It's April

Random notes.

After having ran and played in multiple games with player-facing dice rolls, I gotta say I strongly prefer them. Having players roll all the dice frees the GM up to focus more on what's happening and what happens next and it keeps players being active contributors.

Player-facing rolls have moved up the ranks in my gaming preferences right up there with luck points and death choices.

Speaking of gaming... shit I'm behind. I playtested ZSF and I'm in a spot where I could hone it, focus in, and get the game done. But right now in this instant I do not have that fire. I'll get back to it later.

Meanwhile I've dashed out a few other game ideas. I wrote one the other day based an older idea called Dirty Dozen Death Squad. You make a unit of 4 or 5 characters, then all the players bring all their characters and you just go through a violent mission. I guess it's more of a skirmish game and RPG.

Made another one this week. No name yet, but it's got a neat little core where you roll a d20 if you've got a skill and a d12 if you don't. Each hit you take knocks you down a die step. But it's not a combat game... it's more of an explore and interact kind of thing.

Sketching is always on the table. Tons and tons of drawing and doodling and coming up with ideas. I've written many comic book scripts lately. I just can't seem to find the oomph to focus on one thing long enough to get it done.

But I'll get there.

10 Years

Oh yeah... this blog is over 10 years old. In fact, I missed that anniversary because it happened on April 20th, 2024. Here's my first Doomslakers post ever.

I started this blog purely as a vehicle for talking about RPGs, particularly D&D, Labyrinth Lord, DCC, etc. OSR type shit. But it's also a place for my art and comics and for basically any other thoughts I happen to want to share. Thanks for being here if you are a regular who checks in.

 

Cara

You probably heard there's a new social media game in town called Cara. Now, I'm very cynical about these things. But I tend to use all the major socmed doodads such as Twitter, FB, Insta, etc. I also use Bluesky and Mastodon. But I'm inconsistent. I probably post the most to FB because that's where most of my pals are and I get more interaction there. It's a hell world, I just live in it.

Anyway, Cara is all for art. Specifically, it is all for non-AI art. And I appreciate that, so I post there. Not a lot of interaction yet, but it's got potential. Lots and lots of artists over there, so go check it out. 

Old and New

Here's a really old drawing from the late 90s. Character name is Lutura and I have no memory of her at all. She was either a D&D character or a comic script character who never went anywhere.

I have a bunch of these old drawings that represent me kind of floundering in my 20s, not really hitting my vibe yet. This drawing is OK, but not something I love. I wasn't in love with art at that time. I wasn't in love with much of anything at that time. I was fishing around for inspiration and not finding it. I was barely even drawing, basically never gaming, and not really interacting with people much. This was before I even owned a computer so I wasn't online yet, though I did have a Yahoo email address and went to the public library once a month to check it. Let that sink in, you folks under a certain age.

 A couple of years later I would go through a pretty shitty depression and actually give up on art and game design for a short time. I remember entering 2000 in that way. I spent months only doodling and writing in a journal and thinking maybe I'd try my hand at writing fiction (hint: that went nowhere).

Then, sometime around 2001-2002, I had a break. I had a moment. I had an inspiration. Something changed. Part of it was the internet. I connected with people online and found places where I could show my work. It was the boost of having people react to it that drove me to be creative again.

Here's one of the first drawings I did at that time when I felt the light bulb go off. The date on the JPG file says 2002, but I'm not sure when I drew it. Probably 2002.

State of the Creator

Lately I've been scattered, disorganized, and chaotic. But I'm still drawing and still creating. I never stop. For this I am grateful. The image above is a scattershot of things I've drawn in the past month or two. Maybe a couple are from a few months ago.

One thing that is becoming increasingly clear to me, on the whole creative front, is that I need to stop thinking about doing stuff and just do stuff. One of my big problems was, after GOZR, I didn't want to devote myself to such an intense project again for a while. I was like... y'know... just do traditional fucking layouts with text and fonts.

But I haven't been doing those. So it kind of stands to reason that I should just lean into what I know how to do best and stop fucking around. Meaning: Draw more pages and make little books. It's the one thing I love to do more than anything else and the only reason I don't do it more is because I'm constantly second-guessing myself.

