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Elfquest: The Searcher and the Sword
Shuna, the elf chief's adopted human daughter, struggles to unite both races despite their troubled history, while Treestump pursues his own quest to solve the mystery of swordmaking.
96 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
153 people want to read
About the author
Wendy Pini
614 books389 followersWendy Pini is one-half of a husband and wife team with Richard Pini that created, most notably, the Elfquest series.
Wendy was born in California and adopted into the Fletcher Family in Santa Clara County. Early on, she developed as an artist and was the illustrator of her high school year book. She submitted samples of her artwork to Marvel Comics at 17 that were rejected.
Pini attended Pitzer College and received her B.A. in the Arts and joined the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society.
In 1972, she married Richard Pini and began illustrating science fiction magazines, including Galaxy, Galileo, and Worlds of If. In 1977, Richard and Wendy established a publishing company called Warp Graphics to publish their first Elfquest comic. Elfquest was self-published for 25 years and in 2003, licensed to DC Comics. The comic series has won several awards, including the Ed Aprill Award for Best Independent Comic, two Alley Awards, the Fantasy Festival Comic Book Awards for Best Alternative Comic, and the Golden Pen Award.
Wendy has illustrated other works, including Jonny Quest in 1986, Law and Chaos in 1987, and in 1989, two graphic novels of Beauty and the Beast. Recently in 2007, she completed a graphic novel entitled The Masque of Red Death.
Wendy has received several awards over the last four decades, including the San Diego Comic Convention Inkpot Award, the New York State Jaycees Distinguished Service Award, the Balrog Award for Best Artist, and was inducted into the Friends of Lulu Women Cartoonists Hall of Fame in 2002.
Wendy and her husband currently reside in Poughkeepsie, New York.
Wendy was born in California and adopted into the Fletcher Family in Santa Clara County. Early on, she developed as an artist and was the illustrator of her high school year book. She submitted samples of her artwork to Marvel Comics at 17 that were rejected.
Pini attended Pitzer College and received her B.A. in the Arts and joined the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society.
In 1972, she married Richard Pini and began illustrating science fiction magazines, including Galaxy, Galileo, and Worlds of If. In 1977, Richard and Wendy established a publishing company called Warp Graphics to publish their first Elfquest comic. Elfquest was self-published for 25 years and in 2003, licensed to DC Comics. The comic series has won several awards, including the Ed Aprill Award for Best Independent Comic, two Alley Awards, the Fantasy Festival Comic Book Awards for Best Alternative Comic, and the Golden Pen Award.
Wendy has illustrated other works, including Jonny Quest in 1986, Law and Chaos in 1987, and in 1989, two graphic novels of Beauty and the Beast. Recently in 2007, she completed a graphic novel entitled The Masque of Red Death.
Wendy has received several awards over the last four decades, including the San Diego Comic Convention Inkpot Award, the New York State Jaycees Distinguished Service Award, the Balrog Award for Best Artist, and was inducted into the Friends of Lulu Women Cartoonists Hall of Fame in 2002.
Wendy and her husband currently reside in Poughkeepsie, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
June 21, 2009
The human tribal cultures based on insects were...weird and not as well done as I would expected based on Pini's previous work. Shuna's tale was saved from utter unoriginality by shape-changing Kimo and I'mnotexactlysurewhyheishere!Dart.
It was nice to have an update for the Wolfriders, especially Strongbow and Moonshade's part, but in the confusing tangle of stories after the war to restore the palace, we seem to have lost track of a few people. With Ahdri's fate redecided, where is Windkin? Now that we know what has happened to Kahvi, where are Venka and Aroree?
It was nice to have an update for the Wolfriders, especially Strongbow and Moonshade's part, but in the confusing tangle of stories after the war to restore the palace, we seem to have lost track of a few people. With Ahdri's fate redecided, where is Windkin? Now that we know what has happened to Kahvi, where are Venka and Aroree?
September 26, 2025
This was the Pinis' big return to ElfQuest after the failure of the '90s EQ2 comic book.
