Several months ago I discovered a Kickstarter for three deluxe Wendy Pini books, two on Elfquest and one on her other work.
Reader, I agonized. I do not, by any stretch of the imagination, require more Elfquest stuff. The completionist in me shrieks otherwise, but the truth is I got rid of most of my Elfquest originals before we moved, and I never did get several of the later Father Tree Press graphic novels (which I regret, actually, but I really still don’t like the coloring in them), but anyway, ‘completionism’ wasn’t a valid answer, especially at $100 a pop for the books, plus international shipping which added a shocking amount to the overall price tag.
Yeah, so obviously I bought them. The two Elfquest books, anyway, because I could just barely justify those but not LINE OF BEAUTY, the book about her other projects.
I got THE ART OF ELFQUEST last week and it’s *stupendously* beautiful.
There’s not, truth be told, a great deal of new material in it, not for somebody who’s been collecting Elfquest-related material for (good lord) thirty years, but it is so. so. pretty.
There *were* a handful of things I hadn’t encountered before, art or commentary about the art (one drawing that I’d seen before said it was done just after Wendy Pini finished her BEAUTY AND THE BEAST graphic novels, and points out that both Cutter and Skywise look like Ron Perlman in the drawing…and they do! Bahaha! And another that I’d probably seen before mentioned it was a preview/teaser thing for the current storyline, THE FINAL QUEST…but it was done in 1998!), so even for an old-timer (albeit one who’s fallen off the wagon this century) there’s a bit of new material, but mostly, let’s not kid ourselves, it’s about the utterly beautiful presentation.
I actually sat around hugging it, in between looking through it. It’s so pretty I regretted not biting the bullet and getting LINE OF BEAUTY, too, and I’m going to have to rectify that failure because SO PRETTY. SO. PRETTY!
If Flesk Publications wants to do a complete deluxe hardcover graphic novel print run of Elfquest after the Final Quest is done, I will be right there standing in line and shouting SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.
Wendy Pini – OMG THANK YOU. I have a poster from Singapore of Catherine and VIncent, had it since 1990, but never known who the artist is. Turns out it is the cover of Pini’s Night of Beauty. Thank you for solving the mystery! and now I need to go buy the graphic novel.
oh! how splendid that I could answer that question for you! I know just the picture you’re talking about, too. :)