WARP ELFQUEST #19

EDITORIAL (WARP WORDS)

WARP WORDS

PENULTIMATE - From the Latin paenultimus meaning "last but one, the next to the last." Oy! Here we come!

BEFORE ANYBODY ASKS - About the "most dangerous ad" mentioned last issue. Wendy and I have spent the last three months discussing just that thing, and have decided that it is too dangerous to run now. Maybe someday, after ELFQUEST has been wrapped up for a while.

IT'S PARTY TIME! - Be sure to look on page 33 of this issue for your invitation to the 1984 Los Angeles World Science Fiction Convention END OF THE QUEST party. There will be ELFQUEST programming, a convention-long exhibit, and a social event - and we hope to see as many of you there as can make it! Also, you may have noticed from the Convention listing on page 38 that other get-togethers featuring EQ are planned for the near-future - there's CONQUEST in October over the sea in Scotland (a land of sometimes chilly mythology), and QUEST'S END in September in Texas (a land of sometimes mythological chili). And in 1985? Would you believe ELF WORLD '85 in Chicago? It's a possibility! Come help us celebrate!

REGARDING THOSE WORLDCONS - It's come to our attention that, while there's no "Comics" or "Graphic Novel" category in the Hugo Awards, there is a way to nominate ELFQUEST for this prize. This can be done in either (or better, both) of two other categories: Best Novel or Best Dramatic Presentation. Both categories allow for the inclusion of serial works, and both take the date of the last installment as the date of appearance. This means that since ELFQUEST concludes in 1984, the 1985 Worldcon is ELFQUEST'S one shot at a Hugo. Do we think it deserves one? After eight years of work, you bet! Do we have a chance? We'd sure like to think so, with your help.

Now, the 1985 Worldcon is in Australia (and thus very tough to get to, especially by car) but you only need be a Supporting Member to nominate and vote for the Hugos. If you'd like more information, write here to WaRP and especially to AUSSIECON TWO, Fred Patten, 11863 West Jefferson Blvd., Apt 1, Culver City, CA 90230.

INEVITABLE PLUG - If you haven't seen First Comics' E-MAN #17 yet, you don't know what you're missing. "Smeltquest!" - will we ever recover?

EVEN IF YOU NEVER normally read it, please give a look to the first part of this issue's letters page. It's important. Thank you.

ARE THERE STILL those who don't know what "See you in 120!" means? Find out in 120!

Richard

LATE P.S. - PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO COMPLETE THE ELFQUEST QUESTIONNAIRE ON PAGE 34. THANKS!

FEATURE ('End of the quest' invitation)

LETTERS (Elfquotes)

elfquotes

***** I'd like to start off this letter column with something that, while it does not bear directly on the events of last issue, does speak to the heart on a subject that is of great interest and concern to us - the wolves.

This letter is not really in direct response to any ELFQUEST issue so I will limit myself to saying "Thanks. You have brought a little magic into the world, and that's a rare accomplishment."

Actually, though, this letter is about an alarming trend among EQ fans. I seem to recall an editorial comment, or perhaps an answer to a letter, in which you pointed out to those who want to go off into the woods and establish their own Holt that they are not living in the EQ world, they are living in this world and they need to deal with the realities of the world they are in.

I agree. But even more alarming to me are the EQ fans who are determined to acquire a wolf or wolf-dog cross, thinking that to have one would be no different than having a large dog. Please write something to discourage these folks.

I have enclosed several pictures of Spirit, a half-wolf who lives with my mother in Colorado. Even she admits that if she knew then what she knows now, she would not have gotten the animal.

Spirit has been studied by a wolf expert, who told us that Spirit does indeed have more wolf traits than dog traits. He has the distinctive wolf walk ("What's wrong with your dog?" a farmer asked me one day), and he also has the wolf territorial instinct. He cannot be trained by standard dog training methods. And he has been the source of problems with neighbors who have the all-too-common fear of wolves that comes from ignorance.