And it's surprisingly disappointing.
I mean, part of that is likely expectations. This bills itself as two quests, but it's nothing like the quests that we've come to expect with ElfQuest. One story is about crafting a sword, and there's not a lot to it, and the other story is of a human woman brought into the tribe, and her desire to unite human tribes, just as Cutter once did with elves.
Except Shuna feels very much like a Mary Sue: good at everything except picking a husband. And her story quickly becomes one of misogynism among the human tribes, leaving the story of the actual quest to be told another day.
Perhaps if this character piece had been abou characters we care about it, it would have been different, but instead it feels like the ElfQuest elves are supporting actors in their own comic.
And it's surprisingly disappointing.
I mean, part of that is likely expectations. This bills itself as two quests, but it's nothing like the quests that we've come to expect with ElfQuest. One story is about crafting a sword, and there's not a lot to it, and the other story is of a human woman brought into the tribe, and her desire to unite human tribes, just as Cutter once did with elves.
Except Shuna feels very much like a Mary Sue: good at everything except picking a husband. And her story quickly becomes one of misogynism among the human tribes, leaving the story of the actual quest to be told another day.
Perhaps if this character piece had been abou characters we care about it, it would have been different, but instead it feels like the ElfQuest elves are supporting actors in their own comic.
September 27, 2024
The Searcher and the Sword was my introduction to the ElfQuest world created by Wendy and Richard Pini. I found this graphic novel a delight! Filled with beautiful artwork, great characters, and an interesting parallel quest, it was a joy to read. The Wolfriders are a terrific clan of elves. This story is one of growth, both on a personal and a clan level. Different characters have different fears, dreams, and goals, but, by story’s end, we discover that all of them have grown together in conquering those fears, achieving those goals, and searching for those dreams. Would I recommend ElfQuest: The Searcher and the Sword by Wendy and Richard Pini to my friends? Yes, I really enjoyed it!
May 28, 2020
Shuna, Cutter and Leetah's adopted human daughter, tries to unite a band of humans with the Wolfriders.
I loved, loved, loved Elfquest when it came out. It is still easily my favorite comic series ever. I had a crush on Skywise, wore the tee-shirt, was a member of the fan club, and had an elf name. This volume brought back good memories.
This was a nice revisit with the usual gorgeous artwork, but the story was a little shallow and needed more room to breathe. It's definitely not the place to start if you haven't been reading Elfquest prior.
I loved, loved, loved Elfquest when it came out. It is still easily my favorite comic series ever. I had a crush on Skywise, wore the tee-shirt, was a member of the fan club, and had an elf name. This volume brought back good memories.
This was a nice revisit with the usual gorgeous artwork, but the story was a little shallow and needed more room to breathe. It's definitely not the place to start if you haven't been reading Elfquest prior.
December 22, 2019
A tale of ElfQuest that comes after the Shards series and the second Palace War, this one follows Shuna as she reaches adulthood and finds a new tribe of humans with whom to make friends. It contains scenes of domestic violence. It ends happily, and fills in lots of gaps between the Shards series and the Final Quest series!
March 2, 2019
Ham-handed as hell. Sadly, I think I may have grown out of ElfQuest. Will try a few more to make sure.
September 22, 2019
eh. I prefer the longer epic tales to these self-contained stories.
May 1, 2023
I don't believe I ever read this part of the Elfquest world. Boy it was as good as everything else I have read by Wendy and Richard.
April 13, 2022
Edición española en distinto formato a la saga en "tankoubon". Traduce The Searcher and the Sword.
February 12, 2017
First off, let me say that I'm a massive fan of Elfquest. Hell, I used to run a fan site for Dart, and was a frequent contributor to one of the Elfquest fan art/writing sites back in the day.
My issues with this story are the same three problems that I had when it came out (and there's probably a couple of forum posts out there somewhere saying much the same thing).
