Shade and Sweet Water

Hello all, and thanks for the add!

I've been an EQ fan since 1985, when a friend loaned me her stash of the OQ in all its newsprinty glory. I've stepped in and out of the Elfquest river a couple of times; while I'm fairly read-up on all that has happened since then (praise be to EQ.com's online comic archive!), I only actually own KotBW, the compiled OQ that TFAW recently put out, and Final Quest.

I don't want to start out sounding like a grouser, but do want to be upfront as to what influenced my being here. I found out about the FQ about a year and a half ago, got excited that there was new stuff being put out-- specifically, new Wendy stuff-- and bought myself the back issues for Xmas 2014. As a result, I'm all in until 2017 (or whenever this story wraps up).

For several reasons, FQ is going to be my last elf-rodeo. Since Elfquest had such a profound effect on me back when it first entered my life, this decision feels like the beginning of a divorce. None of my current friends or family are into it, and 99.9% of the discussions I've found online were almost grossly fawning in tone. (Fueled in more than once case, it seems, by the creators and/or their deputies.) While there is still much love here, many things within the pages and without are causing chronic jaw-clench, and am hoping (and believing) I'm now a member of a sympathetic forum.


TL;DR version: Herrow.

Welcome. I think that's how we all feel, pretty much. But this is the last hurrah for Elfquest as drawn by Wendy, from what i understand-- so we might as well hang in till the last.

Welcome to the pack, Bluetree!

Welcome indeed!

Welcome indeed!

Welcome. I understand completely how you feel.

In many regards, ElfQuest is like a "one hit wonder" type band. They put out two or three great hits. And then fade away. Then try to come back for a reunion tour, and the magic simply isn't there.

You know... It's not exactly one hit wonder though -- is it? 'The Original Quest' was great. But so were the Wendy-drawn issues of 'Hidden Years.' I really liked 'Seige at Blue Mountain' and 'The Secret of Two Edge,' and a lot of folks liked 'Kings of the Broken Wheel.' 'Dreamtime' wasn't bad, and neither was 'Wolfrider. ' I don't love the comics, but the short story anthologies for 'Blood of Ten Chiefs' were great. One shots like 'By Any Other Name' or 'Full Circle' or 'The Heart's Way' or 'Homespun' were all lovely. And I really liked 'Searcher and the Sword' overall.

Let's be completely honest. Most of the traditionally drawn comics by Wendy are great. Where the comic has fallen apart is when they have let other people draw their stories for them... (Because for some god awful reason they have chosen artists who absolutely cannot draw. Except for Sonny who is absolutely mediocre..) And when Wendy has used Photoshop.

I think her best use of Photoshop was the Prologue to 'Final Quest' and 'Searcher and the Sword' -- there are some absolutely lovely panels in that Prologue. And 'Searcher and the Sword' made good use of color... if not pattern brushes. It stuck to a certain pallet and family of colors that worked really well together and fit the story nicely. The worst use of Photoshop was 'Discovery' (barring those final panels with Sumstream as Sunfish where she went all out-- those were pretty! But you can't do that for an entire comic-- it's too much work!) and the recoloring of 'The Original Quest.' I chalked that up to a learning curve at the time. But man, that was all over the place!

In 'Final Quest', as it progresses, the drawing are getting more and more natural and flowy-- back to the original grace with which she used to draw-- and that probably has to do with not having to rush and letting someone else handle the coloring. In most situations with comics-- you have three or four people working on an issue-- the penciller, the inker, the colorist and the letterer. It's a heck of a lot of work for one person to do all that themselves every issue. Giving the coloring over to someone else was smart-- and for the first few issues, Sonny did great with it. But lately-- it's just awful. It's like he's puking on the page or something. And it's tragic because the hand drawn art is getting better and better-- while the colors get worse and worse. And for Wendy Pini's last hurrah-- that's just not okay.

I don't know why they can't just hire a good colorist. But I also don't know why they couldn't hire people who knew how to draw. Is it possible they can't tell the difference?

What wrong with the colours in recent Final Quest issues? Something happened in issue 14? (Haven't gotten it yet due to stupid Easter!)
Honestly, I don't see much of a difference in the colouring from the first issues to the latest.

I know no one cares about the color except for me-- but I'm telling you that color that's good or bad quality can make or break a comic, no matter how nice the drawings are. The reason Wendy had trouble with color in Photoshop and not in traditional mediums, I think, was the learning curve.

