Earlier this year I visited a colleague's home in Texas. This guy is about my age and also a naturalist, but otherwise pretty much my exact opposite: big, talkative, persistent, Texas accent, Texas cowboy boots, raises chickens, hunts deer, *serious* birder (I am a birder, but a lackadaisical one, who could not pick a Pectoral Sandpiper out of a flock of Least Sandpipers, which, to some birders, is like not being a birder at all). So, I was flabbergasted when, seconds after inviting me in, he said, "I was looking at your Facebook profile the other day and noticed you were into Elfquest," and proceeded to point toward a full run of EQ graphic novels displayed prominently on his shelf, including this one. He said that Elfquest had played a crucial role in making him a conservationist as a kid, which was also my experience, and the experience of at least one other naturalist I know.
I relay this both because I thought it was pleasantly shocking, but also to emphasize how much this series means to a lot of people like me, i.e. quite a bit. That said, I think for a lot of us, Elfquest was over by book 4, or maybe by book 8, and everything since has been revisiting the old themes with less and less vigor and style. So before even picking up this book, my expectations were low, though my need to catch up with my Wolfrider friends was great.
Wendy's pencils are as unrivaled as they ever were in this book: exquisite line work throughout, expressive and unique faces, kinetic but clear layouts. She is a master. Color and general use of digital technologies are another story. In my opinion there is just way too much unsubtle use of gradients, blurs, and clumsy resizing in this book. There are numerous pages where it's really obvious Wendy drew several panels at the same scale and they were enlarged or shrunk to fit, with no attempt to make the line weights match up. This probably bothers me more than most people, but I think it makes some pages look like a bit of a hack job, which is maddening when the pencils being hacked up are, as I mentioned, masterpieces.
Narratively, I think there are just too many characters and too many disparate plot lines for this book to cohere very well. When did Moonshade and Strongbow have a kid and by Timmorn's blood how did anyone allow her name to be "Freetouch"?! The deepening rift between the mortal Wolfriders and the immortal elf races is compelling, though, even if it is a well worn path on the World of Two Moons, and I hope future books in the series will coalesce around this theme. In my opinion, Cutter needs to die, and perhaps all the Wolfriders need to die, for the value of mortality this series has expressed from the beginning to achieve its ultimate expression. We'll see if the Pinis are willing to go that far.