Spirit is a special creature, He is more aware of his surroundings than any dog we've ever had, and when he gives me a pack greeting, or submits to my mother as if she were the alpha wolf, the feeling is - sorry, it's beyond my ability to describe.

But it breaks my heart, too. Even living in rural Colorado, there is no way Spirit can be allowed to run free, ever. If he ever got near any livestock, the ranchers would shoot him. If he got near game, hunters and rangers would try to kill him. If he got near full wolves, who knows what might happen. He's never been around his wild brothers, and they might tear him apart as readily as accept him.

He has a large covered kennel, and a long, heavy chain that he stays on, and we take him for long walks. He is manageable for anyone who bothers to learn how to communicate in "wolf" and takes the time to be accepted, and he seems well adjusted and happy, but -

IT'S NOT RIGHT. While I have gained a fair understanding of wolves in the wild (I started reading a lot after we got Spirit), and my respect for them is boundless, my experience with Spirit has led me to believe that it is wrong to breed half-wolves, and wrong to try to domesticate any wolf or wolf cross. These animals are not dogs, they are not like dogs, and even in the best of circumstances they should not be kept by people as pets.

Please encourage anyone contemplating getting a wolf or wolf cross to do some reading, to ask some questions, and to seriously consider what they will be doing to the object of their desire. Those animals were not meant to live under man's dominion. They were meant to be free.

Point out to those who must get involved with wolves that there are several fine organizations they can support with aid for the protection and study of wolves. If someone is dedicated enough there is still much to learn by observing wolves in their natural habitat, which would require study and serious work.

But discourage those who want wolves as pets. I can't help but think that such a plea, coming from you, would cause some of those people to stop and think, and be a little realistic about what they are contemplating.

We acquired Spirit with the best of intentions. but we were totally ignorant of what we were getting involved in. Now Spirit pays the price for that, despite all we do to keep him healthy and happy. I will always feel shame for my part in that. A few words from you might prevent others from making the same mistake.

Stephanie Keith
Nuevo, CA

***** Before I respond to Stephanie's letter, I'd also like to give some space to the following. It is from Dr. Michael Fox's pet column, copyright December 11, 1983 by United Features, and reprinted from the Poughkeepsie Journal.

Question: Recently there have been several articles in the newspaper concerning people who have bred dogs with wolves in order to make the dogs more aggressive. Could you please tell me what some of the advantages and disadvantages are in doing this and whether these sort of dogs would make trusting pets?

Answer: These practices infuriate me for many reasons. When one of these hybrids runs free or injures anyone, the whole neighborhood cries "Wolf!" and the wolf gets more bad press. Many half-dog half-wolf animals are emotionally unstable and unreliable. I advise against breeding and owning them. Of course, there are exceptions, but the fact is we don't need to create such biological mixups. There are already enough problems with fearful, unstable and aggressive dogs and this hobby, which some find lucrative, just creates more problems. Wolf blood does not make dogs more aggressive but rather more unstable, fearful and unpredictable. Many states prohibit ownership of wild, potentially injurious animals; in my opinion, the same law should apply to these hybrids, especially since they so often fall into the hands of people who want a "mean and savage" animal and who often create such monsters by the way they treat them.

***** Wendy and I agree totally with every word from both Stephanie Keith and Dr. Fox. It's true; on a few occasions in the past, folks came up to show us their wolf-dog hybrids, and we said how delighted we were. Well, doing ELFQUEST has been an educational experience for us, and we've learned a lot of things since then. One of them is just what the letters above are all about. We can't stress hard enough that breeding and owning such "pets" is not fair - to the neighborhoods and the law agencies who probably won't know how to deal with them, and certainly not to the animals themselves. Remember Slick from ELFQUEST #4? Slick was, of course, a full wolf - but many people don't know or care about the differences between pureblood wolves and hybrids. Well, I'm sorry to say that Slick is dead. He was shot by a law official who claims the wolf was loose, which the owners of Slick deny. We will likely never know the truth of the matter. All that's certain is that Slick is dead.