In recoloring Book 1, she over saturated and used all the bells and whistles of Photoshop in a really obvious way. This is something that almost everybody does when they first start using that program. It's like being a kid in a candy shop with all the free candy. You stuff yourself sick. She did that with PhotoShop coloring. Book 2 recolor... Also learning curve issues. She didn't take into account that what you see on the screen is backlit by the computer. You are basically painting in light and it glows. But what prints out on the page is ink and it's darker. So that book has panels in it that are so dark you can't see the characters against the background-- esp. Leetah in the Forbidden Grove scenes. And other places lack enough contrast as well, even though they were lighter. The other two books, she times it down-- and that's better, but the images don't have the same vibrancy as in the original coloring, because she tones it down too much (imo).

In SaTS she seemed to get a handle on the coloring. But she was still experimenting (pretty obviously) with things like pattern brushes. The Photoshop leaf pattern brush was all over that.) Thats my only crit for the art in 'Searcher'. 'Discovery...' I don't know what happened. It's like Elfquest turned into 'My Little Pony' or something, by with bloody death. I have no words. It was very hot and miss. So much pastel. The 'Final Quest' prologue had bits and pieces of these issues-- but they were mostly under control. But to color and draw is just too much work. It's a butt tone of work. I think that's why the cut and pastes-- to cut down on the labor. But the. We all complained-- so Sonny came in, because he's a friend...

But here's the thing with him. He doesn't see contrast. He is trying to use saturation to compensate for tone. And he's very obviously trying to use complimentary colors (yellows and purples, oranges and blues)-- but he doesn't take into account the larger page-- so you have things like a shot of the palace in pretty pastel purples, jarring with a forest or other scene in oranges and blues- and it just doesn't work overall. He also doesn't always take into consideration the fact that things are brighter on screen than in print. He has no real instinct for color-- or he wouldn't be giving charactors these skin tones.

His best work was in the beginning-- when I'm going to guess he was putting more time into it-- and when he does monochromatic pages, because that forces him to consider tone and contrast. And the other thing he's doing, a lot (though not all) of the time, is just following an internal formula of 'so and so has x color for skin' or 'the Palace or whatever setting uses these colors exclusively' instead of taking into consideration lighting and time of day. That's why Dr Dre is a consistent and startling pink while everyone else is yellow in the woods. And he's otherwise using questionable colors for ski tones -- In the last issue, Leetah changes color I. The three different panels to end up a sickly yellow. Venka is the same sickly yellow. In other situations, characters have been grey almost. It makes me wonder if he needs to calibrate his screen.

He should really be taking every page he colors and desaturating it completely to check that he has the right lighting and contrast happening.

And these are the problems with PhotoShop that didn't arise with traditional mediums.

Can you come with any direct examples? "Issue this and that, page so and so."

Yes. Totally. But it's 3am right now and  I am typing on my phone, (that's why the typos), so I'll look that up later.

Tomorrow afternoon

Okay, but just remember; no spoilers for issue 14!

Ok

Now. Go. To. BED!

Yeah- I wanted to wake up at five to finish a project-- but my brain woke me up at 2:30 instead! Then I couldn't go to sleep until after 3-- right about the time I signed off here. Then I didn't wake up at 5-- I woke up at 6:47 and now I'm just starting at 7:30. Ug.

@Redhead I don't have Lunakat's sense for colors and light and contrast - less her experiance. But when I look at Startear's new avatar an example for bad coloring jumps tight into my face!

(not Startear's coloring ^^ It's supposed to be Yun - from FQ#14? - no spoilers involved)

Thank you all for the welcomes! Looks like I am in the right place. What a relief!

I didn't know this storyline was it for Wendy as an artist. Does anyone know further details about that?

Lunakat, I know what you mean about color, although I don't think I possess quite your sensibilities. I'm apparently able to look past things like saturation (which surprises and galls me to admit, since I'm a color enthusiast), but my beef in that department lies more in staying true to characters' coloration. Clearbrook does not have blue eyes, dammit! Nor does Skywise... things like that.

Similarly, the PhotoShopping kinda flew under my radar for quite some time (mainly because I wasn't paying much attention to EQ during those years when artists other than Wendy were participating). While it sounds like its presence is old news to you true believers, it didn't really strike me until FQ, so the shock hasn't quite worn off yet. I mean, oh. My. Freakin'. GHOD. We wait two months at a time for a handful of pages consisting of insane amounts of... copy-pasting?? NOT cool. This from the woman who spat curses at Zip-a-Tone back in the day because it was "too mechanical". I know that was long ago and people change, but jeez-- talk about swinging from one extreme to the other! I thought Moonshade was bad...

Welcome!

O_O *dies laughing at that pic*

@Nibblet- thank you

@Kindredsoul- Hrblrblrbl right back atcha!

Welcome to the forum, Bluetree!

Thanks, Leanan