Firstly, Wendy had an opportunity to canonise Dart and Kimo's relationship as lovemates and she chose, for whatever reason, not to do so. For a number of us who identify as same sex attracted in the Elfquest fandom, this was a bit of a kick in the teeth. And it wouldn't have needed much, in fact, changing one word "friend" to "lovemate" or "beloved" or anything similar on page 44 would have been the absolute minimum required.
It would also have made a hell of a lot more sense then as to why Dart felt compelled to go along on their little crusade.
Secondly, while Wendy's art is beautiful as always, this is the book where she was introduced to Photoshop. In some instances that's great (the torchlight effect on page 32, the whole of page 77), it also means that she discovered Photoshop filters and brushes, and somebody really needed to step in and delete a couple of them from her computer. Case in point, the star shaped brush. She starts using it as the background in a doorway of the palace on page 15, then from page 43 onwards it starts appearing to represent almost every magic effect, especially Kimo's transformations. And I'm sorry, but it looks amateurish. Likewise with the mosaic filter on page 81 to represent the pile of gold, it just feels like Wendy couldn't be bothered.
It's especially grating, because Wendy specifically avoided the use of screentone back in the day, with only a very, very occasional application.
This possibly ties into the next issue...
Thirdly, this book was originally supposed to be three volumes telling the same story, but if memory serves the Pinis made a deal with DC around that time and they culled the book back to this one slim volume. So the story barrels along at an almost breakneck pace.
Kimo's whole story arc about becoming the first elf who can transform is reduced to two explanation panels and half a dozen transformation scenes, many of the elves barely get any screentime, I'm not sure if Redlance even gets mentioned by name, I know Nightfall only gets about three lines and one namecheck. Even Kimo's mother only gets mentioned by name on page 44.
As far as plot goes... there are two things which seem weird to me, the first is that while one part of the world has clearly evolved to a medieval level of technology (in the comics before this one), suddenly we're being introduced to tribes of primitive hunter gatherers? Yes, I know parts of our world are less advanced than others, but because the book rushes so fast, there's not even a throwaway line to cover this fact. And it feels really weird, because these hunters would have felt much more at home in the Elfquest of books 1 through 6.
Secondly, zombie trolls. I don't know how else to describe them... they're damn zombie trolls. Again, there seemingly needed to be an antagonist for that part of the story (honestly, I'm not sure that there did), but Wendy had so little space for them by that point, they're reduced to a walk on, walk off, which essentially renders them pointless as any kind of obstacle to the elves.
Also, spousal abuse, it's bad... have you heard? I feel like they already did this story with Shuna's mother and father, so unless the idea behind this was that history repeats and children can again become victims when they're adults, it kind of seemed unnecessary. And yes, I know it's still an issue in the real world, and there's only so much you can do around this kind of story in a world of elves, so maybe, don't do this kind of story?
This story should have been in my wheelhouse... it was going to be a story heavily featuring Dart, who has been my favourite character ever since the colour plates in the back of the first book, and it was the first new, wholly Wendy-made work for quite some time. But it was more of a disappointment because of everything that it could and should have been but wasn't.
My issues with this story are the same three problems that I had when it came out (and there's probably a couple of forum posts out there somewhere saying much the same thing).
Firstly, Wendy had an opportunity to canonise Dart and Kimo's relationship as lovemates and she chose, for whatever reason, not to do so. For a number of us who identify as same sex attracted in the Elfquest fandom, this was a bit of a kick in the teeth. And it wouldn't have needed much, in fact, changing one word "friend" to "lovemate" or "beloved" or anything similar on page 44 would have been the absolute minimum required.
It would also have made a hell of a lot more sense then as to why Dart felt compelled to go along on their little crusade.
Secondly, while Wendy's art is beautiful as always, this is the book where she was introduced to Photoshop. In some instances that's great (the torchlight effect on page 32, the whole of page 77), it also means that she discovered Photoshop filters and brushes, and somebody really needed to step in and delete a couple of them from her computer. Case in point, the star shaped brush. She starts using it as the background in a doorway of the palace on page 15, then from page 43 onwards it starts appearing to represent almost every magic effect, especially Kimo's transformations. And I'm sorry, but it looks amateurish. Likewise with the mosaic filter on page 81 to represent the pile of gold, it just feels like Wendy couldn't be bothered.