No, this is not a New Year's resolution. I don't do those.

Ideas on the table that already have some progress and that I could/should finish:

Black Pudding 8: Mostly finished.

ZSF: Tons of work put into it, but depending on final form it is either half done or barely started.

Blood Red Pinup Book: This one is done. I have a 64 page book all fixed up. I just need to get it printed and offer it up for sale.

Rock Hardy Book of Dwarfs: Literally finished, including layout, other than doing maybe 3 additional drawings. I just can't muster the energy to do it. I fear it is just a meh book.

GOZR Adventure Book: This is an idea for which I have a few pages. I know people have asked for some GOZR adventures and I just haven't been able to return to that game with the same passion. I think because I poured so much time and effort into it I'm just finished, for now. I gave it my all. I made a complete game book. The idea was that you'd make your own adventures.

Sorry, this is a bit of a random and slightly bitchy post. I'm honestly not in a bad mood. I'm just not focused, which is becoming more and more troubling.

Richmond Comic & Toy Show

Kenn Minter

Today I went to a comic book show. I don't do that very often. I don't go to cons or shows, pretty much ever. But this was only an hour or less from my house and it was small.

I don't have a ton of experience with comic shows so I can't say the Richmond Comic & Toy Show was fantastic. But I had a good time hanging out with a couple of friends, met some cool artists, and picked up a stack of books. So I call that a success.

Oh, and there were nerds walking around in Star Wars and Sailor Moon uniforms, so that was cool.

Here are the creators I met and interacted with. I spent pretty much all my pocket money on these folks.

Kenn Minter of Near Mint Press with Country Creatures comic.

Bryce Oquaye of Mad Hundreds.

Tressa Bowling, who has some amazing sketch zines.

Ken Kirk doing fun sketches on skateboards and writing comics.

J. D. Thompson with The Hound of Cold Hollow: Vengeance comic.

William Leslie of Blackwill Comics.

Joe Slucher doing fantasy art for Magic: the Gathering.

Hard Justice, by Wes Gift, Bryce Oquaye, and Taylor Esposito.

 

Tressa Bowling's cool art books.

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.

The Savage Sword Situation

Oh woe is me! I cannot seem to remember exactly which issue of Savage Sword of Conan was my first. This important blog post will seek to correct this pivotal injustice. I shall dive deep and figure this shit out. You are invited to join, or welcomed to run away. Your choice.

There are a few distinct memories I have of acquiring and reading SSOC. I’m going to sketch out the main ones, then I’ll try to analyze them based on the release date of those specific issues and where I was at in my life at that time.

1. Joe’s Underboob (issue #104, Sept 1984)

As mentioned in this salacious post on my scantily-clad alternative blog, I was quite fixated on the cover art for this issue. In fact, this art adorns the wall to my left even as I type these words right now in 2023. To be honest, I don't even remember what was inside this one. To be even more honest, there's probably only one issue of SSOC that I do remember inside and out. The stories tended to blur together, didn't they? Conan would be cast into some situation with some thugs and damsels, cut a bunch of bastards in half, roll in the hay with a hottie, and maybe slay a demon. That's what we bought the book for.

But I do remember this cover. Joe Jusko was at the height of his powers with this one. And I'm not even a huge Jusko fanboy or anything. My connection to him is merely through his SSOC covers, with this one being the standout. In a lot of his paintings I just see Vallejo-style gym shorts dudes with oiled pecks.

2. The Mill (issue #105, Oct 1984)

I think this is a fucking great issue. It kicks off with an epic Michael Golden cover that actually depicts what is happening inside the comic. Now, I don't think this is necessary, mind you. I'm a fan of zines and comics with cover art that just does whatever the hell it wants. But in this case the cover really does tell you what the story is about.

I actually studied this cover art quite a bit. I eyeballed it in detail, looking at how Golden drew buckles and how he angled the weapons to avoid boring front-on shots. And his crazy colors!

Then we get the story The Mill, written by Don Krarr, pencilled by Gary Kwapisz, and inked by Bob Camp. Kwapisz had already contributed a number of pinups to the comic and would go on to do a lot more feature stories. He was at his peak when I was an avid SSOC reader.