If you are the owner of a wolf-dog cross, please don't bring it to show off to us. We're sorry - your animal may just be one of the exceptions Dr. Fox refers to - but we won't be able to appreciate it the way you'd probably like, in the light of all that's been said recently about wolves and hybrids. To repeat, it's not right.

If you want to be involved with wolves, then get involved with a wolf park or preserve. There are several that we know of that are listed below. Betsy, our "adopted" wolf, lives on a preserve in Indiana, and we get letters several times a year from the folks running the park, telling us of her growth and antics. It's wonderful! All such organizations need your help - just what you can give - and you'll be doing so much more for these fascinating and natural creatures than any single person who keeps to himself an animal who can never run free.

North American Wolf Park
Battle Ground, IN 47920

Wolf Haven
3111 Offut Lake Road
Tenino, WA 98589

Timber Wolf Preservation Society
6669 S. 76th Street
Greendale, WI 53129

Jack Lynch
Route 2 - Box 378
Sequim, WA 98382

Elsa Wild Animal Appeal of Canada
PO Box 864, Station K
Toronto, Ontario M4P 2H2

Wolf Sanctuary
PO Box 20528
St. Louis, MO 63139

Just a crazy, off the wall thought: by any chance does an elf name containing an "E" followed by a "K" identify the bearer as a rock shaper? If so, Rayek would be waiting to develop powers he doesn't even know about. Ooops - I hope I haven't given anything away...

Mara Eve Brewer
Arcadia, CA

***** Not to worry. The "EK" construction in a name signifies that there is some affinity between the character and rock, but not necessarily one having to do with magical powers. Remember, Rayek grew up among the rocky environs surrounding Sorrow's End - they were his second home.

By New Moon's cutting edge! What an issue was #18 - is this what the Quest boils down to? A mutant half-breed's machinations in search of his true nature? The more I see of Two-Edge the less evil Winnowill seems. Could she have ever truly known what horrors her child could lay at her doorstep? And what of Leetah's horrified glance at One-Eye's body? With her new nearness to the Castle can she now cheat even death with her healing powers? Does she fully realize what that could mean? ELFQUEST 18 has only served once again to show me that the scope of the total story is still beyond estimation by even the most loyal reader. All will be known too soon.

James Wright
Austin, TX

Thanks to the Preserver's web, One-Eye is alive, or at least retrievable from the threshhold of death, as it seems Vaya is not. Vaya had a vision of the Palace, before the troll king dropped her lifeless shell...

This leads me to believe that Vaya has won more than escape from torment. I wonder if her spirit soared to the Palace itself, and I wonder if the Palace is not synonymous with elvish death, elvish immortality, or both. What are life and death to the elves? This is a major chord, one that awakens in Leetah's mind, yet more like unquiet than music is it to her, for not even Leetah the Healer understands this mystery.

"Death rules animals and humans, not elves," she ponders, "not unless we allow it." Has she accepted the wisdom of Timmain's decision of long ago against her Healer instincts: a true Healer never runs away from a battle with death - never!

The Wolfriders' secret was hinted at by Old Maggoty in issue six: "Any simpleton knows all the point-eared vermin have a little wolf blood in 'em." But it is strange that Leetah should console Cutter with the words, after the secret is finally disclosed: "Your father was wrong. You will live long, beloved, and all the questions you have dared to ask will be answered."

One of Cutter's most significant questions was raised in issue 7, when he and Skywise returned to the ruins of the Holt. "So many of us took shelter here - I can almost believe that this old tree even cradled the spirits of dead Wolfriders in its branches. Where do they rest now. I wonder?"

The Palace holds the answer, the Palace is the answer, to paraphrase Two-Edge. I do not know what brought the immortal Elves to a planet of life and generation, but I know the myth of the Fall, when mankind became acquainted with death. Obviously the elves too have made a precipitous departure from their own Eden, among or beyond the stars.

What will Cutter find within the Palace walls? I imagine a reunion with departed kin, and the foundation for a confederacy of elves, uniting all the sundered tribes, mending the ancient errors of their antecedents and restoring their heritage.

