Comics

I've updated my website to finally include some comics. Because, y'know, I used to do some comics back when I was young and stupid. Now that I'm older and growing stupider by the day, I'm doing some comics again. Yay comics! If fuckin' love comics.

So go read Eggsuckers, First and Last Love, Red Path, and more!

THINKING OUT LOUD

I have been pumping myself up to publish a comic book again. I'm not sure what the plan is, exactly, but perhaps I'll do an old fashioned black and white. I have at least 18 new pages for it, after all, and more to come. Time will tell, as it always does.

Delivering the Mail

I wanna take a moment to appreciate the raw wizardry of Hank Van Brunt's comics. I have no idea what these comics are about other than a gritty crew of space faring adventurers jetting around doing cool stuff with sick looking space vehicles. He posts panels on Instagram that feel, to a casual observer like me, quite random.

But compelling.

If you like comics, space comics, sci-fi, fantasy, and European style gritty, grimy, hodge-podge ships then you need to check it out.

Oh... and glorious hair.

What I love about Hank's comics, besides the theme and imagery itself, is just how confidently casual he is with them. Or appears to be. Maybe he obsesses over each line. I don't know. But the vibe is spontaneous, instant, elegant, but also quirky and awkward in every good way. He colors outside the lines.

Throughline

MORNING THOUGHTS, BIT OF MY HISTORY

I’m 52 years old and I’ve been drawing since as long as I can remember. My earliest memory of drawing was in first grade when I was drawing a monster truck*. I remember this moment because someone said I was a “good artist”. I don’t remember before that.

The first comic I remember drawing was around 1980 and it involved the Thing, Hulk, maybe Spider-Man. It was on typing paper, folded in half like a book. But I didn’t seriously draw another comic until 1987 when I got started drawing comics and publishing them in the small press scene. I was very active in that scene all through the 90s, even attending a few conventions (not normally my bag… which I’ll get to shortly).

The first time I was paid to do art was in 1988. A local poet paid me to draw a few pieces for his poetry zine, Promise. In 1994 I got some work published in a fantasy prose zine, the name of which escapes me. And all during that time I was collaborating and drawing for other small press publishers.

In 2000 or so, I stumbled upon the budding indie TTRPG scene and started drawing art for RPGs. I don’t remember which was the first one, but it was likely Adept Press or Clinton R. Nixon Games. At this time I was still publishing comics and then I started to publish gaming material as well. I write a few games, such as The Pool and The Questing Beast.

In 2005, I had my comic Pan-Gea published by Ape Entertainment. I call this my first professional comic book because it was printed professionally and listed in Previews. I was very proud of that moment.

Then I had kids and I dipped out of the scene, more or less. I spent most of the rest of the 2000s and 2010s kind of in my own little world. I was drawing a lot, mostly doing webcomics like Zyn Dweomer and drawing a lot of sex comics and stuff.

It was around 2012 or 2013 that I discovered there was this whole OSR scene going on. I was amazed. I wish I had been tuned in to it earlier because I would have been ALL OVER IT from the start, had I known. But I didn’t.

So from around 2014 I started publishing my own OSR RPG books. In 2016 I started publishing Black Pudding, which was the most successful thing I had done at that point in the RPG scene.

And that brings us up to current. I’m still making Black Pudding and other game books. My jam right now is creating art and RPG stuff as the mood strikes and making it into books.

Looking back over all this, I would say if there is a through-line it is that I am a maker of books. I just love the idea of making a book and I’m always thinking about how it will look, feel, and be read. Even when I’m just randomly sketching I’m often thinking about how the sketches might fit a book page. It’s a bit of an obsession.

*And it was 1975 so I’m not sure it was a “monster truck” or just a truck.

I Opened My RPG Folder and it Shot Acid in My Face

Yet another journey into looking at random RPG PDFs and commenting on them without reflection or preparation of any significant kind because that's how you get the real shit. Like this one.

Rogueland is a 40 page PDF by Caverns of Heresy (I don't know who this is!) with some art from LF OSR, HODAG!, and Gnarled Monsters. These are all presented as "@" handles. Maybe it's my age, but it's jarring to not see "real names" like Sputter McFly or Nattie Doolittle. But that's cool.

The game looks really good. It starts off by giving a tip of the hat to Knave and Ars Magica as well as some old computer games like Zork.

You can tell something about a game by just browsing the table of contents. Here we see that it kicks of with a map, then straight into character creation. This is my preferred way of creating and experiencing RPGs, personally. If I have to page through 80 pages before I get anything about character creation or mechanics I'm likely not gonna make it.

