Questies? Questers? What’s the terminology? – Yearnings #1

Sometimes the ephemera associated with fandom is more fascinating than the subject of the fandom itself, but ElfQuest on its own is an extremely interesting property. For many years I dismissed it. I found the look of the main characters to be a little disturbing — they were small like children, but the men were taught and muscular while the women were buxom, and they all seemed to be baring lot of skin. This hypersexuality of small, childlike figures smacked of something that trod, if not closely to, at least in the direction of, pedophilia. To me, at least. Maybe that was the subdued Puritan in me coming out, or maybe I was simply looking for a reason to hate the it, but that’s how I felt.

And then I read the damn things and liked the stories, so who the hell cares about all that.

With ElfQuest, Wendy and Richard Pini developed a rich universe, one that (no surprise) created a quite lively fanbase. It should come as no shock to anyone that such success necessitated a fanzine. So we have (had) Yearnings.

Yearnings was an official publication, but the material from the Pinis was limited to the art on the front and back of the book and (from what I can tell) some editorial oversight. Here’s the mission statement on the inside of the front cover:

And here’s the table of contents, just to give you the gist of what’s inside:

A lot of the fan art, and I’m being charitable here, is dreadful. I applaud the fans’ enthusiasm, and some admittedly came from youngsters, but oy vey. There are more than a few diamonds in the rough, though. Here’s one submission that I half-liked:

Awww.

I didn’t wade through any of the text fan fiction — not enough hours in the day (or life), you know? So I can’t give you a detailed play-by-play of all that. Besides, fan fiction has always rubbed me the wrong way. I wish people would pump their creative juices into developing their own little worlds, instead of giving us their non-canonical take on the further adventures of copyrighted characters. But, again, a part of me applauds their fervor, and I suppose there’s some validation when it gets published in a sanctioned mag.

One last thing, an observation about the front cover. It’s nice to see Cutter, Skywise and a couple other Wolfriders welcoming some fans to the party, but am I wrong to be a little disturbed that one of the elves is carrying a jug of XX brand moonshine to the reveling? The fans all look underage, don’t they? Isn’t this the sort of thing that got Michael Jackson in trouble? Is there going to be some “plying” going on? Jesus Juice, anyone?

Whatever. Yearnings is a neat look into the early and burgeoning ElfQuest community, elfwarts and all. And for a title, the word “yearnings” strikes one as apt for a property so bound up with hardly contained eroticism.