The heritage of the elves may be the perfect alignment of ths flesh and spirit; and like music it touches me directly - it is a canto to the deepest of human aspirations.

The imaginary flower will not bloom unless its roots tap genuine reality. And the imaginery elf will never suspend our disbelief unless the fantasist-creator has lived her own life at deep and fecund levels. My recurrent feeling is that the artist of this book has nurtured seeds from her own personal experience, and brought to blossom a figurative world, replete with enchanted pollen and immortal truths.

The fluid forms speak for themselves. Even in black and white, color is generated, incense escapes, voices are heard. All this is borne out in splendor in the polychrome editions, leaving me to conclude that when a poet chooses to create with pictures, the result is an illuminated manuscript. Form matches content. Each scene belongs to a marvelous interlaced design, and all the fragments fit like panes of rainbow glass.

Whatever the long-sought answers, I am grateful you have not spilled them yet. For I believe that mysteries (and cliff-hangers) are more fun than answers, and more important.

Thank you for a fairy-tale of quality and charm.

Peter Sorrel
Trenton, NJ

Regarding Leetah's coming search for the lost chord, I hope she doesn't find it. I feel Dungeons & Dragons was ruined by the advent of the omnipotent Healer: "AGGGH! I'm killed by the slimy sewer ooze monster! I will have my men take me out of the dungeon and to the nearest Healer, and they will pay him ten dragon breath diamonds." And POOF, on to more adventure, dying constantly but advancing to the nth level of power. The much purer early game was much better. I feel if Leetah defeats death over the wrapped up (Sur-an wrapped?! Very sudden pun inspiration while typing). One-Eye then the dreaded D&D non-death syndrome will live in ELFQUEST. What's the use of reading EQ if the goal they strive for is so disgustingly easy? "AGGGGH!" An elf falls at the hands of an evil troll monster. Here comas tip-toeing Leetah. POOF! "Wow, what a weird dream," sighs the elf and then "On to the castle!" Hurrah? No, blah! That scenario leaves me feeling empty and betrayed. Therefore, if Leetah does find the lost chord it will strike a sour note with me (and no, my argument was not set up just to make a silly summation!).

Thomas Schluchter
Pontiac, MI

Ah, well, you say. Another boringly pasteurized letter full of the same boring praise. Compliment for Wendy's art. Kudos for Richard's organizational flair and financial wizardry. Rococo enthusiasms over everything from the quality of the printing to Strongbow's marksmanship.

I'd hate to be uncooperative, so I will unhesitatingly praise all the above.

But as a soldier, it is my respect for ELFQUEST's touch at displaying the shock and bloody reality of fighting that conceives this letter.

No one who has ever filled his nostrils with the stench of the dead can crave it. The graphic deaths of One-Eye, the trolls, Vaya - this touches deep and lingers disturbingly. Wendy and Richard should be praised for escaping the "A-Team" fantasy violence of your basic "Fighting Coast Guard (fill in the blank)" comic. When people fight, they die horribly. Minus arms and legs, in searing pain or glass-eyed stupor. Any other medic could fill a page with the same. But the point is that these characters love, live, suffer and die as individuals in the real world. They are "warriors for the working day," eyes shadowed by death and exhausted "with rainy marching in the painful field."

All of this is loyally rendered in ELFQUEST by creators who, I hope, have never been closer to war than the local V.F.W. hall. Thank you from all who know sudden death and hate it as much as does that "gentle healer."

John Lawes
MFO South Camp, Sinai

I'm really worried about Two-Edge. I've had the feeling all along that he is not a nice person. The image of an imprisoned Winnowill, the comments about long plans and a fair fight - Two-Edge wants the elves and trolls to wipe each other out, doesn't he? There is to be no winner - in fact, I'd bet that Two-Edge has some nasty plans for any survivors. The gift of armor, the "help" he's given the elves are all just to make sure that they can destroy the trolls before they're all killed.

I can, in a way, see why. Two-Edge has been given no reason to love either side, I would bet. I doubt that Winnowill gave Two-Edge much maternal affection - she treated him like a tool, something to be used, but not valued. Every elf that sees him is repelled by his troll blood.

