ElfQuest (1978)

Elfquest shows what to do when your first publisher lets you down. Its first chapter appeared in Fantasy Quarterly in February 1978, and after that publisher tried to keep Wendy's original artwork, Wendy and Richard Pini borrowed from Richard's parents, founded WaRP Graphics and carried on themselves, running the first 20-issue series independently through 1984. The story follows the Wolfriders, a tribe of elves, and it is a rare fantasy epic from this era built by a husband-and-wife team who kept the rights. Dark Horse has collected the core stories in big volumes, which make the original quest easy to read in order.