Um... we see learn the game comes at page 10. Then rogue magic, the bazzar, encoutners, adventures, locales... I can see what's going on here. This is one of them adventure games. I like it.

"This game uses player-facing, roll-high, d20 mechanics, and is best played with 1 to 5 players and a game master." My favorite kind of game.

There is a lot of Knave in here. Lots of roll tables for characteristics, equipment, etc. I like how meat and potatoes this is, honestly. Straight to the point.

The magic system is ala Knave as well, with a combination of action plus object to create spells on the fly. There are no spell descriptions. If you can cast Conceal Medicine... well... that's what the spell does. I actually really really love this system, honestly. One of things about D&D spells that I dislike are spell levels. Firstly because many of them feel arbitrary... like why is Sleep level 1 but Levitate is level 2? Fuckin' Sleep is a murder spell but Levitate lets you float up.

Oh wait... they do include a d100 table of pre-described spells. But they are so simple, I dig it. This is how I did it in GOZR so I must approve. Example: X-Ray Vision: You gain X-Ray vision. BAM.

There's a bestiary and magic items section, and a beefy exploration/adventure section. The game's main focus is definitely on exploration adventures. Also my favorite genre of RPG. And god damn there's a lovely section of very simple adventure locations with nice little hex maps and a brief description. Then a section of specific dungeons you can plop into them.

Cool character sheet on the back. I see the Usage Die getting some love.

This is tops. Looks great, it's a breezy read, and honestly looks to be god damn useful. I want a printed copy of this. I would 100% use this to run D&D-style games.

Willow: A Grim Micro Setting is an OSR sandbox adventure by Lazy Litch and it looks really cool. Great maps and art. The thing is just a module for use with games like Labyrinth Lord, so there isn't much to talk about in terms of system. Lots of NPCs, location descriptions, rumors, etc. I see crow folk and rat folk... and lots of cool looking relationship maps. Looks like something you could pick up and run with pretty easily with your game of choice (maybe Roguelike!).

Dungeon Reavers is a pocketmod game by Gnarled Monster (hey, didn't we just read about them above?). I'm not sure what it is but it looks like maybe a Knave-style game presented as economically as possible to fit the format. Looks cool.

I don't have a problem with these kinds of very lite games at all. But I do wonder if they are every used? I love 'em for their inspirational value. I would just like to print this off and look at it and maybe make characters. But would I RUN it? I dunno. I can easily run adventures with B/X, or OSE, or whatever. I don't need this. But it's cool anyway. We do need cool stuff, so please keep making cool stuff.

Before GOZR... Sand

For years, since ye olde G+ days, I had this idea called Dead Wizards. It was to be a pure sword and sorcery RPG filtered through my own personal S&S lens. It was a desert setting, borrowing from some of the same well of ideas that Al Qadim borrowed from... but not too explicitly. I didn't describe it as "Arabic" or anything like that. I got my inspirations from those sources, but also many others across the world and throughout fantasy fiction. Eventually I changed the name Dead Wizards to Sand in the Bone because (what a shitty reason) I didn't want the "DW" to be confused with Dungeon World. No shade on Dungeon World, just wanted to be distinct.

Anyhow... the development of that game stalled multiple times and eventually I hit on a basic system I liked and wanted to test out. But I didn't want to run it in the Dead Wizards/Sand in the Bone setting. So I got some inspiration from watching Heavy Metal again and one day I scribbled "GOZR" on some paper and the rest is history.

So GOZR basically looted the corpse of Dead Wizards for its system and even its map. The DNA of this game shifted from a gritty S&S pulp style RPG to a post-apoc sci-fantasy romp.

Lately I've been revisiting Dead Wizards in my mind, allowing my brain to wander over it and feel out what was magical about the idea to begin with. Maybe it'll lead to something I can publish. Who knows?

Here are some ancient posts talking about Dead Wizards. Much of this info is probably no longer applicable, but perhaps you'll enjoy it anyway. You've read this far.

Gad'Juth

Kanebok

Big Swords

Initiative (and the origin of Threat from GOZR)

Game Design is Hard

Reflection on Dead Wizards

GOZR Adventures

Pookie did a review of GOZR and he brings up a point that's been raised before: GOZR doesn't have an example scenario. People always say that RPGs need a sample adventure so people can immediately get a feel for how the game works and what you do with it.

And I agree. It is always a benefit and rarely a detriment to have a sample scenario in a game. Hell, my first RPG, the D&D red box, was centered heavily on that opening scenario that held your hand to learn the rules. Very effective.