The Mill is a very simple story. It features no sorcery, no magic, no kings, no monsters. It is about a group of cold, hungry soldiers who come upon a grain mill and crash it to feed their bellies and get warm. Conan, their leader, forces the owner of the mill to comply but promises no harm will come to him or his family. Naturally, Conan's men are too base and lecherous to keep that promise and so he has to kill them. ALL OF THEM. And it is glorious, bloody, epic storytelling with a gritty ending to boot.

This is #98, not #102.

3. Jabba the What the Fuck Bill Sienkiewisz? (issue #102, July 1984)

See, this is the twist. I'm listing these issues in my memory order. But clearly my memory is fucked because this issue predates the other two. I distinctly remember picking up #104 and it felt like my first. But I 100% for certain also owned #102 because every single page of it hits my memory receptors like a tidal wave. Especially the letters page... which shows the phenomenal art from the cover of issue #98... which I NEVER OWNED. I remember bemoaning the fact that I got in after that issue.

Of course the cover pictured here is #98. The actual #102 cover is by Bill Sienkiewisz, which is cool... but it ain't no Jabba-slaying Conan.

4. For shits, let's look at #103 and maybe #101

So which of these was actually my first SSOC? Maybe it will help me narrow this down if I look at a few peripheral issues.

First up, #101. Hard nope. I have absolutely no memory of this one. If I dig out my Conan books, long isolated in my storage shed and probably suffering as a result, I will not find this one. It has a dope Michael Golden cover though, with some beefy warriors on a boat and a witch.

And HOLY FUCK it has an aboslutely SICK Armando Gil frontpiece! Check this out:

So what about #103? Nope. I don't recognize that Bob Larkin cover and I don't remember any tigers with stars on their heads. Also, and this might sound incredibly juvenile to you, but I would probably remember the naked woman on page one of the story. I was a teenager.

Umm... #106? For damn sure, no. I never even laid eyes on that Michael Golden cover.

Rudy Nebres brings the heat.

#107 does get me back into familiar territory with its Earl Norem Viking cover and a villain who looks like Warduke. I had this issue for sure. I also had #108, #109... yeah. So it was with issue #107 that I fell into the lucky habit of picking up every issue every month.

5. What are we to make of this?

Ok. As far as I can recall, I didn't know anyone who collected or bought or read SSOC. I discovered it quite by accident at a convenience store. It must have been in in July, 1984, that I made the initial discovery. Two months later I found another, and followed up on it one month later. Then I missed a bit and finally settled into the routine of buying them monthly in December, 1984.

In the summer of 1984 I was 13 years old and I was in 7th grade. This was when my family finally stopped moving around all the time. We settled into a single location where we lived until I graduated from high school. This is why I was able to start picking up comics on a monthly basis. I was getting SSOC and Amazing Spider-Man.

Ok. I think my work here is done. I now have a Savage Sword timeline I can refer to next time I can't remember. This was fun.

The Memory of Comic Book Times

Herein I'm going to take a stab at remembering and recounting my personal journey with comics. I'll approach this like a scientist (on drugs). This is long and rambling. You've been warned.

FUNNY FUNNIES

When I was 7, my parents divorced. My mom and I moved from Louisville to Somerset (where I was born and where she was born) into an old shack without a bathroom or running water from what I can remember. I do not remember any comic books prior to this time, though it is possible I had a few here and there. I mostly remember TV shows like Shazam and Hulk and cartoons like Quick Draw McGraw and Bugs Bunny.

Sometime after the divorce, before I turned 9, someone in the family gave me a stack of comic books. These were legit funnies. I had some Casper, Hot Stuff, Wendy, Donald Duck, Archie, and probably Uncle Scrooge and Richie Rich. My memory is very old, of course. This was the late 70s. I was born in 1970, so this would have been 1977-1978. I'm guessing the stack of comics was about 15-20 in number. They were beat up, well-read, and came from a cousin who was kind of a blacksheep and died far too early. He would have been a young man at the time, probably 18-20.

