Boing Boing, the blog that made blogging cool, is publishing its first ongoing SFf comic…and it’s the venerable indie comics classic Elfquest! Starting Monday, Boing-Boing will serialize an all new Elfquest story by creators Richard and Wendy Pini:

It’s my great pleasure to welcome Wendy and Richard Pini to Boing Boing, where they’ll be publishing the next chapter of their long-running fantasy epic Elfquest—online-first for the first time!

You may also know Wendy from her anime-style retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s Masque of The Red Death — which even got her in trouble with Facebook over cartoon boobs.

The first page of Elfquest: The Final Quest’s prologue will appear here at Boing Boing on Monday. In the meantime, catch up with the story so far (all 6000 pages of it!), free of charge, at the series’ official homepage.

The Pinis have previously serialized a yaoi version of The Masque of the Red Death, originally with Go Comi, but this is a new one. More info below:

After decades of epic adventure, the heroes of Wendy and Richard Pini’s indie hit Elfquest still haven’t settled down. But for now, they’ll be found at top blog Boing Boing, taking their place in its first ongoing narrative comic presentation.

“We’re stoked to be able to take the next chapter in the series ‘online-first’,” said Boing Boing’s Rob Beschizza. “For anyone who grew up reading indie comics or who loves a fantastic yarn, this is a dream come true.”

Elfquest, a fantasy epic first published in 1978, replaced the era’s Tolkien-esque tropes with a more modern—and less foofy—vision of point-eared peril. The story of Cutter’s barbaric tribe of elves, and their quest to discover their cosmic origins, was one of the first independently-published comics to achieve mainstream success.

“Wendy and I never set out, thirty-five years ago, to take the indie comics world by storm,” said Richard Pini. “But there the history is, in the sales and—more importantly—in the fandom that’s stayed with us. Now we get to relive those scary, heady days once again as Elfquest makes its online debut to fans old and new.”

Among other graphic novel firsts counted by Wendy and Richard: a massive female audience, publishing deals with both Marvel and DC Comics, and translation into dozens of languages.

Boing Boing is one of the top blogs in the U.S., with more than 4 million visitors a month and a long tradition of showcasing the unusual, the spectacular and the wildly talented.

The prologue to the new tale, to be published weekly over several months, gears up the decades-long story for its long-awaited next major chapter.

“Elfquest’s World of Two Moons—its landscapes, inhabitants, dangers—is familiar yet always unpredictable territory,” said Wendy Pini. “After five years’ hiatus, I’ve come home to the Holt and to my main characters, Cutter and the Wolfriders, only to wreak storytelling havoc on them as never before. In ‘Elfquest – the Final Quest’ sturdy, stable characters will react in totally unexpected ways as they face devastating, unavoidable change. I’m scared and exhilarated by what’s going to happen!”

Each page of the story will be published at boingboing.net on Mondays, beginning next week on September 10. New readers can read the story so far, free of charge, at http://www.elfquest.com/gallery/OnlineComics3.html

5 COMMENTS

  1. So glad that Wendy and Richard gets the recognition they truly deserve. Elfquest was a great series, and even if the branching out into a franchise in the 90s wasn’t quite as good, and their last two graphic novels weren’t that great, the series has given me lots of joy through the years.

  2. Wow, unexpected twist. Well, I knew that Wendy has been working on “The Final Quest” for some time now, but Boingboing?

    Upon closer reading–will they entire Final Quest be on Boingboing, or just the prologue?

    (Also, Two-Edge is and even *better* villain than Winnowill, nyah.)

  3. At last…another chance to live in the World of Two Moons, and watch as its history is written in Thunder and Skyfire…

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