Surveying the Gen X landscape and the origins of geek
No, you’re not mistaken. The dude sitting furthest back really is wearing a unicorn shirt with a rolled-brim Busch Beer hat. Got a problem?
And that’s the original 1978 Player’s Handbook with the David Trampier cover that scared the shit out of all the people who believed Satan was taking over the Earth one polyhedral die roll at a time.
If you haven’t already, check out my D&D Portrait series.
(Photo via Mojo Yugen/Flickr)
Slave Pits of the Undercity (1980): Both covers are by Jeff Dee. On the front, the wizard’s light spell saves the viewer and the party from utter darkness. (His non-casting hand is awkwardly placed, no?) Somehow, I don’t think the giant ant man’s two wooden shields are going to hold up against that hammer, but we have no idea how many of his friends are skittering to his aid, and that builds suspense.
I suspect the back cover was a rush job. The figures are finished (I like the bandaged arm of the bad guy), but the background is a blank.
Secret of the Slavers Stockade (1981): Jim Roslof did the front cover. The torch light and ensuing shadows set the mood, but the scene doesn’t sell the threat: the slaver and his Gollum-like pet are no match for the waiting heroes. The back cover is Erol Otus. The man is in absolute command of color and light, and his figures are the stuff of myth, something you might see on the vases and holy artifacts of an ancient civilization.
Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords (1981): Front cover is Jeff Dee again—substandard work, in my opinion: no motion, no life. The back cover, another Otus, is exactly the opposite: I can feel the pillars shaking, hear the cries of the warriors, the swooshing of the torch.
In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords (1981): This cover, one of Otus’s best, is a phantasmagoric, fantasy-art-meets-German-Expressionism masterpiece. It belongs in a museum. Bill Willingham goes for the throat on the lurid and bawdy back cover, a nice homage to Hammer Horror.
All of the modules (A1 – A4) were collected as Scourge of the Slave Lords in 1986. The cover painting here, a decent Frazetta emulation, is by Jeff Easley. (Is that Thundarr bursting his bonds in the background?)
Unfortunately, the series is not yet available on dndclassics.com.
Really? I must have seen this movie a hundred times when it first came out on video (it’s still one of my all-time faves), but I had no idea there was a game. The cool illustration on the instructions title page is by Bill Willingham. You can see his signature on the plane. The second drawing—the “crazies” coming out of the sewer—might be an Erol Otus. Isn’t that an “EO” in the top right corner?
I would love to play this baby.
(Images via Board Game Geek and eBay)
Wicked. These appear to be Trampier’s and Sutherland’s illustrations from the original Monster Manual (1977). And they’ve been marked down to 25 cents each!
Images are via the brilliant Monster Brains. Go there to see all of the transfers and other killer stuff.
The Desert of Desolation series included Pharaoh (1982), Oasis of the White Palm (1983), and The Lost Tomb of Martek (1983). They were all written or co-written by Tracy Hickman, who co-wrote the original Dragonlance trilogy. The exotic, uncanny module covers are by Jim Holloway.
The modules were released as a compilation, “reworked to fit into the Forgotten Realms setting,” in 1987. The compilation cover is by Keith Parkinson, whose first work for TSR appears to have been interior art for Oasis of the White Palm. Parkinson, with Larry Elmore and Jeff Easley, did much to define the polished, epic look of D&D in the mid-’80s. Here’s a painting I remember well. (See more cool Dungeon covers here.)
Parkinson died of leukemia in 2005. He was only 47.
The front cover painting is by Bill Willingham, and it’s one of my favorites. The action rides the lightning, so to speak. The spell cast by our beautiful, crimson-clad sorcerer ties her, the hero, to the undead villain. The book and the broken staff, framed in the flash, tell us that our magic user was hurriedly memorizing her spell when attacked by the skeleton. That’s my interpretation, anyway.
The castle is parallel to the book and the staff, menaced by lightning of a more natural kind—or maybe not, as the bolts seem weirdly focused on the mysterious edifice. At the same time, the purple clouds on the horizon contrast the town with the bright blue of Bone Hill.
Back cover art is by Erol Otus, a master of atmosphere. The colors here are subterranean, dank. As the dragon drags out of the cave its colors shift from green to an unhealthy pallid blue.
You’ll find Grognardia’s positive review of the module here.
UPDATE (1/11/13): I found the full book. Please see my updated post here.
As the poor bastard in the second pic below found out, beholders are very, very nasty.
I hate to nitpick at Freaks and Geeks, a brilliant, short-lived (why do the two always seem to go together?) show about the travails of teenagers in 1980, but the lads we see above would do no less. Here we see zen master Harris Trinsky holding a copy of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. The DMG first appeared in 1979, with cover art by David C. Sutherland III.
The version in Trinsky’s paws, however, with cover art by Jeff Easley, came out in 1983.
That’s 3 years after the scene takes place. Unless, of course, Harris traveled into the future and back again, which is well within his powers.
Later in the same episode, right before Harris tells Daniel he’d be a good DM, we see the first edition Monster Manual (1977). This cover is also by Sutherland. The Easley cover edition came out in 1983.
Front cover by Erol Otus, another legend of early D&D. Otus did the definitive covers of the revised 1981 Basic and Expert Sets, seen here and here via Tome of Treasures. I’ll be posting more of his distinctive module covers as well.
The back cover is unsigned, but it has to be Jim Roslof. (Frustratingly, the front and back covers are often uncredited in the early modules. Only the art team is listed.) Compare the style with The Ghost Tower of Inverness.
The module is available at dndclassics.com. Grognardia reviews it here.
2 Warps to Neptune 