Every piece of original art from the long-running Elfquest comic series—thousands of art boards, drafts and scripts—is entering the archives of Columbia University in New York.
"At first, the decision to hang on to every page of Wendy's Elfquest art was mostly a commercial one; we never knew when we might need the original boards for reprinting. There was also an emotional component. I remembered the long hours Wendy put in, the editorial debates we had, the shared joy of seeing exactly the right expression on a character's face," said Richard Pini. "Now that we have high-quality digital scans of it all, we're honored to donate the entire archive to Columbia."
…"This collection is particularly important because of its key role in the establishment of a highly visible phase of alternative, independent comic books and also its creative direction by a female artist," said Karen Green, Graphic Novels Librarian at Columbia University. "One of Columbia's areas of strength in special collections is the history of publishing, and ElfQuest represents a significant milestone in the history of self-published comics. It is also, perhaps, the earliest example of the influence of manga on American comic art."
The latest pages—created digitally, these days—are posted right here at Boing Boing each week.
