Interview: Wendy Pini, comic book artist, Elfquest and Masque of the Red Death

You know when you meet someone early in your life how that’s the person they will always be in your mind’s eye? That’s how I’ll always see Wendy Pini.

I was a teenager with a comic book fixation, and she was a stunning redhead who dressed up at comic book conventions as "Red Sonja," the chain-mail, bikini-wearing, female barbarian that emerged from Marvel’s Conan the Barbarian comics. She also participated in a nightclub show put together by comics artist Frank Thorne, with Thorne as “The Wizard.” My friend Bob Pinaha was a little older than me at the time. Well, I guess he’s still older than me, now that I think about it, and he had a real thing for Wendy, so I always saw his latest Polaroid snapshots of her. Wow! We were all doubly impressed over the years as Wendy re-emerged in comics as a successful artist, writer, and publisher and the creator of the Japanese manga-influenced Elfquest books that have endured for the past 30 years. Elfquest, most recently published by DC Comics, was actually a production of Wendy and her husband, Richard Pini. Wendy and Richard join me today to talk about Elfquest’s long run as well as their latest work, an online comics adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s novel,Masque of the Red Death. You can LISTEN to this interview by clicking the BlogTalkRadio.com audio player above!

Wendy Pini

Wendy and Richard Pini's 'Masque of the Red Death'

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