When worlds don’t collide

Walking to and from my morning coffee fix gives me precious quiet time to think on things. This morning’s question was, “Why do I like the new X-Men movie so much?” (I know full well that liking is its own reason. But I felt there was more.) “Days of Future Past” is to the X-Men franchise what “The Avengers” is to the rest of the Marvel universe. Both movies take the best of all previous bits and pieces – some of which are, to be sure, kind of clunky – and, under a masterful guiding hand, wrap them up into a neat and most pleasing package.

Once more, Elfquest vs. Hollywood

Elfpop here: Never have I read words that so well capture the source of my frustration, disgust, and sometimes even rage, at mainstream comics, Hollywood and – guilty by association – fandom, for embracing this inhuman model of “storytelling” and thus perpetuating it. Discuss. Read the article here.

When “movie” equals “spoon”

Not a week goes by that we don’t read a post or private message: “Any news on the Elfquest movie?” Okay, it’s been a little while, but that’s why you can scroll down through past entries, to catch up on what you might have missed. It was almost two years ago (January 20, 2012) that Warner Bros., after having had Elfquest under option and consideration for four years, said “no.” And it was about a month prior to that (December 11, 2011) that Wendy posted on Facebook: “As you know, Richard and I are waiting to hear if Warner Bros.,

Elfquest Animated Film Delayed by “Hollywood-Merger-itis”

Life is a movie. Sometimes one’s personal screenplay gets sent back to be rewritten; sometimes it goes into what is called “turnaround,” a ghostly state of affairs in which – usually after much sound and fury – one is left wondering which way is up. At the moment we – the Elfquest movie team – are right there, in turnaround. Moviemaking is a process, a journey. Sometimes you go forward, and sometimes you go back. As you have no doubt gathered from the headline, this news has to do with the latter – even though, thank the High Ones, it’s a case of “one step back” and not “back to square one”!

Wendy, behind the pen…

Animation and Wendy go way back. She first tried her hand at it in college during “the Stormbringer affair,” the journal of which was published as the Father Tree Press book “Law and Chaos.” Later, she had a short stint at Ralph Bakshi’s studio animating a wee bit of “Lord of the Rings.” That didn’t last – which, as it turns out, was a major stroke of luck for the continuing adventures of Cutter and his elfin companions in the pages of the newborn comic book called Elfquest!

Top Comic Book Series to Be Computer Animated (Press Release)

Sceneries International, the Beverly Hills-based foreign sales company, brings for the first time to the American Film Market and the Cannes Film Festival the adaptation of Warp Graphics’ extremely successful Elfquest. The picture will be produced by Paris-based Sceneries Europe, headed by Philippe Diaz, as a European production, in association with Trixter, the Munich-based animation studio headed by Michael Coldewey. Trixter and Sceneries have already collaborated on the much-anticipated Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K. 2, which will be released this Fall. The entirely CGI project, being worked on in association with Wolfmill Entertainment (Pocket Dragon Adventures), has been in development for the last six months and is now in active pre-production.

Wolfmill Acquires Elfquest Rights

On the heels of their success with “Pocket Dragon Adventures,” Wolfmill Entertainment has acquired the right to Elfquest, the longest-running independently published fantasy comic book series in history. Called “one of the most important works in American fantasy” by the American Library Association, Elfquest was created almost twenty years ago by the husband and wife team of Richard and Wendy Pini. Elfquest has fans the world over, with millions of copies of the comic books in print throughout the United States, England, Europe, Scandanavia, Russia, Australia, South Africa, China and Japan.

To tide us over

Everyone is eagerly awaiting news of the Elfquest movie… Both fans, and Warp themselves. Though we still don’t have much to offer in the way of movie updates, Richard Pini does have the following to offer… These are three paintings that Wendy did over the week of April 8, 1996. When last she and I sat with Alessandro Camon of Pressman Films (Alessandro is Ed Pressman’s assistant with reference to the Elfquest movie) he made the comment that it might be useful to have some spectacular images of actual scenes from the screenplay to help sell the film to a studio.