Sketchbooking Retro #2

These doodles are from the margins of various notebooks from work. While in meetings discussing the philosophy and metaphysical nature of manufacturing*, I would often doodle in the margins.

These particular doodles are little covers for a mini-comic** idea called Land of Hof. I actually did at least one issue of this comic, a story called "Winter". It lived on my old website until I took the site down so I guess I need to repost it here on the blog***.

Hoo boy... let's see if we can trace down the lineage of this. I guess it started in 2000-2003 as an RPG concept. Land of Hof was from a dumb acronym: HOF = Heart of Fantasy. The gist was to cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of what I loved about fantasy. Somehow the character Zarp become enmeshed in the idea and so I had the concept of a series of mini-comics about Zarp in the Land of Hof. I even fancied the idea of a box set of mini-comics, with dice and a game. Because I hadn't yet learned my lessons about biting off more than I could chew.

*Please tell me my sarcasm is explicit.

**What's a mini-comic? Well, that depends on who you ask. In my universe, a mini is a 4.25" x 5.5" folded and stapled comic book, usually made on a copy machine. But this is, as I understand it, a very old definition. Today a mini-comic is just any sort of DIY comic book. Size does not matter. When I say "mini-comic", I am usually referring to the specific 4.25" x 5.5" format.

***Why is the old jwarts website gone? Because I never updated it, nobody ever mentioned it, and it cost me money to maintain. The blog is far easier to maintain and has more recognition across the various nerd populations that I frequent. I am not a dynamo of self-promotion. If you like what I do,
share my shit please. I am but a lonesome polecat otherwise.

More Original Zyn Dweomer

In this post I had some images for the races of my setting, Land of Hof, which I was calling Zyn Dweomer for a time. Here's a map I drew for the setting when it was Zyn Dweomer.

The idea at the time was to have three kingdoms.

Arcazia was the land of the elves, who were masters of spacial magic. In theory their domain was limitless because of the way they used their magic to warp space and time, bending it in ways that defy logic. The elves here were also darkly humorous and weird. Their customs were abominations to the puritanical humans.

Grynmere was a vast lake or inland sea surrounded by picturesque hills and fields. This was the land of the grimmers, a sort of mix between goblin and dwarf and gnome. Their deal was hospitality. You go to Grynmere if you want good food and relaxation. But don't start any shit because you'll be at the bottom of the lake wearing iron boots.

Ondwaland was the human lands. Humans in this version of my setting were just the most regressive dickheads imaginable. Loosely inspired by Rome and the Catholics and imperialism in general, they had this oppressive monotheistic religion and a mandate from god to dominate the world.

So the idea was to have this constant tension between these three peoples. There would be an uneasy treaty at any given time, with the humans trying to find ways to expand, the elves fucking with the humans, and the grimms trying to remain neutral and make mad cash off the stressed out humans coming to their lands for respite.

One of the ideas lounging around in my folders and my head that will probably never see the light of day (in this form anyway).

The Original Zyn Dweomer

From 2008, this little race graphic is a visual note about the five races of my setting Land of Hof, which I briefly changed to Zyn Dweomer for a month before deciding ZD was gonna be all anthropomorphic animals.

Norg are horned giants and they actually have bluish skin.
Oribii are short cartoon people. You can see them in Black Pudding #5.
Mongra are animal people.
Grimmers are like goblins and orks and shit.
Arcazians are elfs. I actually drop some Arcazia on you in Black Pudding #4 on the elf page of the OSR Playbook.

My older ideas seep into my newer ideas, demanding that I use the most prominent elements of them somewhere so they don't fade away and die.

Here's another version.