I read and flipped through those comics quite a bit. I'm guessing several of them survived and were carried from home to home by me (we moved a lot between 1977 and 1984).

Perhaps it is largely this exposure to silly fun comics like Hot Stuff that lead to my lifelong love of cartoon art. I do credit Hot Stuff as the progenitor of Zarp, though he wasn't based on that character explicitly.

FOOD LION AND THE DIX RIVER CONNECTION

My mom and I lived in the red shack for about a year, I guess. I have lots of memories from there. I remember the nasty outhouse (I tended to go in the woods instead of going into that thing). I remember a dog named King and another dog whose name I don't remember. I remember a bicycle that got ran over, much to my dismay. I remember getting some toy cowboy guns for Xmas and my little cousins crying for them. I also remember coming home from school one Friday eager to watch Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park, which was heavily advertised on TV for that Saturday. But our cable had been cut off that day due to non-payment. I was crushed. Perhaps, in hindsight, I was spared.

We were less than poor. We had fucking nothing. We relied on charity from family and on a welfare pittance of about $90 per month. My mom, may she rest in peace, was in over her head and had no prospects.

Anyway... she met Lee about 1978, winter. I was 8 at the time. I know it was winter because he was a ramblin' man who was making a meager living selling truckloads of coal. He would go to houses and ask if they wanted to buy coal. He would then go load his old white pickup truck with coal, then charge the person for the coal and the labor. My mom must have met him through a friend and he brought us some coal.

They hooked up for the next 30 years until his death on May 12th 2008. Lee was, by all measures, my dad. My biological father, kind of a lazy asshole, was never around. Lee was around.

Ok, let me steer this back to the road...

Lee came, he helped us out, he bought me strawberry ice cream, which was super nice. He, being a rambler and a piddler, didn't have a job. We moved around... all the time. Lee "ran off" multiple times and my mom would leave me with this or that aunt or uncle and go off chasing him. She always found him and they always ended up back together. It was a wild time to be a kid. (Remind me to tell you stories about garbage dumps and living in a van later).

So we eventually moved to Standford into a trailer in the Dix River trailer park. I was in 4th grade, so it would have been 1980 or so. I was held back in 3rd grade. Anyway, here we were and I was having a good time and met a few friends. One of them, a black haired toothy kid named Danny, was a nerd. He was into Star Wars and comic books.

I do not remember the exact order of events so I'll do my best to jam it all together.

We lived in the Dix River trailer park twice: once when I was in 4th grade and again when I was in 6th grade. My journey into "real comics" happened during this period. I'm guessing Danny showed me some of his comics and I showed him mine. All I had at the time were probably funnies.

It was the second time at Dix that I got serious. I was in Food Lion with my mom and I immediately gravitated to the magazine rack where my eyes fell on Amazing Spider-Man #238... which happened to be the first appearance of the Hobgoblin. I didn't know shit about shit, I just knew that was an awesome looking comic and I begged for mom to buy it. To her great credit... she did.

This is how I learned about "monthly comics". Every month from then on I would make it my mission to ensure that I ended up at Food Lion or Mac's Village Pantry or some other store and feverishly search the spinner rack for the new issue of ASM (eventually expanding to Spectacular and Web Of). I proudly took my comics to school where Danny and a few other pals (a curly headed kid with chubby cheeks, a fat kid, and a black kid - I do not remember any of their names, sadly) would sit in the stairwell and read them.

Beyond reading comics, Danny and I wanted to draw. We had this thing where we would put a sheet of paper under a comic cover and then use a BALLPOINT PEN to trace over the art, leaving an impression on the paper so we could then "draw" it. We savaged a lot of comics in those days. But I attribute this time period to a substantial leap forward in my interest in art and my ability to draw.

Thank you, Danny, wherever you are. You were a friend and I wish we could have stayed in touch somehow.

THE STANFORD FLEA MARKET VIETNAM VET

There was a tiny flea market very close to the Dix River trailer park. My folks were heavily into flea marketing and auctioning (it was our primary income). So I basically lived at flea markets and auctions between 1979 and 1986.