I didn't include one with GOZR because I couldn't quite get one finished. Eventually I created Tower Trouble, a one page tower crawl (which will probably be included with GOZR RISING). But doing a full scenario for this game proved quite impossible for me to do. Why?

I think it's because this game is a toolkit. It is meant to inspire you to just play. You should roll on tables (or pick) to generate settings, NPCs, and situations. The material is meant for use and re-use both within the game itself and in other games you play.

Pre-written adventures are more like snapshots of a moment. A different vibe.

For GOZR RISING, I do want to include some adventures. But I'm not sure what form they will take. Honestly, I don't know if the default format of these pages is best suited to the task. An adventure will be looked at mostly by the GM, not by the players. But I designed the game book to be looked at by everyone. Therefore I think I might take a different approach for adventures and - GASP! - write them. With fonts and words and stuff.

But if I do that, I won't include them in the actual GOSR RISING book. They'll be in a separate book. Which, I think, is kind of a cool idea. You'll get the new GOZR book with all its color and art and handwritten craziness with new monsters, gadgets, and so on. And you'll get a nifty companion book with some slightly more traditionally-presented adventures.

As I type this, I'm reminded of Mörk Borg. That book is also heavily visual in its presentation. Indeed, when I started working on GOZR in early 2020, I got my copy of Mörk Borg at about the same time and was inspired by it. But the sample adventure for that game was in fact presented more traditionally and is even printed on different paper than the rest of the book (fancy!). I don't know if it is the case, but I suspect they might have done this for the same reason I outline above. It just makes more sense.

Still, similar to Tower Trouble, I might include a few one page "dungeons" in the main book. Just some locations to pepper into your games. The adventure book will be slightly more fleshed-out, perhaps.

We'll see.

GOZR Rising (slowly)

As I said previously, I've been on a GOZR kick. This means I've been working on pages for the second book: GOZR Rising! As with the original, I'm keeping it organic. I make notes and list table contents in a spreadsheet where applicable, but mostly I'm drawing it on the canvas as it enters my head. Because in my head is where the gooz live. And, I'm told, they also live at some gaming tables. A fact that gives me comfort in the long, dark nights.

No schedule on this. It'll come as it does and eventually I'll have a book I can put out there and smile about while you all scratch your heads and say "Why the hell would anyone do a game THIS WAY??".

Moozik

I've been using Spotify since it launched. I don't know who owns it or what happens behind the scenes. I admit full ignorance on this matter. All I know is it has shit tons of music and I have logged a shit ton of hours using it.

Anyway, here's one of my "daily mixes" that the fine folks at Spotify put together just for me. I feel so special! It's actually a nice jam. I mean... these are all songs from my favorites list, so duh.

ROCK OUT

Itchy Page

I finally added a lot more stuff to my itch.io page. Added GOZR and the rest of the Black Pudding zines that weren't up there yet. It only took me like... a couple years.

GOZR Notebook

Oh yeah, it seems that I put up a GOZR spiral bound notebook on Redbubble at some point. At first I saw this and thought "Motherfucking pirates!", but no. This is mine. I'm not cool enough to be pirated. I think.

Goozing Around

Lately I've been on a GOZR kick, which is very nice because I do love the game. I'm super proud of it. The system is nice and simple and it works. The book itself, which is the most important thing for me as a creator, is a labor of love and I'm happy to have completed it.

I'm not the kind of creator who gets hung up on one thing and feels compelled to "support it". I'm happy enough to never do another GOZR project and do other things instead. But it just so happens that my muses have aligned under an ugly banner and I'm their slave at the moment. Niiiice.

Here are some little character sheets I doodled in a wee sketchbook. I started with one and ended up with a handful and counting. Here's a trick to see if I really love a game's aesthetic: can I do a million iterations of its character sheet? Obviously the answer is yes for old school D&D and it's many clones. I've also done a handful of Troika! sheets. But now it seems that GOZR hits the sweet spot. It has a discrete number of "bubbles" to draw: Cunning, Magic, Prowess, Hit Points, GOOZ, Defense, and WIZ. Each of these items has a shape and purpose and I can easily move them around on a sheet.

When I'm less familiar with a game, or it has a lot more moving parts, I find it difficult to get the vibe and make a character sheet. This why you don't seem me doing a ton of various game sheets. I need to understand a game and really get it to make a good sheet.

Aside from character sheets, I'm also working on new pages for the inevitable GOZR Rising! I'll share some of that next.