I was 28 years old when Elfquest began. Now I’m going on 65. That’s 37 years of living, working and observing the star-reaching grandeur and repetitive idiocy of the human condition—the smaller truth within the larger.
Richard and I did not know that all our musings during drives to nowhere and our long story talks about Final Quest (which coalesced in the form of a written treatment in the mid 1990s) would lead us to the halfway mark of an ambitious 24 issue, bi-monthly, color comic series in 2015. Most especially we didn’t know that Elfquest – the Final Quest would lay our souls bare and reflect absolutely everything we care about in life: dark and light, horrible and humorous.
Elfquest has always been about finding out things…questing for truths – even hard ones – that can be meaningfully grasped and applied to personal growth. Elfquest – the Final Quest is about finding out things that were right in front of you, all along, but you weren’t ready to see them.
Truth can’t help but bring about change. Sometimes change can make you feel slugged in the gut. So I’m with you, elf-friends. It’s no easier for me to write and draw some of the events in Elfquest – the Final Quest than it is for you to read them. As you will hear Timmain say in issue 12, “the time of revelation was right.” And you’ll see it’s just as much a gut punch for her as anyone.
Timing is everything. For 37 and some years Richard and I have been building to this point in The Hero’s Journey. In these earthly times of massive global unrest, crippling fear and soaring hope, you’re learning, as he himself is, what has always set Cutter apart from his tribemates and driven him to keep questing all his life.
A “Chosen One” myth, then, you say? It’s all about inescapable destiny? Uh uh. Far from it. In almost four decades of storytelling I’ve learned a few things that keep me in real time or, as most Elfquest fans would like to say, the “Now.” You, Richard and I—we’re all with Cutter and the rest of the Elfquest characters, experiencing what’s happening to them right now. The story has never been more immediate or the love going into it more powerful.
We invite you to fasten your safety belts. The Final Quest‘s second half is going to be one helluva ride for us all.
• Elfquest – The Final Quest Issue #12 is available Wednesday at all good comic stores. Read it online at Dark Horse Comics. You can also catch up on the story so far.