There was this guy at the Dix River flea market. I believe his name might have been Doug... but somehow that seems wrong. We'll call him Doug, though. He had a slightly oversized head and mom would say there was something wrong with him (in a kind way... she was very kind and compassionate to him).

Doug was a Vietnam vet and even I, as a kid, could tell he was troubled. But he was super nice to me and he was into comics. He had boxes of them he sold at the flea market and he let me pick from the boxes and read what I wanted. He gave me a few Incredible Hulk comics. Probably the very few Hulk comics I ever owned. They featured Woodgod and those guys. I would sit next to Doug and absolutely burn up his ears talking comics and I'm sure I was an annoying little shit that he tolerated.

Thanks, Doug. You were instrumental in setting me on my path and I hope you found peace for the rest of your life.

FLEA MARKET FINDS AND BUDDING CREATOR

Lee was always finding these oddball things he could try to sell. He got his hands on a few cases (CASES!) of Marvel Super Heroes bubble gum and rub-on tattoos. He gave me a whole box (the kind you'd see in the store for display). Naturally I used them all.

He also got hold of some kind of DC Comics shit because I had multiple copies of these little miniature comics featuring the retold origins of Superman, Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, etc. I was a Marvel snob even then, but I loved those little comics. I just didn't care enough about DC to actually pick up any DC comics.

It was those mini-comics that gave me the idea to make my own. So I did. I do not remember what year it was. Both the tattoos and mini-comics were sold in 1980, and 1980 was my first time living in the trailer park. But I don't know if Lee would have picked these up at the time or 2 years later. I think it was 1980... which means this was happening prior to my entry into collecting "real" comics.

I drew Hulk and Spider-Man and, I think, The Thing. I folded two sheets of 8.5x11 paper in half and made a digest comic out of them. I'm sure it was pure trash... but it laid the groundwork in my head.

THE SUMMER OF 1983: CARROT STYLE

We moved away from Standford again. We were in Somerset, possibly in one of its sub-areas like Nancy or Burnside. I can't remember. But I remember Flo's Flea Market. I lived at Flo's.

Flo was an indoor/outdoor setup. Indoor there was something truly amazing... comic books. They were a quarter each. Flo got them, apparently, from overflow from local stores. I have no idea how. But her bins were filled with multiple copies of fairly-recent comic books. If a book was on the rack in January, Flo might get multiple copies of it in Feb or March.

And a quarter wasn't so much money that I couldn't swindle a handful out of my mom. So I haunted those boxes day after day and therein I discovered one of the greatest treasures of all time: Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew!

I remember stumbling upon the Captain and thinking "WOW!". I dug through the boxes and managed to find the first issue, which I immediately bought. I carried it off, read it, and came back ASAP with more quarters. I hunted like a god damn predator through those boxes of unorganized comics until I managed to piece together the first 5 or 6 issues of CC. Happy as a pig in shit, I read them over and over.

During the following few months of summer, I scored every other issue she acquired, which brought me up to issue 16. That's it, that's all she had, and that's all I was able to get. But it was more than enough to fire up my imagination for years.

Thanks, Flo. I hope your remaining years were fruitful and pleasant.

THE SAVAGE CIMMERIAN

Time passes. We moved around a little bit more. I eventually happened upon an issue of Savage Sword of Conan at Mac's Village Pantry. It was more costly than other comics and it was black and white. But it was awesome. And it had women. Sometimes... they were naked. But also, lots of violence and muscles and monsters. It was MY JAM. I made it my mission to pick up SSOC every month from then until I was an adult.

My first SSOC, that I can remember, was issue #104 with its sweet-ass Joe Jusko cover. I drooled and drooled over that book all day and night. This was 1984.

My cousin Charlie, younger than me, had picked up a copy of Conan the Barbarian, the regular color series. I read it but was not impressed at the time. It felt like it was meant for kids. What's the "comics code" anyway? Where was the nudity? The neck-to-navel disembowelments? Nope, not for me. I snubbed it. I never once collected that book... what a silly asshole I was. I wish I had got into it.

But then again: poor. Limited funds, you know.

