Elfquest: The Grand Quest, Volume 1

The Elfquest series begins when the small tribe known as the Wolfriders are forced from their forest home and seek refuge across the desert in a place called Sorrow's End.

The story is a simple one, and it's evident that the Pinis were still finding their legs here, but it's entertaining nonetheless. It's an excellent beginning to this epic, long-running series; despite its simplicity, the story gives the reader such an interesting peek into this strange new world that I was always eager to see what would happen next. I originally borrowed this book from the library, (in the form of the lovely, recently recoloured Archive Edition), and was so impressed that I ordered the next couple of volumes from Amazon. They were also good, so I just show more kept on buying 'em... and buying 'em... and buying 'em... The story keeps getting better and better as it goes along.

Much of the series has recently been released by DC Comics in affordable, manga-sized compact editions that are an excellent way to dive in. They're relatively inexpensive, (about $10 US or $13.50 CAD for most titles, with discounts available at Amazon), and much easier to find than the older Readers Collection titles or the Donner coloured editions. The panels have been reorganized and reworked to some extent to fit with the smaller production size, and in many cases this has made the story flow a bit more fluidly and with a great sense of pacing than in the original release. However, it's not entirely seamless; there are several areas where it's obvious that some panels, and sometimes entire pages, were taken from different editions, (ie, black and white vs. coloured, now translated to greyscale), and this can be a bit jarring.

Still, this series is well worth checking out, and I really think the compact editions are the perfect way of doing so. They're not perfect, but they're definitely still serviceable. show less