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Le Sourire du Dragon (Transecom/TSR, 1987)

Published June 25, 2014 Board Games/Tabletop Games , D&D , D&D Art , D&D Non-Gaming Merchandise , Make Mine Marvel , TSR 4 Comments

Sourire 1987-1

Sourire 1987-2

Sourire 1987-6

Sourire 1987-3

Sourire 1987-4

Sourire 1987-5

According to French Wikipedia, the Dungeons & Dragons animated series premiered in France in 1984 (IMDb says 1987, as do other sources), and was rebroadcast starting in 1986. The series was called Le Sourire du Dragon (The Smile of the Dragon), as was the song used for the intro, sung by Dorothée. Listen to the full version here, and watch the actual intro here. It’s very sweet, but also kind of creepy, maybe because it reminds me of the Twin Peaks soundtrack.

The game was designed by François Marcela-Froideval, an influential figure in the introduction of RPGs in France. He came to the U.S. in 1982 to work for TSR, where he collaborated with Gary Gygax on Oriental Adventures (1985), among other projects.

Tignous is credited as the interior artist, and comics innovator Bill Sienkiewicz painted the cover. Sienkiewicz got his start on Moon Knight and The New Mutants, and went on to do mind-blowing art for Elektra: Assassin and the Daredevil: Love and War graphic novel, both of them written by Frank Miller.

See detailed views of all the game pieces and instructions at Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon Encyclopedia.

(Images via eBay and Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon Encyclopedia)

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Beach Towels (1982)

Published January 24, 2014 D&D , D&D Art , D&D Non-Gaming Merchandise , David C. Sutherland III 18 Comments

AD&D Towels 1982

AD&D Beach Towel 1982

AD&D Beach Towel 1982-2

Because if there’s two things that go together, it’s AD&D and the beach. And the towels must be used at the beach, because “beach towel” is printed right there at the top. Try not to lose your dice in the sand, gamers.

David Sutherland art appears on both towels. In fact, the two in the first photo belonged to Sutherland and appear at The Collector’s Trove. The second and third images are via eBay.

UPDATE: Zenopus (of Zenopus Archives) kindly sent in this photo of a third towel. (Thanks again, Z.)

AD&D Beach Towel 1982-3

It’s definitely from the same series, but I can’t tell who the artist is. I don’t recall seeing the design anywhere else. What monster do you think is guarding the treasure (‘X’ marks the spot), considering the adventurers are already tackling a red dragon?

Please contact me (2warpstoneptune@gmail.com) if you spot a different towel, or if you find close-ups of the giant centipede/dungeon towels.

UPDATE (6/30/14): The righteous “Mr. D.” sent in these detailed views of the dungeon crawl towel seen above. Great stuff.

T-1

T-1.5

T-2

T-3

T-4

T-5

T-6

T-7

T-8

T-9

T-10

T-11

DFC Toys: Demons of Castlelon Fantasy Action Playset (1982)

Published January 10, 2014 D&D Art , David C. Sutherland III , Dimensions for Children (DFC) , Fantasy Toys/Playsets 15 Comments

DFC Demons 1982

DFC Demons 1982-3

DFC Demons 1982-2

DFC (Dimensions For Children) put out at least six fantasy playsets in the early ’80s. You’ve seen Dragonriders of the Styx (1981), probably the first to be released, and the only one I’ve seen in a major catalog. This is the first time I’ve seen Demons of Castlelon. There’s another version called Dungeons of Castlelon—same figures and playmat, different box.

DFC Dungeons of Castlelon

As others have noted, the green snake figure looks suspiciously like David Sutherland’s Naga from the first edition Monster Manual.

Sutherland Naga

At some point, DFC started producing the figure without facial features or ears, no doubt due to copyright issues. UPDATE (1/19/14): Here’s a photo of both versions of the Naga, courtesy of Little Weirdos/Flickr.