OF DUNGEONS AND MAYBE DRAGONS

It was about this time, the Conan time, that I got into D&D. It was by accident. Kids at school were playing it and I heard them and was observing with curiosity. I was invited to play an elf with a +1 sword. It was amazing. I did a lot of trading with this kid named David, the Dungeon Master. I gave him some of my comics, he gave me the 1981 D&D Expert book. My uncle bought me the red box at the same time. I was SET UP.

We all know that many artists working on those game books were into comics. Willingham and Dee alone were enough to make my mental connection complete. My life went on the comics/RPG path from then on.

APAS AND DIGESTS AND SMALL PRESS

I won't go into this in detail here. It's a whole other story. But by 1987-1988 I was making my own comics and publishing them with friends. This was the natural progression of what I've already told. It was the influence of my good friends in high school that set me on this path. I learned of APAs (Amateur Press Association publications) and digest comics and people who self-published. I wanted in! I got in. I created and published a few dozen comics and contributed to dozens and dozens of other folks' comics through the 90s and into the 2000s. I had a good time.

ENOUGH RAMBLING

That's about it for now. There's a lot more to say, of course. Just how did these events affect me? Which individual comic issues made the biggest impression? Who were my favorite creators? What other comics did I encounter? We all have our stories, don't we?

Love the stuff you love. Be critical of it where merited, but love it nonetheless. These are treasured memories of times long gone. They live in our hearts. I still tear up when I think of me and Danny sitting next to each other in class tracing our comic book covers. I'll never let that feeling go. 

Books for 2023?

Although I stopped making new year's resolutions decades ago and refuse to even think about committing to such nonsense, I can at least talk about the projects I have "on the burner" right now. I can at least speculate that these are the most likely candidates to be published in 2023.

Let's go!

(All details subject to radical change.)

 

1. ROCK HARDY BOOK OF DWARFS

Of all these projects, this one is closest to completion. It is written, mostly illustrated, and is ready for some layout. Problem is I wanted to do the layout myself using a proper layout tool, such as Scribus or Affinity, but that means I have to learn how. And I'm lazy.

In the end, I might ask someone else to do it for me. Maybe Matt Hildebrand will take pity and agree to do it. Who knows?

2. HEAT DEATH

This is a space RPG idea. I'm currently running it for the Monday night Doomslakers group. I'm not sure exactly what this will be in the end, but since I'm already "playtesting it", maybe this could come together pretty quickly.

3. BLACK PUDDING ADVENTURE JOURNAL

This is going to happen for sure. Peter Regan is planning a Kickstarter to print Black Pudding #7 and reprint older issues. We're planning to include a blank GM notebook as part of that project. This is the cover for it, revealed here for the first time!

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Here are some logos and images suggesting books that could be on the front burner in 2023. But it's far too soon to say for sure.

A Pan-Gea project?

Zarp comics.

Comic? I'm not sure yet.

Another space RPG idea.

Looking in the Mirror at 3 AM

Honest look in the mirror:

You have what people call natural talent. You don't work hard enough to turn it into a career, but it's good enough that most people around you are impressed.

You have impressed a few other people who are more well-connected than yourself, and that has granted you some notoriety.

You occasionally create something raw and wild enough that people notice, which contributes to your trivial successes.

You continue to meander through a creative life without direction.

State of the Universe

What is up, world?

Here in my universe things are going ok. I'm currently working on the next Gary Con GM shirt plus a bunch of commissions. I also have the GOZR text transcription going hard. I'm "working" on layouts for the Rock Hardy Book of Dwarfs, but that is kind of sidelined. Also thinking more and more about making a new comic.

What will be the next thing I finish? Only the dark gods can say.

Zaxaztar spies Zarp. The game is on!

Speaking of Zaxaztar (the "x" is pronounced like an "h")... I really like this drawing. It really is just a sketch that I colored up. But I like the energy of it. I prefer doing expressive lines and forms. I really don't like it when I get too controlled and tight. I'm not very good at it, for one thing, and I find the uniformity boring. I like a bit more chaos in my work. I should lean into that a little bit more.

Weird Tales NRA

This is really interesting. I never noticed that some issues of Weird Tales had an NRA logo. So I looked it up and I ran across this blog post where a woman had done the same thing a few years ago.

