Welcome to chapter three of Elfquest.
You'll note that I said "chapter" instead of "issue;" there's a very good reason for that which I will get to in just a bit. for the moment, however, I'd like to take a look at a phrase that is relatively new to comics: the graphic novel.
Way back when, some fifty or more years ago, comic books started out as collections of reprints of newspaper strips; there might be a dozen different strips collected between the covers of one comic. Then new stories began to be created for the comics, although there might still be four or five or six unrelated adventures in each issue. Just a bit later there appeared the first comic books devoted to the adventures of a single character-- but even these contained several stories that were unconnected from each other.
1940 and 1941 brought a kind of magic to the comics, for these years saw the first book length stories devoted to a character or group of characters. Now the reader was getting a real comics story--yea, verily, almost a nice, thick, hefty novel--instead of a handful of vignettes. In fact, Marvel Comics (which was called Timely Comics back then) was responsible for one of the very first storylines that was continued from one issue to the next with their classic battles between the Sub-Mariner and the original Human Torch. Why, it was almost as much fun as going to the serials at the movies on Saturday mornings. One could (and through reprints, this one has) start out with Chapters One, Two and Three this month and then wait on tenterhooks for Chapters Four, Five and Six next month. This was a novel (pun intended) way of doing comics; chapters belong to novels, not to short stories.
Recently, there has been some debate about just what qualifies as a "graphic novel" in today's comics marketplace. I don't intend to air the various arguments here (although I do have definite opinions), but I will say that by whatever criteria the contenders give, Elfquest is a graphic novel. It has the length, the breadth and the depth. And it was one of the very first. So welcome to chapter three.
Because you have embarked on a novel-sized journey, one which has a beginning, middle, and end. It will take some three years in the telling (it took us eight to do the original version, but Marvel is faster than we were). The story itself will span several years, and cover a lot of ground, geographically and conceptually. Elfquest is going to run the gamut of emotions-- from elation to despair, from sorrow to joy, from hopelessness to deep contentment. The characters will change; new ones will be born, cherished ones may die. You will be privy to struggle, failure, success.
We've been told that one of the special things about Elfquest has been its ability to draw readers into its world. That's probably because Elfquest is a truthful fantasy. While that may sound like a contradiction in terms, it's not. The best, the most enduring fantasies-- the ones with which people identify-- are those that speak some truth about life or living, albeit told in symbols. A well-known comedian once said that the most universal things are the most personal; we all, it seems, must put up with or live through certain things. Elfquest is, in the final analysis, a personal journey; it can almost be said to be autobiographical. However, having stated that, I stand completely aside for you to take the next step, to begin and continue the translation of this personal voyage into a universal quest for anyone who has ever wondered about life, love, war, death, spirit, and his relationship to the world around him.