Stephen King, step aside. The new master of horror has arrived -- and what's worse is that we're not talking about fiction here. Meet Vicki Frost, the Tennessee housewife who's making a name for herself by saying things like: "We cannot be tolerant of religious views on the basis of accepting other religions as equal to our own." And: "A central idea of the Renaissance was a belief in the dignity and worth of human beings. The painters of this time glorified or elevated the human form. God is to be glorified, not man." And (best of all, kiddies): "Our children's imaginations have to be bounded."
I don't know about you, but this person scares the living kumquats out of me. She is taking the conceptual foundations of life in this country -- things like freedom of worship, freedom of speech and expression, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness -- you remember them, don't you? -- treating them as if they apply only to her and her ilk, and denying them to the rest of us. Including children. Whose imaginations have to be bounded. (Do some research on the practice of binding feet or heads; I hope you are properly horrified that anyone could do this to children. Then think about "binding the imagination.")
A fair number of us out here do have imaginations. We're proud of them, we exercise them. Some of us even make a living at it. We've paid some dues for having imaginations; often we've been called weird or nerdy, but oh, in imagination, the places we've been! The things we've seen and done! And the real contributions -- to art, to science, to life -- we've made as a result. You could say we've been hell on the status quo, we Vernes and Heinleins and Watsons and Cricks and Darwins and Siegels and Schusters and Kirbys.
But it's the status quo (read: control over others) that the Vicki Frosts want to maintain. Of course they want to bind their children's imaginations.
Look around you, comics reader. We seem to be gearing up for an assault on the reading material we enjoy. Sides are forming -- not just "us" against "them," but also "ratings" versus "no ratings" and what even appears to be "freedom" versus "responsibility." Don't be a zombie. Learn the sides, decide where you stand, and stand there. Don't be lazy. It can happen here.
Don't close your eyes to what's starting to build. You might not like what you see when you open them again.
Richard
Back again, after a two-year absence -- the letters page! And what a feeling it is, to be once again in front of the dancing green dots on the same old Apple II+ monitor before which I used to pound out these columns back in the "first series" days. Reading the stacks of letters that come in. Hearing the almost forgotten chant, "When's the next one coming out?"...
Things'll look a little different here since I'll be using the Elfquotes pages not only for letters, but also for occasional announcements and other bits of news. In fact, here are a few right now.
THE WOLF PARK BENEFIT PORTFOLIO by Wendy Pini is available. Ten plates plus illustrated folder -- $15.00 plus $2.00 postage to: Portfolio, Father Tree Press, 5 Reno Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12603, or send SASE for more information.
WOLFSONG (produced by The Ffactory) -- we do not know when it will be released. Contractually, The Ffactory has until September 30, 1989 to produce this album. Check with The Ffactory, 8102 23rd Avenue #4, Brooklyn, NY 11214 (phone: 718-232-4460). If this does not help, you might contact your local postmaster and the Federal Trade Commission regarding mail order and refunds.
And now back to our regularly scheduled letters column...
About issue #1, all I can say is: Oh no, here we go again!
Rex Durol
Luke AFB, AZ
Yeah, ain't life wonderful sometimes?
I have a question about Elfquest: Siege at Blue
Mountain #1. On page 15, what are Leetah and Nightfall
doing? I realize it's a dance, but is it a dance of love,
friendship, or just an expression of joy -- or all three?
Whatever it was, it was most evident that the girls were
enjoying it!
Karen Swain
Princeton, MN
As did just about all of our readers. The answer to your question is "all of the above." The Wolfriders especially love to dance. Remember that in the past they've had to hide from human tribes for so long; they've had to be quiet and secretive -- and restrained. In Forbidden Grove, at least, human hunters are one worry the elves don't have.
Probably the best thing about issue #1 is the speed at
which you set up the pieces, so to speak. I get the feeling
that you know who your readers are, and they know who
you are, so you can get right down to Elf business. That is,
a great deal of necessary exposition was taken care of long
ago in the first few issues. Now it's more a matter of rejoining
old friends who, as you've said before, seem to live their
lives independently of when we happen to be peeking. The
elements and events that set things in motion -- Two-Edge's
madness, Rayek's ambitions, Cutter's journey, Winnowil's
schemes -- all follow logically from where you left off, yet
surprise us and prime us for a new adventure, as opposed
to a sequel. Has Rayek gone off to Blue Mountain and gotten
into the kind of mess you'd expect from a confrontation
between he and Winnowill? What is the trolls' next move?
What is Cutter heading into? Why did Aroree grab Windkin?
Rich Louis
Brooklyn, NY
Good questions, some of which have been answered this very issue. Regarding speed: Rich, meet B.J.....
I had never picked up an issue of Elfquest before even
though I had read countless articles and reviews about it, all
highly praising it. Elfquest just never truly caught my attention;
now it has. The art and plot are excellent (although this
issue it seemed to go a little slow, but then I guess this issue
was to set things up) and what more can be said?
B. J. Peterson
South Bend, IN
B.J., meet Julie...
I liked this issue a lot, but I sort of wished that it wasn't so
fast-paced. In the first series, things seemed to start off
slowly and build their way up to a rousing climax. This issue
started out at top speed -- a few pages of Kahvi yelling at
Rayek, quick cut to a few pages of trolls tormenting Two-Edge,
quick cut to several days later and Rayek and Two-Edge
confront each other, quick cut to the Wolfriders,
seasons after we've seen them, fighting and calling an
emergency meeting over Winnowill, quick cut to a day later
and Cutter leaves, Wolfriders get buzzed, Aroree reveals
horrible happenings, and Windkin gets kidnapped!
Julie Shalack
Englishtown, NJ
And all for $1.75, too! Your letters illustrate the decisions that must be made to start off this new series. Yes, some of our readers are familiar with the first story; we could pick things right up where we left them. But new readers (and we hope there are many of them) don't necessarily know what's going on; they need some background, but not so much that veteran questers get bored! Of course, new readers can also find the entire first quest ongoing in Marvel/Epic comics reprints, and complete in the Donning color volumes. So we think it all balances out.
I'm so glad to see the new Elfquest series starting. Your
original one has been a high point in my life and responsible
for my starting to read and collect comics. Commensurate
with the Wolfriders' "now of wolf thought" (very Zen!) I've
given up trying to analyze why I like this thing so much.
Suffice it to say that beyond all reason (also very Zen!) I find
the elves and their doings intriguing, fascinating, and
beautiful, and I am simply compelled to return to already
read issues of Elfquest again and again, sometimes just to
look, feel, to fall into the world you've created --
or discovered!
Kai Cornelio
Woodmont, CT
It's also a way of thinking that helps out a lot with motorcycle maintenance.
...Then we head north and Witness Rayek's Exciting
Attempt To Lift Tall Buildings! What can I say? Rayek has
lost little of his arrogance; it has merely transferred to a
higher plane. And I loved Kahvi's bawdily simplistic
solution to Rayek's problems. When all else fails...
Then there is Two-Edge, whose precariously balanced reason has toppled over and crashed -- and he knows it too, worse luck. I work the midnight shift in a psychiatric hospital; once in a while we admit a patient who is in the midst of a psychotic break. It's sad because the person often knows he's lost it, and it's very frightening for him to be going through this. Two-Edge's expression at the bottom of page 14 -- that look of paralyzed terror -- is harrowingly accurate.
The irony of this situation is that the one soul who is the most empathic to the suffering of another is, of course, Ekuar -- who has the most to lose as a result. What will happen when Two-Edge regains enough of his cognitive ability to make a decision and act on it? And how will it affect Ekuar, who has had his own struggle with sanity? Pity the both of them -- and no thanks to Picknose. The new king's sense of materialism negates any good qualities he might have shown earlier. The snot.
Pam Spurlock
Troy, MI
Suddenly I remember one of the terribly frustrating things about doing the Elfquest letters pages -- there are always many more great letters than there is room to print them. Argh! But keep on writing; we do read every letter, and appreciate all of them. See you next issue!
-- Richard Pini