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works of comics art theory: Comics and Sequential Art (1985), Graphic Storytelling and
Visual Narrative (1996), and Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative (2009). Th e
most prestigious awards in the comics industry, given annually since 1988, are the Will
Eisner Comic Industry Awards, known as the Eisner Awards.
Christopher Couch
ELFQUEST. A cult fantasy/adventure comic book series created in the 1970s by Wendy
and Richard Pini, ElfQuest had rather inauspicious beginnings. Pulled by its creators
from Fantasy Quarterly after a disappointing debut in March 1978, subsequent issues of
the comic appeared at newsstands every four months in an oversized, black-and white,
self-published format costing twice or even three times as much as Marvel and DC
Comics of the same period. It was a fantasy title, moreover, introduced at a time when
Conan the Barbarian was the only successful example of that genre. Legend even has
it that when the Pinis fi rst attempted to sell the idea to Marvel and DC, one corporate
executive replied, “Nobody wants to read about a bunch of elves.” Despite this rough
start, the ElfQuest property survived beyond the Pinis’ own imprint (WaRP Graphics)
and has expanded over the course of three decades, evolving into numerous editions,
sequels, and formats published alternately by WaRP, Marvel, Apple, and, most recently,
DC Comics.
Th e story of ElfQuest centers around a community of hunter/warrior elves, the
Wolfriders, and their struggles to survive on a hostile Earth-like planet inhabited by
trolls and primitive humans. Th e Wolfriders are led by their chief, Cutter, whose quest
begins when the elves’ forest home, the Holt, is destroyed by fi re set by a neighboring
tribe of humans bent on revenge. Th e Wolfriders’ wandering and often perilous journey
in search of a new home takes them far from the ashes of their former Holt, through
musty troll caverns, across burning deserts, over snowy mountain passes, and eventually
to the very heart of their original home, the Palace of the High Ones, a crumbling ruin
of the extraterrestrial ship that brought their fi rst ancestors to the planet 10,000 years
earlier.
During the course of their adventures, the Wolfriders encounter various other
communities of elves, including the gentle Sun Folk, the ancient Gliders, and the
militant Go-Backs. There are also trolls, humans, and other species along the
way—both friendly and hostile— so that what began as the story of the Wolfriders,
a single community of elves and their wolf companions in search of a new home,
becomes a much larger story of coexistence, as many different tribes, species, and
cultures discover one another and eventually realize that, in order to survive this
hostile world, they must learn to accept one another despite their differences. These
are the major themes of ElfQuest, a healthy acceptance of change, growth, and dif-
ference, along with an explicit sexuality that harkens back to an earlier late-1960s
counterculture.
At the peak of the comic’s popularity, monthly issues of ElfQuest sold 100,000
copies worldwide. It became the most popular comic book among female readers in the
