Welcome to the World of Two Moons – Elfquest is the longest-running independent fantasy series, with more than 15 million comics, graphic novels and other publications in print. The story of Cutter, chief of the Wolfriders, and his quest to find others of their own kind on the World of Two Moons, Elfquest was first published in 1978 by creators Wendy and Richard Pini.
Another rec, this time a ‘classic’ that started in 1978 as an independent. My LCS in the mid-eighties carried all the usual Big Two suspects, including the Dark Knight stuff that was just coming out (Arkham Asylum anyone?) but the guy behind the counter was a friend and pointed me at this oversized black and white comic. They only had two issues in stock and it came out quarterly I think so it was super slow. I fell in love even though it was issue 16. The original arc ran through issue 20 and was part of what hooked me on comics. Over the years it’s been an independent, a Marvel re-release, digital, collections, a few novels, anthologies and a few aborted attempts at movies.
Here is a link to a forthcoming collection of the original for $125 that was the black and white line art. Yes, it’s a bit dated in the style but I still have love for it.
And if I needed another copy of it, this is what I’d buy to give to someone today. A trade paperback of the first 20 issues from Dark Horse that is due out in August. It’s 720 pages for $25. It does have mature content (on screen violence, character death, sex, bigotry, polyamory – most of those I would consider enticements, not warnings fyi) so if you have kids I’d pre-screen it before handing it over or be prepared for questions. It may look cutesy but it really isn’t. It opens with a character being tortured and subsequent rescue.
Nota Bene: Sometimes the labeling can be confusing. If you haven’t read Elfquest before I do recommend starting with First Quest [if you can’t wait until August the first quarter of First Quest was collected under the name Fire and Flight or Volume 1 originally and stops in at a great point if you want to dip a toe in. Yes, this is what happens when the same series is collected and re-collected under different sets over this many years.]
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