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This, my friends, is the Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Coloring Album (1979). I had never heard of this before a few months ago, when three separate people recommended to me in one week. It is now one of my favorite D&D books, full stop.

Let’s take a moment to examine how wonderfully strange this thing is. First off, the 1979 publication date makes it likely that this was the first D&D product produced by a third party (the fact that I never heard of it before makes me hesitant to speak in absolutes, though). The text is all written by Gary Gygax, with the main story following a group of adventurers through a dungeon where they encounter, among other things, a lich, an umber hulk, a beholder, demons and Tiamat herself. Several of the adventurers die. Tiamat is called the Queen of Hell. This is a children’s coloring book. The secondary text consists of rules for a very, very lite set of  of rules to be used in playing through the dungeon at the center of the book. Again, written by Gygax. A streamlined, minimalist dungeon combat ruleset.

Another curious thing. All the interior art is by tattooist and underground comic artist Greg Irons. His art is jaw dropping and I think he ranks as one of the very best to try their hand at D&D art at the time, though he never did any work on the actual game. The Tiamat is like something out of Durer. Massive talent. He died too young, hit by a bus in 1984.

I should also mention the publisher, Troubadour Press. Owner Malcolm Whyte used it as a way to mainstream counterculture artists and ideas in stuff like cook books, story books and coloring books. He did a lot to raise Edward Gorey’s profile and he wound up founding the Cartoon Art Museum in 1984.

What an odd and awesome nexus of outside the mainstream 70s culture. Put this on the top of your must-get list.

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10 years of soulless destruction, as of August 1987 when this ad for Ogre ran in Dragon 124

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Card Game Character 7 by Andya Dewakinnara

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warrior woman

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Mike Whittlesea illustrations for UK magazine Speed & Power

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We’re Back!: A Dinosaur Story

Managed to Sanitize the blog and bring it back. It was a lot easier than I thought It’d be. I’m still not at all happy with the new Draconian rules. I had to purge a lot of Sutherland art from the blog for some reason, Something about the art style from those 1st edition books seems to ping the system or something.

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Young Valerie.

Character sprites for ManorStories’ game Sylvia.

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In a 1981 column Games Workshop co-founder Ian Livingstone predicted Everquest and World of Warcraft, but didn’t quite predict Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. (White Dwarf 23, Feb/Mar 1981)  The first fantasy computer games had been around only a couple of years but he already imagined a shared experience with multiple connected players using voice chat, a decade before the emergence of the modern public commercial Internet.

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Might as well jump.  (Erol Otus - those winged helmets are as good as a signature - from AD&D module S2 White Plume Mountain, written by Lawrence Schick, TSR, originally 1979, 1981 printing.)

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The Guide to Planets and Moons puts a neat bow on everything, providing further context, planet by planet, for everything in the previously mentioned books.

All told, the Essential Guides, when taken together, wind up being a 1200 page history and gazetteer of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, collecting the good and the bad, the serious and the stupid. It seems to me (and correct me if I am wrong) that this series of books is little known and less cared for, which seems a shame because, for what it is, it pretty exhaustive. In fact, I am not sure there is a rival for a more ambitious chronicling of the Star Wars universe.

I also love the super clean character art here, for the record.

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Robert McCall

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Polar vortex? Well if that’s the case then you might rather be a frost giant. #frazetta #frankfrazetta #frazettafriday https://www.instagram.com/p/BtXonT4FWl7/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=g6v1mcu2oicx

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Polar vortex? Well if that’s the case then you might rather be a frost giant. #frazetta #frankfrazetta #frazettafriday https://www.instagram.com/p/BtXonT4FWl7/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=g6v1mcu2oicx

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Patton Oswalt got a 1st Edition D&D drawing on Fox News, and good for him.

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WARNING!!!!

People, please be careful. There are also people tracking children and people and putting bids on them based on their profile pictures on whatsapp, tracking and kidnapping them. Especially young children, so please be cautious, especially parents who have their children as their profile pictures.

Please pass this on to everyone so that they are aware of the danger. I don’t how it is all around the world but I know it can’t just be here so please please spread the word. Thank you.

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Wesley Burt