Set Description:
Released in 1999, EverQuest changed the video game landscape by firmly establishing the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) genre. It wasn't the first such game (arguably, that's 1996's Meridian 59), but it broke into the mainstream and developed a player base virtually unlike anything that had come before. In 2001, the game was at the height of its popularity. The first three expansions -- Ruins of Kunark, Scars of Velious, and Shadows of Luclin had all been exceedingly well received. Sony Online Entertainment reported in excess of 500,000 active subscribers. It only made sense to expand the game into a full-fledged franchise.
Part of that effort included a partnership with DC (under its Wildstorm imprint) to produce comic books set in the EverQuest universe, beginning with an adaptation of fan-favorite plot from Ruins of Kunark. Things didn't go quite as well as planned, despite a lot of top-tier names attached to the comic adaptations. In 2001, it seems, the comic book buying community and the MMORPG gamer community were fairly disjunct populations. Perhaps the decision to go with prestige format books -- with a correspondingly high cover price of $5.95, when normal comics were $2.25 -- didn't help.
All told, only two EverQuest comics ever saw general release, along with a couple of obscure promotional items. And that was it. By 2004, there was a true competitor for the MMORPG crown: Blizzard's World of Warcraft, and the shine would never truly return to EverQuest's star. Efforts to expand the franchise beyond video games switched to novels, which were evidently somewhat more successful, but no further comics were ever published. Briefly, a Comic Book Creator app existed in a licensed version for EverQuest II, allowing people to turn collections of screenshots into digital comic book pages, but nothing physical was ever produced, and nearly all record of that has faded into memory.
 One final item was commissioned, but apparently never released. Original artwork -- with pencils by Juvaun Kirby and inks by Dan Norton -- was produced for a book evidently titled EverQuest: Seeds. That was eventually colored by someone and paired with a Michael Turner cover titled Lords of EverQuest, probably intended as a promotional giveaway for the real-time-strategy game spinoff of the same name. Although the fully colored artwork exists and has leaked to the public, no one has ever found evidence that any copies were printed. Turner's original graphite pencilwork for this cover sold at a Heritage Auction in April 2024 for $4320! It's unfortunate that the actual book never came to pass.
But that's not quite all! EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark was licensed for foreign-language republication. You can see my collection of those books in this custom set! With the edition of the serialized Italian republication, I believe that set is now complete (or, at least, complete in terms of books that are eligible for slabbing). |
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| Slot: |
EverQuest Online Adventures: The Quest for Darkpaw |
| Item: |
EverQuest Online Adventures: The Quest for Darkpaw nn Modern |
| Grade: |
CGC |
| Cert #: |
3946774004
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Owner Comments
This is a somewhat mysterious promotional comic for the PlayStation 2 spinoff game EverQuest Online Adventures. There have been longstanding rumors that it was a mail-away, perhaps even through an offer in the same Tips & Tricks magazine best known for hosting the contest that distributed the famous Twisted Metal 2 promotional comic. However, increasing evidence suggests this was a pre-order promotional, exclusive to customers who pre-ordered the PS2 game via Sony's online PlayStation Store. That was CovrPrice's determination, and is also compatible with the information I received from an original owner (albeit not of this copy).
Regardless of how it was distributed, this is an extremely rare item. I'm aware of about a half-dozen copies with recorded sales on the secondary market in the 2000s, and two of those copies are almost certainly lost, having eventually been included in a sale of bulk comics to a warehouser who is then believed to have destroyed unsold material. Regardless, interest in this title was traditionally very low... until an April 2022 EBay auction of a very nice raw copy which had an utterly unexpected hammer price of $1690 amidst furious bidding. Was this sale a fluke? The underbid in that auction was still over $1500, so there was clearly more than one person interested in this title at that price point! At the time, I believed that copy might grade out at a 9.0 or 9.2; however, as of early 2024, there are now three graded copies (almost certainly including teh $1690 book)... and all three are 8.5s!
As for the book itself, it's actually not a bad read for one of these thin promo books. And, like most of the EverQuest spinoff media, the names associated with this title aren't nobodies. Writer Scott Ciencin did some other comic work, but is better known as a novelist, perhaps best known for the first two books in the Forgotten Realms Avatar Series (Shadowdale and Tantras, both originally published under the pen-name Richard Awlinson). Meanwhile, the artist, Lan Medina, is best known for his work on Fables.
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| Slot: |
EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark 1 |
| Item: |
EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark 1 Modern |
| Grade: |
CGC |
| Cert #: |
3694478008
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Owner Comments
It was the height of EverQuest's glory when this book hit comic stands in late 2001 (notwithstanding its 2002 publication date). The game's then-owner, Sony Online Entertainment, partnered with DC to produce this (very) loosely adaptation of part of the story from the first expansion, which was also titled The Ruins of Kunark. DC (under the Wildstorm imprint) really didn't pull out any stops producing this glossy, squarebound book. Jim Lee was tapped to do most of the work on the book, netting credits for cover (adapting Keith Parkinson's game-box cover art), story, and interior art.
All in all, it's a decent enough book. I'm sure SOE hoped it would convince comic readers to try out their hit MMORPG, but I'm not sure this was the best of all possible advertisements for the game. Most of the buyers were probably already playing. Regardless, Comichron recorded a little under 16,000 copies ordered, good for 125th place that month by volume -- or just short of the top 50 books by dollar value, owing to its heftier cover price. It might not have been a roaring success, but it wasn't a failure, and the rumors were that it was intended to be the first in a line of one-shot adaptations of parts of the EverQuest story. That part didn't quite go as planned.
I purchased this copy from GACollectibles via the CGC boards. These prestige-format books hold up to travel pretty well, so high-grade copies are probably fairly obtainable, but it was nice to skip that process and go directly to a 9.8.
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