And the trolls aren't much better. In issue #7, we saw that in spite of his craft-skill, Two-Edge is despised for being a dreamer and generally un-trollish. The trolls too despise Two-Edge's half blood and only wish to use his skill. It's no wonder he's twisted. Nor is it any wonder that Two-Edge plans to destroy both groups that hated him.

Unfortunately for them, neither the Go-Backs nor the Wolfriders have ever done anything personally to Two-Edge. But they were handy. Did Winnowill have some idea of what Two-Edge was up to? Is that why she fought so hard to prevent Voll's reawakening? To prevent the Gliders from being caught up in Two-Edge's mad scheme?

Two-Edge - two heritages, two bloods, two faces - the clue is in his name. No one can handle a two edged blade without some danger. How can one grasp it without being cut? Cutter is right - Two-Edge is more dangerous than Winnowill. just hope he remembers it.

I'm also worried about Leetah. She is going through a great deal, and emotionally, not just physically. Not just about Cutter and the war either. Leetah is going through a great deal of emotional turmoil about herself as a healer.

When we first meet Leetah, she is confident and competent. She heals because she has a strong gift, and out of compassion. But one of her main reasons is her pride in her gift. "No one has died in Sorrow's End since my healing powers matured," she tells Nightfall.

Meeting Winnowill was a shock. Here was a healer, as strong as Leetah, who used her powers in a "wicked" way. Winnowill used her gift to give pain, to shape flesh, to dominate others. When Leetah tried to heal Winnowill, she was acting not merely from pity, but to reaffirm to herself that she, Leetah, was indeed a true healer, and to deny any part of Winnowill's attitude toward flesh-shaping.

Leetah grew up in a gentle and innocent world. Death was rare, as was conflict; pain was never deliberately, maliciously inflicted. Then she met Winnowill, and the unconscious assumptions she had held about healers and elves were upset. At one point she asks Winnowill how a High One (like Winnowill) can do such things. But Leetah doesn't know the High Ones - she knows only her own people and the Wolfriders.

Leetah, and many generations of her people, saw the High Ones as "super" versions of themselves - wiser, more powerful, more understanding, kinder and more compassionate. Her idealized High One healer would be an enhanced version of herself. Instead she got Winnowill. Many of Leetah's assumptions about healers, High Ones - and herself - must have been seriously shaken.

Then there was the abduction, the battle, and Leetah killed.

The unavoidable act of killing the troll, probably more than anything else, was shattering. Over and over again, Leetah has said that death is her enemy, that she will fight it to the limit of her ability, and that she has never lost to it. But now she has given a living creature to death, freely and willingly.

The attitudes of the Go-Backs can not help Leetah's confusion about what she is and has done. The mainstream of her life, her healing gift, they see as despicable, an encouragement to weakness. They see the act which shattered her world as admirable.

Kahvi, in this situation, is an ideal foil for Leetah - war chief versus healer, Death versus Life. In defending herself to Kahvi. Leetah reaffirms the driving purpose of her life.

But I think that Leetah misjudges Kahvi and her people. Leetah sees them as cold and uncaring and compared to Leetah's people they are. But what made them so?

A life of unending warfare in a harsh environment does not breed weaklings. Death is a familiar companion, and anyone who is prostrated by grief at death would spend much of his life in that state. The Go-Backs have learned to channel their grief, to use it and express it through their never-ending war. This does not mean that they feel no grief; I found Kahvi's words to Vaya (EQ #8, page 22) heartbreaking, as was her last comment in EQ 17- "We'll dance for her."

But Leetah does not understand. Caught up in ethnocentrism, she sees the Go-Backs and Kahvi as heartless. What she is about to do, I think, she does as a denial of that heartlessness.

Leetah is going to try to bring One-Eye, and perhaps Vaya, back to life. On page 26 she touches One-Eye and feels something that gives her hope. Are we about to find out what the Preserver's webs actually do?

