Elfquest on Paper

One of the interesting things about visiting the Columbia archives and seeing Wendy Pini’s papers was actually seeing the paper.  I found the following image of pre-production work online in issue #21 found here.  While digital makes many things accessible, you can’t really see the paper.  Not seeing the paper, one might not think that it matters.

However, what I found fascinating was the amount of Elfquest artwork and ideas being worked out on lined notebook paper … the same kind with the three-ring binder holes, blue lines across, and the one red line down the side that I used to draw on when I was bored in high school.  You know the kind where if you draw in ink on both sides you can see the ink from the other side seeping through.

Looking down and seeing her work on that paper was a very grounding moment for me.  It made me feel more connected to Wendy Pini as an artist.  While I’m no great artist myself, it’s nice to see that no matter where we go with our drawings that many of us start our ideas out in the same place on the same kind of paper.

Researching Wendy Pini and Comic Con Culture at the Columbia Archives

I visited the Columbia graphic novels archive collections last week to conduct research on Wendy Pini and her development of Elfquest.  I also reviewed old Con programs to get a sense of Con culture from the 1960s to the 1970s.

More to say soon.  In the meantime, enjoy this vintage video of Wendy Pini staging her famous Red Sonja performance from the San Diego Comic Con in 1978.  One of her actual Red Sonja costumes is preserved for posterity at Columbia.