Review | Elfquest Gallery Edition • Comic Book Daily

ElfQuest continues to capture the imaginations of readers of all ages, as Chief Cutter and the Wolfriders battle savage humans, forge lasting alliances, and discover strange new lands in this ultimate fantasy adventure! This oversized gallery edition collects the first five issues of The Original Quest, “Fire and Flight.” Each page is carefully scanned from Wendy’s original art to capture every stroke and detail.

Dark Horse, October 8, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61655-411-8
12″ x 17″, 176 pages
$125 USD
Order Online: Amazon, eBay, AbeBooks, Things From Another World

As with all original artist’s gallery editions this is a collection of classic comic material and I’ll be reviewing the book and not the story. For a complete list of all current and announced editions, with review links, please visit our Index.

This is a complete book of the original art from Elfquest issues one to five, including the front and back colour covers. Edited by Sierra Hahn, assistant edited by Spencer Cushing and digital production by Allyson Haller.

All pages are scans from the original art; no fill-in pages in this volume. The scans themselves are clear and clean. Pages are mostly clean but some show correction fluid and pasted over word balloons. Blacks are deep and uniform.

While very few pages have yellowed from age they all have a greyish tint to them, and are trimmed with almost no gutter. Dark Horse has added wide margins to the book, but for no apparent reason; I thought it was to accommodate wider pages later on but they all appear the same trimmed size.

The artwork shines on every page, but the hand lettering is captivating.

A detailed and engaging introduction by Richard Pini detailing the early days of Elfquest lead off this volume. Closing out are character sketches showing design and character development. These add a depth to the main story material and deliver above and beyond to provide an encompassing look at the early days of Elfquest.

Design follows the Dark Horse Gallery format with brown bordered cover, tan endpapers and lined informational pages. It’s clean and uncluttered. Collection design is by Tina Alessi.

Production is excellent. Thick paper stock, sewn binding that slightly too tight to allow pages to naturally lie flat. The book came shrinkwrapped inside a cardboard case with a black and white cover and back code sticker. The price and barcode sticker for the book was on the shrinkwrap.