DFC Naga

Other known sets include Fires of Shandarr, The Tower of the Night, and The Forest of Doom.

DFC Fires of Shandarr

DFC Tower of the Night

DFC Forest of Doom

DFC Forest of Doom-2

I’ll do separate posts on each set as I score better photos.

(Image credits: Demons of Castlelon: eBay seller The Lost Item Carousel; Dungeons of Castlelon: Tales from the Big Board; Naga: James Brady; Fires of Shandarr and The Tower of Night: Virtual Toy Chest; The Forest of Doom: Action Figure Archive)

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Characters Coloring Book (1983) (Part Three)

Published January 2, 2014 Coloring/Activity Books , D&D , D&D Art , D&D Non-Gaming Merchandise , Make Mine Marvel , Marvel Books (Imprint) , TSR 4 Comments

AD&D Characters pg. 21AD&D Characters pg. 22

AD&D Characters pg. 23AD&D Characters pg. 24

AD&D Characters pg. 25AD&D Characters pg. 26

AD&D Characters pg. 27AD&D Characters pg. 28

AD&D Characters pg. 29AD&D Characters pg. 30

AD&D Characters pg. 31AD&D Characters pg. 32

AD&D Characters pg. 33AD&D Characters pg. 34

AD&D Characters pg. 35

Page one: Stine continues to play fast and loose with the spells. It gives the artists more freedom.

Page three: Thieves do not enter buildings through the front door.

Page four: Not really a revelation that evil sorcerers use magic for evil purposes.

Page five: A real druid spell.

Page six: The Amazing Spider-Mage!

Pages seven through ten: The druid is about as fearsome as the bard in part one.

Page eleven: Jazz hands!

Page twelve: My favorite from this bunch. Love the feather.

Page thirteen: Warduke does not look afraid to me, merely annoyed.

* * *

Parts one and two of the coloring book are here and here.

TSR’s The Strategic Review (April, 1976)

Published November 21, 2013 D&D , David C. Sutherland III , Magazines/Zines , TSR 6 Comments

Strategic Review April 76

Strategic Review April 76-7

Strategic Review April 76-8

Strategic Review April 76-6

Strategic Review April 76-3

Strategic Review April 76-9

Strategic Review April 76-4

Strategic Review April 76-5

Strategic Review April 76-2-2

Several pages from the last issue of TSR’s first magazine, including a brilliant two-page photo spread announcing the grand opening of the now famous Dungeon Hobby Shop. The Strategic Review would become Dragon magazine in June of ’76 (see the announcement on the top left of the second photo).

Huscarl gives a pretty comprehensive history of The Dungeon Hobby Shop (Ernie Gygax ran the place) at Wizards of the Coast. He talks about the “three-level dungeon built by Dave Sutherland,” showing “the same group of adventurers in nine vignettes as they fought their way down […] They slowly got whittled down along the way until, in the final chamber, just three of them confronted the demon lord of the dungeon.”

Dungeon Hendryx

Mary Hendryx with Sutherland’s dungeon. (Photo: Kevin Hendryx)

And below is a view of the shop counter. Behind Mary and Linda we’ve got

[…] a full range of Metagaming’s microgames, which were enormously popular around 1980; Advanced Wizard and Advanced Melee, two of the three rulebooks for Metagaming’s RPG The Fantasy Trip; a few bags of Snits! miniatures for Tom Wham’s Snit Smashing and Snits’ Revenge boardgames; and copies of the 1981 editions of D&D Basic and Expert (still my favorites). There’s also a fishbowl of `High Impact Dice’!
Dungeon Hendryx Simpson

Mary Hendryx and Linda Simpson. (Photo: Kevin Hendryx)

Beneath the Basic and Expert sets (Otus covers), you’ll see a “Gateway to Adventure” banner poster.

