Friday, September 8, 2017

End-of-Week Wendy [Pini] (9/8/17): Rereading Elfquest Part 1


I wish I had something more profound to say at this point in my "great" effort toward creating an Elfquest fantasy heartbreaker. But I don't.

Mostly because I'm in the very nascent stages, which means I'm going back and reading the series. At the very least, the first few volumes.

So, I'm in the "boring" research phase. Well, boring for YOU, dear reader. For me, I'm sure I'll have a grand old time reliving the adventures of Cutter and his pack!

One thing I can say is I never cared what other people thought about a man reading Elfquest. People tend to glance at Wendy Pini's art and immediately call it "girl stuff."

Fie on that, I say, ye narrow-minded folk! I would tell those of such a shallow opinion to read this, the intro to volume 1 of the Complete Elfquest. To summarize, it talks about the depth of Elfquest, and how it means many different things to many different people.

Can EQ be seen as or taken to be just "girly escapist fantasy"? Sure...IF THAT'S HOW A READER WANTS TO TAKE IT! Others, like myself, can take it as a monumental feat of creativity, not just in terms of its amazing and robust visual artistry, but also the rich world that the Pinis created.

Rant over. In the coming days, I'll check in with my "amateur game designer" musings. I'm keeping a particular eye out for the aspects of the different races. On the surface, there are elves (which in D&D terms roughly equate to "wood" and "high" elves at a very cursory level), trolls (superficial analogs to orcs), and humans (more primitive than the medieval types usually found in D&D).

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself! If anyone else out there is reading, or has recently read, the EQ series, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

1 comment:

  1. Good!
    I have Part 1 and Part 2 and I have recently read them both. :)

    Magic is mostly mind-based/emotion-based.
    Basically Cutter's quest makes him a Rootfinder.

    ReplyDelete