Print

[Miss Gillespie]

I don't know about here, but at least at the elfquest.com-forum a lot of people know David Mack's Kabuki an love it. Well, I'm one of them. http://www.davidmack.net/
At one point he let other artists draw certain story-lines of certain agents. The style of the different artists, uhm, differed quite substantially, but it didn't matter, because they all were good.

One of the thing EQ-fans dislike about the Elfquest spin-offs are the different artists and the quality of their work (Blair is the best example).

Now I read somewhere, that Wendy expects her to finish Final Quest in her mid-sixties. Final Quest is her baby, for sure. But what about the other storylines fans want to see? Stories about the former Wolfrider chiefs or the other tribes? Would other artist be fine, even if their style differs greatly from Wendy's, as long as they are good?

[Treefox]

For me, EQ drawn by another artist is not a definite no-go.
It's a difficult topic as I really don't want to say this in a rude way, but for me the problem was really that many of the artist just weren't good in my eyes. This is just my opinion. I definitely liked some!
So, basically as long as the art is done professionally and (very important) I can recognize the characters it would be fine with me. I would be happy to see more of the unfinished storylines be told to their conclusion and I would readily accept other artist for that, too.

Oh, I'd like to add one thing: I think one of the reasons why I am on this site is to see other artist's take on the EQ characters, so I guess I am really not against other people drawing EQ.

[Mirror]

I love and admire, not to say worship, Wendy's work, and she'll always be Elfmom to me However, I don't have a problem with seeing EQ being drawn by other artists, provided that

 - The artist is good. Very good. Good in the elf-style way. For instance, someone can be incredibly skilled at drawing realistic humans, but fall through when it comes to elf-proportions.
-  The artists knows the EQ universe. (That, or has a 2nd person present to provide an insane amount of proofreading) To avoid things such as seeing Newstar present before Madcoil's attack, Wolfriders in the Original Holt with cooking pots and a fireplace, and so forth...
- The Characters must be recognizable.

Bottom line, I believe that what's drawn many of us into EQ in the first place, is precisely the incredibly high standard of Elfmom's artwork. Especially during the OQ, every frame is an artwork in itself. That, combined with a high level of storytelling and intriguing characters, has kept me hooked despite some not-so-great guest artists. (And some great ones, like Sonny Strait and Carol Lyon). Of course, I don't expect any artist to fully copy Wendy's style. But I do have insanely high expectations to anyone who tries to fill Wendy's shoes  

[Eregyrn]

Yes, in fact, I'd love to see some of those "stories we wouldn't get to see any other way" done, and I'd certainly be open to seeing them done by other artists.

I say that as someone who's been a real critic of some of the art in the non-Wendy books during the 90s.  And, yeah... the reason I stopped buying any EQ altogether for about 10 years was partly because I didn't like the stories being told, but a big part was that I couldn't take any longer buying several comics each month and absolutely hating the art inside.

Like it or not, Wendy set a VERY high bar. (Even in SABM, where she wasn't inking her own work, and IMO, the inker was a little sloppy for my tastes.  To be fair, my view of SABM is also tinged -- heh -- by the fact that my firmest memory of it is the colored collected volumes, and I hate, just HATE, the way they're colored.  I wish she'd recolored those as well as the OQ.  Ah well!)

I also think that for people trying to mimic the EQ house-style (i.e. Wendy's very particular elves)... that's a tough thing to do, as all of us fan-artists discover.  I think it's like a version of the "uncanny valley".  Someone who is obviously TRYING to do "EQ elves" and who gets close, but doesn't quite have the grace and spark of Wendy's pieces... it can be more off-putting (to me) than someone who is working in a much more distinctive style. And for a lot of the artists chosen during that period... there was a learning-curve period where they were working out their approach to the style within the pages of the comics.  Which only makes sense!  Draw the same thing a lot and your style will evolve and perhaps improve. (You can see Wendy's own stylistic evolution over the course of the OQ.)  But it could be painful to watch some of the other artists do it, sometimes.

I want to give credit where it is due, though.  Style is only one piece of the puzzle.  So is the ability to create an entire comic book's worth of art, conquering the challenges of consistency, volume, and effective storytelling/layout.  So it's not merely a matter of finding people who can mimic the EQ house-style well in individual pieces of art.  It's about finding a good sequential artist -- the first doesn't guarantee the ability for the second.

Which doesn't mean that I will suspend criticism of a book's artist just because they managed to do an entire book.  I recognize that feat for what it is.  But if the art of the book shows serious problems with consistency, or if I find the art unpleasant to look at... it's still a problem.

I do feel like there are more artists out there than ever -- or I'm aware of more good artist than ever.  I follow some people on deviantArt who are young, and simply amazing, given the level of where they are now.  The last 15 years giving us the web has really influenced the development of good amateur artists, IMO.  They're out there.  Maybe they're also capable of producing full comic books. (Just look at how many excellent webcomics are out there.)

So, just based on what I see out there -- yeah, I would read EQ stories done by artists who aren't Wendy.  I think there's a much wider pool of talent to search and discover good artists from, than there perhaps was 15 years ago.  For me, it's most important that the characters be recognizable and aesthetically appealing.  I'd be happy to see someone do an EQ story in a "manga" style, with the caveat that there are many individual styles under the manga umbrella, and some are lovely, and some are dire and I don't think would fit EQ at all.

But I agree with the above.  It would have to be well-edited.  And it would still, as always, run up against the "danger" that whoever is choosing the artists may have a taste for art or other reasons for choosing some artists that would result in art that doesn't appeal to me personally. (Like Blair's work -- popular with some folks, disliked by others.)

I can't think of how that might be dealt with, either.  Surveying fans about possible artistic choices?  Perhaps that would be too big a can of worms to ever open.

I'll say this in closing: if FQ is really going to putter along for many years (which makes sense -- I wonder if it will be as long as the OQ?), and there was a notion to try to put out supplementary stories by other artists during that time period... I think that that itself would actually go over better than if the ONLY EQ stories coming out were being done by other artists.  I suppose it could go either way.  My first thought is that if there's a regularly-appearing EQ comic being done by Wendy, then readers will get their fix for her art style through that, and be more willing to see other artists experimenting.  (I know for me, part of what led me to drop EQ in the 90s was that feeling that the only EQ art being seen was by artists whose work I didn't like, while it was impossible to know at the time when the next Wendy art would appear.)  Conversely... it might invite comparisons to her work more directly, and work against the success of the other artists.  Hard to say.