D&D Poster 1979

The photo links at the Huscarl post are down, unfortunately, but Al at Beyond the Black Gate has them on view here, along with some other spectacular shots, ads, and a beautifully illustrated Dungeon mailing envelope. (Another mailer and some order forms are at Tome of Treasures. Thanks to Zenopus for the heads up in this Grognardia post.)

(Strategic Review images via pikelett/eBay)

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Characters Coloring Book (1983) (Part Two)

Published November 6, 2013 Coloring/Activity Books , D&D , D&D Art , D&D Non-Gaming Merchandise , Make Mine Marvel , Marvel Books (Imprint) , TSR 7 Comments

AD&D Characters pg. 11AD&D Characters pg. 12

AD&D Characters pg. 13AD&D Characters pg. 14

AD&D Characters pg. 15AD&D Characters pg. 16

AD&D Characters pg. 17AD&D Characters pg. 18

AD&D Characters pg. 19AD&D Characters pg. 20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The action picks up in part two. We’ve got a five-headed hydra, the paladin’s Lay on Hands ability, lots of Warduke, the historic dwarf/elf antagonism (from Tolkien), and a helm of water breathing (my favorite page—those fish are flummoxed!).

On the last page, the evil cleric Zargash is charming a snake, but I don’t think clerics have access to the Charm Animal or Charm Monster spells. Maybe I’m wrong.

Part one of the Characters Coloring Book is here.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Characters Coloring Book (1983) (Part One)

Published October 3, 2013 Coloring/Activity Books , D&D , D&D Art , D&D Non-Gaming Merchandise , Earl Norem , Make Mine Marvel , Marvel Books (Imprint) , TSR 22 Comments

AD&D Characters FC

AD&D Characters pg. 1

AD&D Characters pg. 2

AD&D Characters pg. 3AD&D Characters pg. 4

AD&D Characters pg. 5AD&D Characters pg. 6

AD&D Characters pg. 7AD&D Characters pg. 8

AD&D Characters pg. 9AD&D Characters pg. 10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Along with the AD&D storybooks, Marvel and TSR collaborated on five coloring books featuring the same cast of characters,  some of them from the toy line, others from The Shady Dragon Inn (1983), a game aid featuring pregenerated characters (and stats for the characters in the toy line).

Jane Stine, who co-wrote The Treasure of Time (1983), wrote the Characters coloring book. Earl Norem did the cover art. Jim Mooney, who worked for DC in the ’60s and Marvel in the ’70s and ’80s, and John Tartaglione, Silver Age inker of Sgt. Fury and Daredevil, did the interior art. (The lips look unmistakably Mooney to me, so I gather he did the pencils.)

The book is essentially a visual illustration of the different D&D character class attributes, alignments, and skills. It even covers some spells (feather falling) and magic items (helm of water breathing). Unlike the storybooks, there’s a definite link to D&D‘s role-playing core.

Parts two, three, and four of the Characters Coloring Book are here, here, and here.

 

1981 TSR ‘Gateway to Adventure’ Catalog

Published September 3, 2013 Catalogs , D&D , D&D Art , D&D Non-Gaming Merchandise , David C. Sutherland III , Erol Otus , TSR 11 Comments

TSR Catalog 1981

TSR Catalog 1981-2

TSR Catalog 1981-3

TSR Catalog 1981-4

TSR Catalog 1981-5

You can thumb through a PDF of the whole catalog at Recycled Thoughts from a Retro Gamer. You can also see the complete catalog at Mikey Walters’ Flickr. The images above are from eBay, where you can usually find a copy for $5 – $10.

The shirts are very cool, but apparently not very well-made. Here they are, courtesy of Grognardia.

D&D Shirts 1981

The D&D Basic Set advertised in the catalog is the just released 1981 edition, written by Tom Moldvay with cover art by Erol Otus. The images on the t-shirts on the top left are from Sutherland’s cover to the original Basic Set—written by M.D. and fantasy writer-promoter John Eric Holmes—from 1977.

