ElfQuest

AUTHOR: Pini, Wendy; Pini, Richard

ARTIST: Wendy Pini (illustrator); Richard Pini (letterer)

PUBLISHER: WaRP Graphics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 1978-1985

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 1981

Publication History

The first issue of ElfQuest was published in Fantasy Quarterly in 1978. After that publication folded, Wendy and Richard Pini started WaRP Graphics and began to self-publish. The original story arc (referred to as the “Original Quest”) was published by WaRP Graphics (later Warp Graphics) as twenty-one black-and-white magazine-sized issues from 1978 to 1985 and as four graphic novels between 1988 and 1989: Fire and Flight (issues 1-5), The Forbidden Grove (issues 6-10), Captives of Blue Mountain (issues 11-15), and Quest’s End (issues 16-20).

Marvel Comics reprinted the entire Original Quest in thirty-two color issues from August, 1985, to March, 1988, as part of their Epic imprint. The Original Quest continued in the eight-part series Siege at Blue Mountain, published by Apple Comics/Warp Graphics from September, 1987, to December, 1988, and in the nine-part series Kings of the Broken Wheel, published by Warp Graphics from June, 1990, to February, 1992. From 1992 to 2007, the Pinis wrote a number of spin-offs that involve some of the original characters and add many more new characters. Some of these new titles are drawn by guest artists and writers. These include: ElfQuest: The Hidden Years (1992-1996; twenty-nine issues); ElfQuest: New Blood (1992-1996; thirty-five issues); Blood of Ten Chiefs (1993-1995; twenty issues); Wave Dancers (1993-1994; six issues); Shards (1994-1996; sixteen issues); The Rebels (1994-1996; twelve issues); Jink (1994-1996; twelve issues); Kahvi (1995-1996; six issues); and ElfQuest: Two-Spear (1995-1996; five issues).

From 2003 to 2007, the Pinis licensed all publishing and merchandising rights to DC Comics, which began republishing the Original Quest in color and in manga formats. Since 2008, all ElfQuest stories have been available digitally on the ElfQuest official Web site.

Plot

The story is set in the World of Two Moons, an Earthlike world inhabited by early humans, elves, and trolls. The elves and trolls had arrived several generations back through the accidental colonization of the High Ones, a pure, highly advanced elfin race whose origins are extraterrestrial. In the Original Quest, the main protagonists are members of a small and closely knit elfin tribe called the Wolfriders, who are descendants of the High Ones and of wolves.

At the opening of the Original Quest, the Wolfriders are chased from their Holt by humans who burn down the forest in which they had lived for ten generations. This flight sets the tribe on a quest for a new home and ultimately for reunification with the other lost and scattered elfin groups, including the Sun-Folk (desert dwellers), the Gliders (mountain dwellers), and the Go-Backs (tundra dwellers). Under the visionary Wolfrider chief, Cutter, the Wolfriders negotiate survival among the treachery and hostility of the humans and trolls and try to establish strong bonds with the other elves. That part of the quest fails because not all the elves get along. Cutter’s goal is to unite all these races of elves and to return to the lost palace of the High Ones.

The quest ends when the various elves go to war with the trolls in order to regain the palace. They are victorious with the help of an original High One named Timmain, but then return to their homes, leaving only Rayek behind as keeper of the palace. Cutter decides to look to the future rather than the past in order to lead the Wolfriders and the other elves who have joined his tribe. For him, the quest will continue.

Volumes

•ElfQuest: Book One, Fire and Flight (1988). Collects issues 1-5. This book focuses on the Wolfriders’ departure from their Holt and their arrival at Sorrow’s End. Cutter defeats Rayek and becomes Leetah’s “lifemate.”

•ElfQuest: Book Two, The Forbidden Grove (1988). Collects issues 6-10. Cutter and Skywise embark on their quest to rediscover lost elf tribes and to reclaim the palace of the High Ones.

•ElfQuest: Book Three, Captives of Blue Mountain (1989). Collects issues 11-15. The Wolf-riders encounter the Gliders, elves who dwell in Blue Mountain and bond with enormous birds. The evil Winnowill has captured the Wolfriders; they escape.

•ElfQuest: Book Four, Quest’s End (1989). Collects issues 16-20. The Wolfriders and Gliders fly to the tundra to find the Palace. The Go-Backs join the Quest. They go to war with the trolls and recover the Palace.