All Leetah's thoughts about "true healers," not running away from a battle with death, her alarm when Scouter starts to cut the web, that she says to Cutter on page 30 - all lead to a certainty that Leetah is about to try to reaffirm her faith in herself as a healer. Can she do it without losing herself to her powers? I don't know - and I suspect she doesn't either.

Elizabeth Mancz
Atwater, OH

Alice said of her adventures that they were getting "curiouser and curiouser." To which Cutter may well add that his Quest was becoming "seriouser and seriouser." I agree with Allen Wilkins in that the finding of the Palace has become a "higher ideal," but I am beginning to suspect that this goal may be worth considerable sacrifice. Don't get me wrong, though. This particular end may be worth the means, but nothing would justify them. I for one can see the rationale that drives Cutter, and agree with it, and at the same time hate the necessity that forces him to such desperate means. The true tragedy is expressed on pages 2 and 3. Two of the gentler Wolfriders, Scouter and Clearbrook, are in a berserker rage, while the wildest and fiercest, Strongbow, calmly agrees that Bearclaw's way was wrong. Cutter's words have a touch of pleading in them: "Help me so we don't start enjoying this war!" What makes the situation all the more pitiable is the Go-Backs' plight. They have become so used to the war as to take it for granted. Some of them, such as Kahvi, actively seek it, and have little thought for anything else. The epitome of this viewpoint is shown on page 22. Kahvi, standing over her daughter's body, spares her only a glance and a dozen words. But I think she is capable of learning a little gentleness; look at the two preceding panels. What are those expressions momentarily on Kahvi's face? The shock of recognition, certainly, but is that a touch of sadness? Perhaps regret? I think there's hope for her yet.

Bruce W. Grant
Aberdeen, Scotland

I thought Vaya was Kahvi's daughter. I loved Vaya's death (if you can love a death). The anticipation proved worse than the experience. As Vaya and Cutter know, death is not painful although dying may be. It is change. A beginning in the midst of an ending. Death tends to be harder on the living than on the dead. Guttlekraw shivered in the face of that small smile.

Valerie R. Bowe
Greenville, NC

Issue 18 of ELFQUEST is a delight, and particularly the front cover! All that gleaming armor helps to focus the eye down on Cutter's face, and the contrast of the front cover with the back cover is wonderful. Youth and light on one cover, darkness and evil on the other. A nice touch, Wendy!

It was nice to see Two-Edge get upset at last; he's been pulling the strings behind the scenes for so long, I was itching to see him have one of his plans go haywire!

Question: how could Strongbow know what Bearclaw looked like after Madcoil had killed Joyleaf? Strongbow wasn't in the hunting party that Madcoil attacked; only Treestump, One-Eye, Cutter and Skywise say Bearclaw at that time.

Richard Smyers
La Porte, IN

***** True enough, but the story has been told and retold at howls like the one in ELFQUEST #4, and when the entire tribe participates in a story-sending, images as well as words are shared. So even those who were not there can see and feel what happened.

When I read in the letter page that you created ELFQUEST mainly for adults I was sort of mad. I am twelve years old, tall for my age, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and am now living in Austin, Texas.

Being more mature than most of the people my age, I seem to take ELFQUEST just as seriously as a grown-up would. I think I'm mature enough to handle any pages like 12-15 in EQ #17. I just don't think what you said is fair, even though it might have been true.

Erica Goodwin
Austin, TX

***** We never said that ELFQUEST is mainly for adults. What we said was that it's not "specifically for children" and that it is an adult story. There is a subtle, but very important difference there. One thing we've learned from all this is that words like "adult" and "child," particularly when referring to someone's maturity, rarely have anything to do with chronological age.

Is it intentional that when you turn Guttlekraw's picture on the back of ELFQUEST 18 over you can see another face?

Vivian Norwood
Wayne, NJ

***** Uh, gee - it sure isn't! When we got your letter (the only one to point this out, by the way), we were quick to try it out, and it sure surprised the dreamberries out of us!

***** Next issue - the final letters page? How can that be? Where will we print your comments on ELFQUEST #20? Stay tuned!