I found the Grognardia post via the Original D&D Discussion forums. Zenopus, who writes a terrific blog “exploring the underworld of Holmes Basic,” posted a number of different photos showing the famous Sutherland red dragon, including this beauty:

It’s from the magazine Games Merchandising (a retailer magazine), and shows the TSR booth at the Hobby Industry of America (HIA) 1981 trade show. Dig the red Face logo chairs!

TSR Booth 1981

D&D Cover Art: Lost Tamoachan (1979) and The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan (1980, 1981)

Published August 15, 2013 D&D , D&D Art , D&D Modules , David C. Sutherland III , Erol Otus , Jeff Dee 7 Comments

Tamoachan 1979

Tamoachan 1979-2

Hidden Shrine FC 1980

Hidden Shrine BC 1980

Tamoachan 1981

Tamoachan 1981-2

You can see how much the D&D image/brand changed in the space of only two years. Lost Tamoachan: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan was the bagged (unbound) tournament module used at Origins International Game Expo (known simply as ‘Origins’) in 1979. You’ll find the complete publication history at The Acaeum. (Copies are incredibly rare.) The cover art is by David C. Sutherland III, who did the original, and best, Dungeon Master’s Guide (1979) cover.

The module was renamed upon wide release in 1980, with front and back covers by Erol Otus. Without access to color, he relied on textures—the chiseled walls, the bolt of fire, the demon’s hair, the warrior’s armor. (On the back cover, it’s the combination of trees, ancient stone, translucent scales.) The Aztec art looks damn convincing, and the shadow of the wings on the walls is the kind of detail that separates Otus from other artists.

Otus did the front cover of the 1981 edition as well. Despite the gorgeous coloring and the thicker, more abstract figures that would become his trademark style, I think I prefer the earlier, more three-dimensional work. The back cover is by Jeff Dee. He uses Otus’s template for the scene, but gives it a Marvel Comics flavor. The innocence—some would argue the purity—of early D&D art, represented by the first and second editions of Tamoachan, would never be seen again.

Read some background on the module’s development at Wizards of the Coast.

(Images via Tome of Treasures and eBay)

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Storybooks: The Forest of Enchantment and The Treasure of Time (1983)

Published July 25, 2013 Books , Coloring/Activity Books , Comic Books , D&D , D&D Art , D&D Non-Gaming Merchandise , Earl Norem , Make Mine Marvel , Marvel Books (Imprint) 17 Comments

AD&D Forest of Enchantment

AD&D Treasure of Time

In 1983 Marvel published a series of D&D storybooks and coloring books under license from TSR. (One year later, the roles would be reversed for the Marvel Super Heroes RPG, published by TSR under license from Marvel.) I believe these are the only two storybooks. You can read The Forest of Enchantment here. The Treasure of Time is here. Both PDFs are originally from Kuronons’ D&D Goodies Collection.

They’re kid’s books, so it’s pretty juvenile stuff, and there’s no effort to introduce the concept of role-playing (unlike the 1979 AD&D Coloring Album). All but two of the characters from LJN’s first run of AD&D action figures make appearances, so the books are basically long toy commercials.

Nevertheless, they’re notable for a few reasons: Bob Stine is Goosebumps author R.L. Stine, and Jane Stine, who founded Parachute Publishing, is his wife.

As for the art, Earl Norem did the interior work for The Forest of Enchantment, and Marie Severin did the cover and designed the book. She also illustrated The Treasure of Time. Severin was a colorist at EC until the notorious publisher was run out of town by the Comics Code. She worked for Marvel—as colorist, inker, and penciler—from 1959 until the early ’90s. She is one of the most well-respected artists in the comics field.

Famously, Severin was directed to soften the facial expression of the Hulk on one of the most innovative covers in Marvel’s history: The Hulk King Size Special #1 (1968). See both versions here. The artist who made the Green Guy too savage for public consumption? Jim Steranko.

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