art and writing, the stories were pretty bad... I'd worry that -- with a film diluting the Pinis' efforts -- that any film wouldn't capture the magic of those early stories.
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I'd say the comic deteriorated long before the Pinis gave the art and writing over to others. I note that the recent revival title has them strongly involved, but still sucked as much as any post "Hidden Years" story has.
The problem is, they're so in love with their own characters that they've ceased doing anything interesting with them.
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I don't think it was "long before" -- I looked it up -- Hidden Years came out ~'92, and that was still good (the first issues that were Pini-only); the other series started coming out '93, when the non-Pinis got involved, and those were IMMEDIATELY bad.
But yeah, even the Pini-only stuff they've done since '92 has been bad. They ARE too in love with their characters -- they need to let some of their characters either die or settle down in peace.
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Nah. I rather liked "New Blood". Especially the "Tiny Toon Adventures" style stories.
For me, it was during the prelude to the 'Shards' arc that things started to derail. Not that the "future of Abode" titles weren't putrid as heck.
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Wow, Elfquest kept going? I used to have all the original arcs, in glorious huge color volumes. I lost them during a move, sadly. There were, if I remember... 4? It's been a very long time.
The first volume, Cutter's tribe goes into the desert, right? And the second, Cutter and Skywise go off on their own little trip for... some reason... and the third was the one with... ack, I can't remember what the fake-high elves were called. The flying ones in the mountain. And then the fourth volume, with the... were they the go-backs? The snowy ones, trying to get back to the castle or the palace or whatever that place was.
And then they... did. And I remember a couple of sequel volumes that were immediately less exciting, in my opinion, though still had some cool stuff. And then... that's it. I stopped being aware of them, I guess.
Has Elfquest seriously been continuing this whole time? That's... amazing. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad amazing, but it's amazing.
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Dan: yep, you're remembering pretty well. The first 4 books were the original series. 5 and 6 were the second series; 5 was so-so, 6 was better. 7 and 8 were the third series; 7 was pretty good, and 8 was frickin' awesome. Then 9 was a mix of stories -- some great, some so-so. After that is when they really lost it (though as you can see, PT and I don't agree on exactly where.)
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There's 2 new Pini-drawn ones that came out recently, The Searcher and the Sword, which I liked, finally good things happening to my MAN Strongbow, or... male elf strongbow who looks like Kaoru of Dir en grey, I only just noticed that, his kaoru-iness. And the Discovery which I haven't read yet. I love all of the Wendy Pini-drawn ones from the beginning, but I haven't read as many of the post her ones.
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I'd worry that -- with a film diluting the Pinis' efforts -- that any film wouldn't capture the magic of those early stories.
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