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). |