Elfquest
By Zoe Agnew
Wendy and Richard Pini began the comic series Elfquest in the 1970s.
Although bigger publishers like Marvel have occasionally offered reissues
of the originals, overall the Pinis have avoided corporate comic publishing.
Instead they began Warp Graphics, named for the abbreviation of Wendy
and Richard Pini, as their own venue to publish their series as they
originally envisioned them.
Of course many other comic artists have published independently,
even as simply as a person who photocopies and staples her comic together
for friends, an image that Scott McCloud offers us in his books Understanding
Comics and Reinventing Comics. Yet the Pinis are distinctively
successful in the length of their publishing careers: for nearly 25
years they have been creating and producing the Elfquest stories themselves.
The Elfquest story itself is also distinctive from the usual fantasy
superhero fare. Although the series has its share of violence and
warfare, the story is also highly concerned with the relationships
between the characters, groups of characters and the environment around
them.
It seems that the internet would be an excellent place for the Pinis
to begin a new phase of publishing Elfquest, and perhaps a new phase
of Elfquest altogether. Elfquest.com is a thorough site for an already
entrenched fan of the series. Because the comic is so long-lived,
there is the all-important plot summary section within GoodTree's
Rest, as well as character pictures and summaries. There are also
sections on the history of the strip itself and of Warp Graphics,
as well as an online store where you can buy comics and paraphernalia.
Finally, there is a long list of links to Fan sites dedicated to the
comic.
Thus the site caters to the Elfquest fan nicely, including further
options for fans' creative outlets. For the new reader, initiation
into the series could be daunting. The section called Digital EQ:
Comics online could show enticing example pieces to potential fans.
Understandably, the first comic displayed is the first Elfquest comic
ever. The format, however, remains absolutely tied to the comic-as-a-book
format: each click of the mouse brings us to one full comic book page.
This is also true for the other two comic books "samples."
In more recent years, Warp Graphics has published Elfquest works
by other artists and writers, although one or both Pinis always edited
this outside work. I have personally been less than thrilled with
these works, and so I was excited to try out a parallel series by
one of these other authors. Unfortunately, the example comic of the
WaveDancers series was recently pulled from the Digital EQ section
with this disclaimer in its place:
"The online edition of Warp Graphics' WaveDancers #1 (old series),
previously featured here, has been permanently removed, by mutual
agreement with Black Mermaid Productions, the creative team who wrote
and drew the series for Warp. As part of that agreement, neither Warp
nor BMP may allow the six issues of WaveDancers to be republished
or displayed, in print or online." (http://www.elfquest.com/Elfquest/OnlineComics.html)
Whether or not Warp Graphics should evolve their comics by
embracing a truly online format is of course debatable. What is unfortunate
is that the site is limited in reaching out to new readers by the
very move that was intended to widen their audience: allowing others
to author official Elfquest works.