Arrows, Elfquest, and Pointy Ears

I was thinking about how much of who I am was inspired by the comic book/graphic novels Elfquest by Wendy and Richard Pini. As a child my sister and I read the first four graphic novels and were engrossed, and when I look at certain things now I can trace them back to that time.

* Nature – I used to run silently through the trees trying to be a Wolfrider. Although I grew up around a lot of green growing things, I wonder if the way I relate to it on a spiritual level would be the same connection if I hadn’t wanted to be an elf of the woods. Wolves are and always will be one of my favorite animals. I admire their pack life. But I don’t know that I would have looked so closely without Elfquest.

* Pointy Weapons – I am definitely an archer and an archery teacher because of Elfquest. From that Atlatl, knife throwing, and sword fighting also come. I think when I return to LA, I am going to dust off my bow and arrow, knives, and call my sword fighting teacher up again – I miss that stuff.

* Fashion and Accessories – The link between some of my tastes in clothes and jewelry and clothes in the books is clear. In fact, I think I can probably trace most of my tastes to my childhood and Elfquest, time spent at Indian pujas, the movie musical “Oliver!”, and the mowhawked punks of central London.

The reason I was thinking about all this stuff is because I have one ear that is kind of pointy and one ear that is just plain round. I’m pretty sure the pointier ear comes from the fact that as a child I would put a clothespin on each ear before I went to bed in an attempt to grow my ears like an elf. When I woke up the next morning one of the clothespins would always have fallen off.

If I really did reshape the growing cartilage with my childhood fantasy, I wondered if I could even the ears out by sleeping with one clothespin on my round ear now. So I tried it. I have to say, I am impressed by my childhood determination, because it really hurt at first! I wonder what the odds are I’ll just end up with a really misshapen ear…oh well, all in the name of science. I’ll try it a couple of times at least.

Whoa! It just came back to me in a flash, that Elfquest is also one of the reasons I never got braces. While I have always been an advocate for teeth with personality (like Bowie’s pre-caps), I just remembered that as child I wanted teeth “like an animal” – basically like a creature from the wild, not like a person from civilization.

How strange that one piece of artistic work should shape me so much inside and out. That’s the power of art. Several years ago I did get a chance to meet the Pinis for a brief moment and tell them how much their books had meant to me. That, and getting to thank several members of Guns N’ Roses for their music are probably the only two times that I will ever have an opportunity to thank people whose work has been so important to me. I always wanted to thank Katherine Hepburn for being generally kick ass as well, but I’m sure plenty of people did that for me.