haleynixt's review
5.0
No words can describe the love I have for this series, and I decided a reread is in order as the series is drawing to a close in the Final Quest. I may have to buy new versions of the first 6 books, however, since my copies are, quite literally, falling apart.
hypops's review
4.0
[Comics Canon Review]
Before Saga, there was ElfQuest. In both books, a rag-tag group of political exiles wanders a fantastic landscape in search of a safe place to call home. Both books also foreground personal relationships (friendship, familial bonds, romantic love, sexual attraction, etc.) and suggest that those close connections might bridge any and all violent divisions. And also like Saga, it has an unusual blend of cutesy-ness, seriousness, irony, action, romance, and awe-filled wonder.
But despite these similarities, ElfQuest is distinct from Saga in that it was produced in the days before the big independent publishers and imprints. This book was unusual in blending the self-published hipness of the underground scene with the visual polish and populist genre-fiction of mainstream comics. I don’t want to claim that it was the *only* book to do this, but it was among the most prominent in its day. And compared to its peers, I very rarely see ElfQuest mentioned positively by critics, historians, or other readers.
I’ve thought about this book a lot over the years, but haven’t read it since I was a kid when ElfQuest was still (mostly) new. It had a reverential mystique to it, and I have strong early memories of tracing panels from various volumes. It was hard to find, so it seemed rare and somehow strangely foreign to me. I was worried, since this is my first return to it in over 30 years, that it wouldn’t hold up. There are undeniably some signs of its age, but overall, it still works beautifully.
Before Saga, there was ElfQuest. In both books, a rag-tag group of political exiles wanders a fantastic landscape in search of a safe place to call home. Both books also foreground personal relationships (friendship, familial bonds, romantic love, sexual attraction, etc.) and suggest that those close connections might bridge any and all violent divisions. And also like Saga, it has an unusual blend of cutesy-ness, seriousness, irony, action, romance, and awe-filled wonder.
But despite these similarities, ElfQuest is distinct from Saga in that it was produced in the days before the big independent publishers and imprints. This book was unusual in blending the self-published hipness of the underground scene with the visual polish and populist genre-fiction of mainstream comics. I don’t want to claim that it was the *only* book to do this, but it was among the most prominent in its day. And compared to its peers, I very rarely see ElfQuest mentioned positively by critics, historians, or other readers.
I’ve thought about this book a lot over the years, but haven’t read it since I was a kid when ElfQuest was still (mostly) new. It had a reverential mystique to it, and I have strong early memories of tracing panels from various volumes. It was hard to find, so it seemed rare and somehow strangely foreign to me. I was worried, since this is my first return to it in over 30 years, that it wouldn’t hold up. There are undeniably some signs of its age, but overall, it still works beautifully.
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