Elfquest creators Wendy and Richard Pini decided not to renew their contract with DC Comics earlier this year because they were disappointed in DC's lack of enthusiasm for licensing their works, Wendy Pini told PWCW.
Pini said she was happy with the quality of the Elfquest comics, but not with DC's efforts to market the property to toy, film and television producers. Now she is negotiating movie and book deals and has already made a deal with Dark Horse to produce Elfquest figurines.
When they signed with DC in 2003, the Pinis were tired of running their own company, Warp Graphics, and hoped to put DC's marketing muscle to work on their properties. Under the contract, Pini reformatted and revised the existing Elfquest comics, producing 14 manga and four archive editions of previously released material as well as two new graphic novels. "I have never worked harder in my life than when I was meeting DC's deadlines," she said.
She was not happy with their licensing efforts, however. "We wanted to get into DC's camp because this would put Warner Brothers and all their movie contacts and licensing ability behind us," she said. "We were sure they would be able to do things we could never do ourselves." But that did not materialize. "While they were putting out superb book product, they were not putting any effort to license toy products and statues and certainly no move at all toward TV and film," she said. So when the time came to renegotiate the contract, the Pinis decided to take the properties back into their own hands.
Since then they have struck a deal with Dark Horse to produce busts of the Elfquest characters Cutter and Leetah, as well as a "syroco"-type Cutter that will be included in a boxed set of classic figurines.
Pini said that she has been approached about possible movie deals and expects to be holding meetings at the San Diego Comic-con. Her agents, the Kitchen & Hansen Agency, are talking to publishers about prose books as well. "We have gone just about as far as we possibly can with Elfquest in the comics medium," she said. "We are very interested in the possibility of young adult prose books coming out. So there are a number of possibilities of a noncomics nature that we are looking at this year and that we are very excited about."
While she is currently working on the Web comic Masque of the Red Death for Go!Comi, Pini has written a treatment of the final story arc for Elfquest and is considering her options there as well. "At this point, I really can't say exactly how the final quest is going to be presented," she said. "By the time it is done, Elfquest may be part of another umbrella company that may be releasing in another format. It's still in negotiation and probably will be for months."
As for the deal with DC, Pini has no hard feelings. "As far as we are concerned, our parting with DC is quite amicable," she said. "We don't feel that they did anything wrong, and we are very proud of the published product that we did in teamwork with them. These things will stand the test of time, and we were really happy with that. The only disappointment was in the area of licensing and marketing."
DC declined to comment on this story.
