Final Quest #18

It came out around the end of January, Wordgazer. The next one will be the end of March.

on the EQ public group:

Quote :

Final Quest issue 19 will be available on April 26.

Sounds like it will be delayed or held back for some reason.

I could swear I've seen the same date yesterday - posted by Mrs. Pini. No easy way to find it again on FB ... and I'm not enclined enough and simply too tired to go on a quest for it.

I know why I don't go to FB. One of the reasons: their system to "sort" and rearrange informations would drive me crazy within a week.

Yeah- I also can't stand the "conversations"

I'd have a solution for this - don't consider it a "conversation". XD Don't expect a conversation. Works for me.

*shrug* FB's way to do things and my ways to understand things simply don't match. And as I don't have a sensible or useful reason to be on FB ... that's it.

I think they may have moved the date back for #19 so #24 comes out in February -- 40 years after FQ#1 to the day.

That would be pretty neat.

on the dark horse webpage, the date is still set for March

Davrille wrote:

I think they may have moved the date back for #19 so #24 comes out in February -- 40 years after FQ#1 to the day.

That is exactly the reason.

So another year to go. Good to know. I finally picked up Issue 18, and liked it a lot better than Issue 17.

I still don't know what to think about the Cutter/Timmain thing. He's acting more like Cutter again now, which I like. But it's weird that they have two different personalities and are supposed to be the same person.

Yeah-- it really doesn't make much sense. I mean- technically it can work-- but it contradicts how they have built the characters. And having followed this series since I was eight-- I am 100% sure they did NOT plan this from the beginning. They should just admit that, and stop trying to convince everyone they had this in mind all along. It's a revision. They are allowed to do that, being the creators-- but it doesn't come across well to (very obviously) lie about what you intended and had planned at the start of the series. If they planned this-- then it's bad writing. I prefer not to think of them as bad writers. Elfquest has usually been fairly well written. It's okay for a story to evolve-- just be straightforward about it.

Are they actually saying they planned it from the beginning, Lunakat?! I though for some reason that they've been saying they come up with the Tammain angle post KOtBW...
Of course, what they're sometimes doing is trying to point out in some way that 'it fits, oh see, it can totally fit'! I think that's unreliable narrative...makes narrative become really untrustworthy.
The Tammain thing was never 'necessary' until they decided to make the story or that specific allegorical. Wich also made it lose a lot of its organic beauty. You start telling people how to 'think' in terms of how to interpret and perceive a story, with an agenda, then you lose a lot of credibility.
There are a lot of people out there though who want to be told HOW to read a story, and i guess they're ok with this. Me, I find it highly controlling and it takes me out of the moment.
A lot of FQ has had a rather contrived narrative. You create characters and breathe life into them for years until they gain a 'life' of their own, and then you come in later and treat them like little dolls to 'make a point' about spirituality, and the result feels like playing with dolls and making your characters do stuff to make your point.
So much of FQ has taken me out of the story entirely, sadly, and has come off as really self conscious and awkward, along with this weird, deliberate self-conscious dialogue that comes off as very expository.
I can't stand seeing it fall apart like this. And I really hate how I keep seeing these posts on in in groups that 'characters change' and how my feeling of discomfort has to do more with that, not with the systematic bleaching instead which has been taking place. I swear,it feels like I am being gaslighted on some weird level.

In " The Art of The Story," one of Wendy's comments says that Cutter is Timmain and Richard's follow-up comment is "You've kept that secret since 1992!"

Thanks, Manga. So since the series was started in 1978 (right?), we know that this was not Ms. Pini's idea from the beginning, but since 1992. Which arc was she working on then?

Zadzi, I hear you. To me the "characters change" thing works for Moonshade. Long-term proximity to the Palace, and having another female child whose birth probably took her back to Crescent's horrible death and made her want a safer way of life, caused her to stop wanting the Way. So she's changed. But the way she's being with Strongbow now is still very much Moonshade-- she wants to support who he still is, but also has a tendency to strong-arm others with her own perspective (Leetah in Fire & Flight, Ember in the Huntress arc). I'm not having a problem with Moonshade.


But Cutter and Timmain have never come across as remotely alike. Am I now to believe that Timmain was somehow just like Cutter all along? Or that deep inside, Cutter has always been just like Timmain? And they're still acting like two different people! This isn't working for me.

1992 was when they published Hidden Years and New Blood. It's after Kings of the Broken Wheel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Elfquest_publications

KR Wordgazer wrote:

But Cutter and Timmain have never come across as remotely alike. Am I now to believe that Timmain was somehow just like Cutter all along? Or that deep inside, Cutter has always been just like Timmain?  And they're still acting like two different people! This isn't working for me.

I agree, KR Wordgazer. That short series about the original Circle of 9, with its members that bore more than a passing resemblance to current elves, was entertaining. But saying Timmain is Cutter feels a lot like stating that Kaslen is Redlance, Haken is Rayek, etc.-- it's taking a slightly pat side-story too far. The fact that Wendy was able to sit on this all these years without making any cutesy, fluttery-eyelashed little innuendos (that I can think of offhand) doesn't offset that.