It's especially grating, because Wendy specifically avoided the use of screentone back in the day, with only a very, very occasional application.
This possibly ties into the next issue...
Thirdly, this book was originally supposed to be three volumes telling the same story, but if memory serves the Pinis made a deal with DC around that time and they culled the book back to this one slim volume. So the story barrels along at an almost breakneck pace.
Kimo's whole story arc about becoming the first elf who can transform is reduced to two explanation panels and half a dozen transformation scenes, many of the elves barely get any screentime, I'm not sure if Redlance even gets mentioned by name, I know Nightfall only gets about three lines and one namecheck. Even Kimo's mother only gets mentioned by name on page 44.
As far as plot goes... there are two things which seem weird to me, the first is that while one part of the world has clearly evolved to a medieval level of technology (in the comics before this one), suddenly we're being introduced to tribes of primitive hunter gatherers? Yes, I know parts of our world are less advanced than others, but because the book rushes so fast, there's not even a throwaway line to cover this fact. And it feels really weird, because these hunters would have felt much more at home in the Elfquest of books 1 through 6.
Secondly, zombie trolls. I don't know how else to describe them... they're damn zombie trolls. Again, there seemingly needed to be an antagonist for that part of the story (honestly, I'm not sure that there did), but Wendy had so little space for them by that point, they're reduced to a walk on, walk off, which essentially renders them pointless as any kind of obstacle to the elves.
Also, spousal abuse, it's bad... have you heard? I feel like they already did this story with Shuna's mother and father, so unless the idea behind this was that history repeats and children can again become victims when they're adults, it kind of seemed unnecessary. And yes, I know it's still an issue in the real world, and there's only so much you can do around this kind of story in a world of elves, so maybe, don't do this kind of story?
This story should have been in my wheelhouse... it was going to be a story heavily featuring Dart, who has been my favourite character ever since the colour plates in the back of the first book, and it was the first new, wholly Wendy-made work for quite some time. But it was more of a disappointment because of everything that it could and should have been but wasn't.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 19, 2012
So, I finally caught up with reading the Pini's ElfQuest tale from 2004, and I really enjoyed it.
Granted that I felt a little bit out of the loop — there seems to be a lot of story in the gap between this volume and Rogue's Challenge from way back when, which (at least to my knowledge) was the last full Pini production on ElfQuest before this volume — but it is a good story and very nicely framed. At the centre of it all is Shuna, a human woman who has been adopted by the Woldriders (who are no back at their original holt, albeit thousands of years after they left, of course), and who also happens to be the narrator of this tale.
It is a tale about finding one's place in the world and following (or even being allowed to follow) one's convictions.
All in all, it is a welcome entry into the mythos of ElfQuest and it is certainly good to see the characters drawn as only Wendy Pini can draw them.
Granted that I felt a little bit out of the loop — there seems to be a lot of story in the gap between this volume and Rogue's Challenge from way back when, which (at least to my knowledge) was the last full Pini production on ElfQuest before this volume — but it is a good story and very nicely framed. At the centre of it all is Shuna, a human woman who has been adopted by the Woldriders (who are no back at their original holt, albeit thousands of years after they left, of course), and who also happens to be the narrator of this tale.
It is a tale about finding one's place in the world and following (or even being allowed to follow) one's convictions.
All in all, it is a welcome entry into the mythos of ElfQuest and it is certainly good to see the characters drawn as only Wendy Pini can draw them.
April 20, 2016
Review first published on My Blog.
The story of Shuana after escaping with the elves when the regained the shards of the Palace and her trying to integrate more into human life after several years with the Wolfriders. It also follows Treestump as he finds an abandoned troll lair with the forges and means to make metal weapons there and becomes obsessed with learning those secrets.
