Dark Horse Comics announced at C2E2 this weekend that they've reached an agreement with creators Richard and Wendy Pini to bring the long-running cult hit Elfquest back to the printed page. The first release arrives in the fall and will be the prologue to Elfquest: The Final Quest, which is currently being serialized on BoingBoing. Following that, Dark Horse will release The Final Quest alongside all-new editions of previously published material.

“Dark Horse is a company I’ve admired ever since it sprang on the scene in the 1980s. Somehow, as large as they’ve grown, they’ve retained an independent spirit that Richard and I totally identify with. The quality of their offerings is legendary and I’m extremely happy that Elfquest is part of their lineup,” Wendy Pini said in a press release.

“Mike Richardson and Dark Horse come from the same publishing DNA as our own company, Warp Graphics, and he retains that gut-deep love of getting comics out into the world. We’re jazzed at all the plans, both traditional and new, they have for Elfquest,” added Richard Pini.

Elfquest first appeared in 1978, in a comic called Fantasy Quarterly published by a company called IPS that went on to publish the first issue. With the second issue, the Pinis formed their own company, WaRP Graphics, which published various Elfquest titles into the 1990s. Marvel's Epic imprint also reprinted about 30 issues of the original series in the 1980s, while DC picked up the license in the early 2000s. The Pinis have made the entire series available online at Elfquest.com.

In addition to the Elfquest announcement, Dark Horse also announced this weekend that they plan to publish comics based on the video game Halo, a new Hellboy OGN and new The Shaolin Cowboy comics.