Characters

There are approximately 650 named characters in the ElfQuest universe. All of the elves are beautiful, thin, and muscular. They have long, pointy ears, disproportionately large eyes and big hair, and no body hair, although the men grow beards once they become elders. The High Ones and Gliders are tall, but the Sun Folk, Go-Backs, and Wolfriders are short. The Wolfriders are light in complexion, athletic, and healthy; the Sun Folk are dark-skinned and usually have green or dark eyes; the Gliders are tall, pale, and slim; the Go-Backs are pale, dark-haired, and athletic.

•Cutter is the main character and protagonist, the chief of the Wolfriders. He wants to reunite all the elves and reconnect with the High Ones. He has twins, Ember and Suntop, with Leetah. The key to the lost palace of the High Ones is hidden within his sword, Newmoon, which was forged by Two-Edge. His character represents vision and evolution, while simultaneously celebrating the bestial nature of the Wolfriders.

•Skywise is the most intellectual character and has a serious interest in astronomy and astrology. He and Cutter are inseparable “soul brothers”; this means that they exchanged soul names. He carries a lodestone that guides the quest. He is very sexual and aggressive.

•Dewshine experiences “recognition” with the Glider Tyldak and gives birth to Windkin, another mixed elf child, whom she raises with Scouter, her “lovemate.” Her character embodies the quest itself, as she creates a child of mixed parentage.

•Ember is the daughter of Cutter and Leetah. Her twin brother is Suntop, later Sunstream. Ember appears to take after her father more than her mother and is therefore an enthusiastic hunter and forest dweller. She will succeed her father as chief of the Wolfriders. Her character renews the bloodlines of the Wolfriders. Her soul name is not revealed. She may not possess one, as she is half Sun Folk, and their tribe does not use soul names.

•Suntop, a.k.a. Sunstream and Klynn, is the son of Cutter and Leetah and the twin brother of Ember. He is sensitive and possesses magical abilities on par with Savah and Rayek, who live at Sorrow’s End where he was born. He can sense the presence of magic and can send his body out to telepathically communicate with the great wisewomen elves of the story: Savah, Winnowill, and Timmain. He is important because his magical powers propel the plot of the continuation arcs. His soul name is Klynn.

•Clearbrook is an elder of the Wolfriders. She was the recognized lifemate of One-Eye, who was killed in the war with the Go-Backs against Guttlecraw’s trolls. She later becomes a lovemate of Treestump, whose mate was also killed. Her grief makes her character important, as she embodies the sacrifice and pain of war and of the quest. Her son is Scouter, and her wolf friend is Whitebrow. Her soul name is not revealed.

•Dart is the son of Moonshade and Strongbow. He does not join the quest, but chooses to separate from his parents and from the Wolfrider tribe in order to remain in Sorrow’s End and to teach the Sun Folk how to hunt with bow and arrows. He leads his own Wolfriders made up of Sun Folk and desert wolves. The two packs live briefly and uneasily together in the forest Holt.

•Moonshade, a.k.a. Eyrn, is a tanner. She is the obedient and subservient lovemate of Strongbow and the mother of Dart. In the Original Quest, Strongbow convinces her to leave the tribe in Blue Mountain in order to preserve the “Way.” She obeys him. Her soul name is Eyrn.

•Nightfall, a.k.a. Twen, is a serious warrior and hunter. She is adept with a bow and arrow and with a knife. She is the lifemate of the gentle Redlance. Her soul name is Twen.

•One-Eye, a.k.a. Sur, is a hunter. He was named Woodhue but has been called One-Eye ever since he was captured and tortured by humans. He is the lifemate of Clearbrook and father of Scouter. He was killed by trolls during the war to regain the palace. His body is preserved in the palace where his spirit continues to dwell. His soul name is Sur.

•Pike is known for his skill with a spear and for being the “howl keeper,” which is similar to being a bard. He is the least serious of the Wolfriders and is frequently drunk on “dreamberries.”

•Redlance, a.k.a. Ulm, is a paternal character who can shape plants and trees. He is the lifemate of Nightfall. He is left behind to guard the children during the war with the trolls for the palace. In Kings of the Broken Wheel, he and Nightfall enlist Leetah to help them conceive a child within the palace of the High Ones. His soul name is Ulm.

•Scouter is the scout. He is the son of Clearbrook and One-Eye. His lovemate is Dewshine. Windkin is his “adoptive” child.

•Strongbow is the archer. He almost never speaks but, rather, communicates by “sending.” He is ill-tempered and the least supportive character of the quest. He clings to “the Way” and the old days of the Holt. He is lifemates with Moonshade and the father of Dart, with whom he has a prickly relationship. At the end of Siege of Blue Mountain, he kills a Glider, Kureel. He tortures himself over killing another elf and temporarily loses his ability to hunt.