As always, the artwork is exquisite and the story engaging. I love how the stories reflect what is going on with society without being super preachy about it. Elfquest has always been my favorite comic series and likely always will be. I'm super excited to finally be reading Final Quest and hope that Wendy and Richard Pini continue making Elfquest for many, many years to come.
The story of Shuana after escaping with the elves when the regained the shards of the Palace and her trying to integrate more into human life after several years with the Wolfriders. It also follows Treestump as he finds an abandoned troll lair with the forges and means to make metal weapons there and becomes obsessed with learning those secrets.
As always, the artwork is exquisite and the story engaging. I love how the stories reflect what is going on with society without being super preachy about it. Elfquest has always been my favorite comic series and likely always will be. I'm super excited to finally be reading Final Quest and hope that Wendy and Richard Pini continue making Elfquest for many, many years to come.
June 20, 2008
I loved the original Elfquest comics when I was a kid, but never got into all the sequels and spin-off series until now. I'm happy to see that the art hasn't changed much, nor have the elves, unless both are slightly more mature. But I didn't feel that this book was as dark as the original story, even though it did deal with the issue of spousal abuse. It feels a little like the art has been changed to address a younger reader, even if the storyline is aimed a little older. Nevertheless, a gratifying read.
October 30, 2012
Huh. I bought this out of loyalty to ElfQuest, and barely read it. But with new ElfQuest being featured on BoingBoing now, and telling stories involving the characters from this GN, I had to go back and really read it.
It's not bad. It's nowhere near my favorite story, but there are bits that are inspired, bits that bring me straight back to the passionate teen love I had for EQ. It also raises a question straight off about the circularity of the ElfQuest timeline, and of course I hope THE FINAL QUEST answers it, but I won't mind if it doesn't... :)
It's not bad. It's nowhere near my favorite story, but there are bits that are inspired, bits that bring me straight back to the passionate teen love I had for EQ. It also raises a question straight off about the circularity of the ElfQuest timeline, and of course I hope THE FINAL QUEST answers it, but I won't mind if it doesn't... :)
August 4, 2025
I bought this when it came out and while I read it back then, I didn't remember anything about it. So I'm sure I got more out of reading it this time for my Great ElfQuest Read of 2025, when all the storyline is fresh in my head.
The art and story are both fantastic though I wish Shuna had made better decisions. She's definitely learned things and I'd like to see more of what happens to her.
And I love Treestump and Clearbrook's story about learning to forge.
The art and story are both fantastic though I wish Shuna had made better decisions. She's definitely learned things and I'd like to see more of what happens to her.
And I love Treestump and Clearbrook's story about learning to forge.
April 13, 2016
I picked this up from the library when I saw it because I loved ElfQuest as a kid and the characters have always stuck with me.
This felt different though. Maybe I'm older, maybe it was mainly that it followed a human that lived with the elves for a while. Either way... it didn't feel like the old comics. It was an okay story overall though, but if the library has them, I think I'll just go look for the old stories.
This felt different though. Maybe I'm older, maybe it was mainly that it followed a human that lived with the elves for a while. Either way... it didn't feel like the old comics. It was an okay story overall though, but if the library has them, I think I'll just go look for the old stories.
January 25, 2016
A good standalone story. This is my reintroduction to ElfQuest and while I know there are a ton of stories written prior to this, I didn't feel lost at all in the story or with the characters. A nice introduction or a oneoff for anyone just wanting to get an idea as to what ElfQuest is basically about.
May 22, 2009
I loved this series as a kid, so I picked this up when I saw it at the library. Seems like I missed a lot in the last few years, and although I loved the artwork, the story was blah.
May 4, 2015
Just filling in some of my Elfquest gaps - it's all online for the reading! Fun and odd - a human child of the Wolfriders, Treestump becomes smith... things evolve.
July 21, 2008
2 stories woven side-by side. Liked the idea of both, but...
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews