Video: Warner Bros. Lose ElfQuest Movie Rights To Producers Of A Fan Trailer | Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors

 

What the fuck is an ELfQuest? I guess WB didn't know either since they lost the rights to it.

 

Elfquest was a series of comics that were popular (IIRC) in the late 70s and 80s. They kind of bridged the gap between the more underground "adult" comics of the time and the mainstream published comics. They were sword-and-sorcery kind of things, but they were really dark and "mature" compared to what was popular at the time (sex, death, and environmental/cultural implications were all popular themes). Sort of like the european comics or Heavy Metal, but slightly more accessible for the average comics reader. A big ongoing story that basically wove it's way through a family/tribe, and also one of the most popular "indie" comics of its time.

This story re: the rights is completely nuts, until you remember the various problems the comic's creators had with the big publishers and their push for self-publication and ownership (to the point that the entire series is available online for free at this point). Then it makes perfect sense.

 

As a comic historian, I probably should have known this. D'oh.

 

I only remember it because it was one of the few graphic novels my library had when I was a kid. That and James Herbert's "The City", and a volume of Ironfist Chinmi. Hell of a way to get dragged into non-mainstream comics when you're like 9.

Apparently Elfquest broke a lot of new ground in terms of having a story with a definite end, in having female creative staff, and in how it managed to bridge the underground and mainstream, which is probably why it was in my library in the first place.

 

I'd only marginally heard of Elfquest before.

 

ElfQuest

Read and catch up.

 

I had an issue of the marvel comics version as a kid.

 

Hah sucks for WB.