•Treestump is also an elder and is the brother of the late Joyleaf, Cutter’s mother. He is strong and brave. His lifemate, Rillfisher, was deaf after an illness and died when she was struck by a fallen limb when their daughter, Dewshine, was a baby. He and Clearbrook become lovemates.

•Leetah is the daughter of Sun Toucher, the blind chief of the Sun Folk. She is a healer. Once recognized by Cutter, she supports his vision and joins the Wolfriders on their quest. Her mother is Toorah. Her sister is Shen Shen, the midwife.

•Rayek is the chief hunter of the Sun Folk and has a special bond with Savah, who helps guide his magical abilities, which include flying. At the end of the Original Quest, he becomes the keeper of the Palace of the High Ones. He is the antihero.

•Savah is the wise woman of the Sun Folk at Sorrow’s End. She was a founder of Sorrow’s End. She never sleeps and can project astrally.

•Winnowill is a Glider and the villain. She is tall, dark-haired, and beautiful but cold. It was her idea to sequester the Gliders in Blue Mountain, the isolated world that caused her to unravel mentally and leads her to control their leader, Lord Voll. She was a healer and can alter other elves’ bodies, including making them part of the mountain itself. She is worshiped by a tribe of humans.

•Tyldak is a Glider who has been shape-shifted by Winnowill to resemble a bird. He has a great wingspan and can fly. He is initially loyal to Winnowill but then supports the Wolfriders. He hunts with the Chosen Eight.

•Aroree is one of the Chosen Eight, the hunters for the Gliders. She can fly. She is very unhappy and terrified of Winnowill, but her loyalty to and love for Lord Voll keep her in Blue Mountain. She is one of the few Gliders to survive at the end of Siege of Blue Mountain. She is a major actor of the events of that story and the Kings of the Broken Wheel. She is a lovemate of Skywise. She befriends Kahvi and joins the Wolfriders.

•Lord Voll is the founder and lord of the Gliders. He is a son of the original High Ones and lovemate to Winnowill. He and his “bondbird” Tenspan are killed by the trolls while flying the Wolfriders to the palace.

•Two-Edge is half elf and half troll. His mother is Winnowill. He looks like a handsome troll and has the muscular physique of the elves. He is mentally unbalanced as a result of his mother’s abuse. He manipulates the quest.

•Kahvi is the chief of the Go-Backs. She is a fierce warrior and strong leader. She is extremely violent and sexual. Her lovemates include Cutter, Rayek, and Tyldak. She leads the great war with the Trolls.

•Skot and Krim were members of the Go-Backs, but they leave the tundra and join Pike as lovemates in the new Holt. Skot is an epicurean just as Pike is indulgent with dreamberry wine.

•Venka is the daughter of Kahvi and Rayek. She appears to possess some of his magical powers and is adept at countering Winnowill’s psychic attacks. She defeats Winnowill in Kings of the Broken Wheel.

•Ekuar is an elderly rock shaper who spent decades as a prisoner of trolls. Rayek rescues him, and the two form a close bond while living with the Go-Backs. His ability to open and close passages in rock caves makes him a useful asset on all legs of the quest.

•The High Ones include Timmain, who is the only one who actually appears in the comic. The others are frequently referenced. They include: Aerth, Adya, Deir, Gibra, Guin, Haken, Ima, Kalil, Kaslin, Orolin, Sefra, and Tislin.

•The Trolls live underground, but are responsible for much of the strife that the various elfin tribes face. They are portrayed as lazy, stupid, and greedy. They live in two separate rival tribes and include Picknose, Guttlekraw, Oddbit, Greymung, Old Maggoty, Scurff, and Trinket.

•Nonna and Adar are the humans who rescue Cutter and are drawn to resemble Wendy and Richard Pini.

Artistic Style

Wendy Pini’s original run showcased high-quality black-and-white pen-and-ink panels. She used a high contrast style. The style was rooted in both realism and idealism, and the characters were drawn with great detail and to scale. The various landscapes were imaginative and penciled with great care and meticulous affect. The physical bodies of the elves were idealized and sexualized. Wendy Pini has said that she was influenced by Japanese animation, Art Nouveau, and traditional fantasy illustrators.

Wendy Pini’s bright, colorful cover art overflows with emotion and movement. On the back of the original twenty magazine-sized issues, she drew lush, colorful, painterly portraits of the main characters. When she began drawing in color, she would photocopy the black-and-white pages and then paint over them with watercolor. In 1998, she began using Adobe Photoshop.

The layout of the series varies. Some pages are divided into panels, others are collages of images, and still others are full-page images. Dialogue is sometimes enclosed in word balloons; other times it is written as captions. When the elves communicate by sending, a dark four-sided star with radiating lines appears over their brows. The sending dialogue itself appears in double-ringed ovals.

The book’s artistic style has evolved over the years. While being reprinted by Marvel Comics, the book was colorized by Glynis Oliver and was printed on Mando paper. The book was restructured from twenty thirty-two-page issues into thirty-two eighteen-page issues. Wendy Pini drew transitional pages to bridge the narrative gaps.

Themes

Community and identity are major themes. Cutter wishes to pinpoint and redefine his own community and his place within it. He wishes to understand the relationship of his own tribe with the others. He attempts to overcome physical and cultural barriers in order to create one united community of all elves. The scattered elves do intermingle and join new tribes, but they fail to create one multiethnic family. The Pinis reveal the limits of identity as the various elves struggle to accept one another and adapt to their new environments. It is, however, difficult for them to get along.

Love is another major theme. One of the elves’ most heroic qualities is their ability to love deeply and for eternity. They love selflessly and without possessiveness and many make serious sacrifices for one another. As the tribes interbreed, the Pinis present interracial relationships that are perfectly natural, healthy, and beneficial. The elves speak openly about one another’s ethnicities without judgment. This openness extends to their attitudes about sex. Sex does not create issues in the elfin communities. There is no marriage, monogamy, rape, molestation, domestic violence, honor killing, or unwanted pregnancies. There are no sexually transmitted diseases or prostitutes. Sex is healthy and natural and not used to gain power or humiliate one another. Nudity is common. The elves have no body shame or eating disorders. The Pinis created a healthy body-positive, sex-positive world that offers an idealized vision of relationships and emotions.

Another prominent theme is that violence is necessary and often enjoyable. This is a violent comic that features war, torture, sacrifice, and hunting. Hunting and killing figure prominently in each issue and are glorified by all the tribes. The Wolfriders consider hunting to be natural, and almost all the members of the tribe hunt. In the other tribes, it is a position of privilege for the chosen elves. The extreme violence of their hunt is mirrored in their combative relationship with humans, with trolls, and with one another. Meat is an important part of the tribes’ rituals, sexuality, and identity. The Wolfriders eat their meat raw and howl after the kill.

The Pinis have said that another theme is maturation. Their various characters, especially Cutter, grow up throughout the quest and leave adolescence behind. At the beginning of the quest, Cutter agonized over and reflected on his own leadership abilities, but he grew more confident as the quest moved forward.

Impact

ElfQuest, a Modern Age alternative fantasy comic, is considered a successful cult hit. The Pinis are often credited with inspiring other independent titles and self-publishers. Their fans are devoted; the Pinis have always maintained a close relationship with their fans and have made themselves accessible at conventions, via email, and through other forms of correspondence. Fans often refer to an ElfQuest universe much as fans of Joss Whedon reference the “Buffyverse” of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The Pinis are also credited with redefining the commercial potential of independent alternative comics. They were some of the first to create a specialized line of ElfQuest merchandise that is now standard in the industry. They were also among the first to publish reprints and novelizations and to push merchandising, especially T-shirts and statuettes. They released compact disks of music inspired by ElfQuest. A Wolfrider’s Reflections: Songs of “ElfQuest” was released in 1987. Terry Moore, author of the self-published comic book Strangers in Paradise (1993-2007), has followed their example and released music and lyrics taken from his long-running book.

Part of their expansive merchandising includes a role-playing game released in 1984 by Chaosium, Inc. The original boxed set included the ElfBook and the WorldBook, a parchment map of the World of Two Moons, fifteen character sheets, an instructional booklet, quick reference sheets, and a collection of various-sided dice. Wendy Pini’s original artwork is included, and she hand drew the map. The game follows the story line of the Original Quest and allows players to choose one of the elf characters and to participate in the quest. In the Internet age, several fan-generated online games have arisen.

Further Reading

Carey, Michael. Lucifer (2000-2006).

Moore, Terry. Strangers in Paradise (1993-1997).

Pini, Wendy. Beauty and the Beast: Portrait of Love (1989).

Sim, Dave. Cerebus (1977-2004).

Bibliography

Gallo, Don, and Stephen Weiner. “Bold Books for Innovative Teaching.” The English Journal 94, no. 2 (November, 2004): 114-117.

Pini, Wendy, and Richard Pini. “Talking with Wendy and Richard Pini, the Team Behind ElfQuest.” Interview by Julie Scordato. Library Media Connection, March, 2005, pp. 46-49.

Sanderson, Peter. “Say Hello to ElfQuest.” Marvel Age, July, 1985. http://www.elfQuest.com/edits/ MarvAge.html.