Elfquest Settles at DC
By Beth Hannan Rimmels
Paul Levitz, president and publisher of DC Comics, announced today that the company has acquired worldwide publishing rights in all formats and languages as well as media and merchandising rights to the wildly successful, epic-adventure fantasy comic book series Elfquest.
Created in 1978 by writer/artist Wendy Pini and her husband and editor Richard Pini, the series debuted as black-and-white, self-published comics featuring a magical universe of elves, trolls, mer-elves, primitive humans and fairylike creatures. The series has a strong, incredibly loyal following.
"It's a pleasure to bring Wendy and Richard's incredibly original universe into our diverse publishing program," said Levitz. "We hope to take their quarter-century of success and build it together to new heights."
"We are big believers in new beginnings," said Wendy Pini. "Coming as it does on
the silver anniversary of the release of our first issue of Elfquest, we feel this opportunity is a gift from the Universe that frees us up to
create new epic adventures in brand new formats for a brand new audience as well as for our longtime fans."
"After a quarter century of shepherding Elfquest as far as the two of us
could take it, we are thrilled, now, to have the power, punch and creativity of DC Comics behind us," said Richard Pini. "We can't imagine a more
respectful and enthusiastic partner to help us take our beloved characters into new
realms."
Elfquest, which is celebrating its 25 anniversary this year, has been called "one of the most important works in American fantasy" by the American Library Association. More than 12 million Elfquest works are in print in a variety of formats including comic books, graphic novels, prose novelizations, short story collections, reference and related books. The Pinis have been publishing the series out of their two-person office in Poughkeepsie, New York, all these years.
Elfquest will launch at DC with a full-color, hardcover archive series and compact-sized black and white trade paperbacks, along with a DC Direct merchandise program. That will be followed by new, original Elfquest material to be produced by the Pinis.
Elfquest is ® & © 2003 Warp Graphics, Inc.