Long story short, it looks like the NRA being represented on Weird Tales is the National Recovery Administration, not the rifle people. This other NRA was an organization created during FDR's administration to help facilitate negotiations between workers and employers and to set prices and fair practices, and so forth. Ostensibly, an organization meant to mitigate the worst instincts of capitalism with relation to workers and bosses. Not exactly the kind of thing the rifle people are interested in.

This cover is from 1934. The NRA (not the gun one) was created in 1933. I don't know much more about it, I just found it very interesting. One of those "Well HUH" moments for me since I do love looking at Weird Tales covers but I never paid attention to this.

2022

Here we are in a new year! Well.. we're 3 months into it now, I suppose. I'm always a little behind the times. Anyway, what do I want to accomplish, creatively, in 2022? Let's explore this question.

I love to do a few things, generally:

1. Draw stuff. Whatever the fuck I want to draw. I hope to do this as much as possible in 2022.

2. Make shit up. The great magic of RPGs is their potential. Every game could be a million and one things. I want to make up a million and one things.

3. Publish stuff. I have been self-publishing books and zines and comics since 1988 (87??). It fills me with joy and pride to hold the finished book in my hands. I do not believe I published anything in 2021 so I'm really hoping to get some books out in 2022.

So far this year I've been mostly focused on design, writing, layout for a few books. At this time, there are at least 3 books I could finish and publish this year. GOZR (finished, just working on the publishing end), Doomslaker B/X (tons of work, mostly done), and Hellion Cross (my third Troika! book, probably 75% complete).

I have this crazy notion that not only might I publish those 3 books in 2022, I might also publish a 4th book... a pinup art book. But that's a distant possibility. I have the material, of course.

This all depends on my energy and focus. But I can tell you that GOZR is done and will be out in the world within a few weeks. The other books are largely finished, but still need a lot of work. So who knows? By next month I might be in a death metal band living in Spain. I dunno.

Intuos 4 Love Bomb

In 2009 the Intuos 4 graphics tablet was released to the masses and I got one. It was my second tablet after starting with a small Bamboo. Since 2009 I have used two tablets: the Intuos 4 and an XP-Pen Artist 16 pen display tablet. My experience with the XP-Pen is shitty. The hardware was OK but the drivers... holy shit they were terrible. Constantly crashing, freezing, losing pressure sensitivity, etc.

After using the XP-Pen for less than 6 months I said fuck this piece of shit and I dug out my trusty Intuos 4. It felt like an old friend returned to me in a time of need. This tablet is a god damn workhorse. I have used it for a solid decade to create almost every piece of art you've seen from me during that time and it shows no signs of slowing down. No dead spots that I can detect, the pen is absolutely pristine, no worries at all. I assume the buttons on the side still work but honestly I'm a keyboard guy so I don't even touch those buttons. I have my work habits and I'm a bit unwilling to change. Insert old man yells at cloud meme here.

The Intuos 4 never crashes. It works seamlessly with my ancient machine. Losing pressure sensitivity is extremely rare and seems to be more related to my drawing software than the tablet. And look at those nibs! They are all in perfect condition. Hell, I have used the same nib on this damn thing for years at a stretch. I mean... they don't really wear down, do they? If your nibs wear down maybe you're murdering your tablet?? Ease up.

Anyway. Love my tablet. I will eventually upgrade, probably when this machine finally chokes up its last gasp. But for now we're good.

TMC

Not my normal blogging topic, but this is a nice place to put shit.

I haven't found a lot of scans of the old TMC guide. For a brief time in the very early 80s we had TMC and got this monthly guide. In total, it was probably only 2 or 3 months. I remember the movie Excalibur was on TMC at the time.

I have strong memories of sitting on the couch just looking through the guide. I was fascinated by it. There are movies I have never seen before that I remember fondly just because of reading their description and seeing little thumbnail images in these books.

The time period I'm talking about included the films Excalibur, 1941, and The Postman Always Rings Twice (good viewing for a 12 year old).

State of Reality

Yo!

Man what a couple of weeks. I had to do some travel for work and while I do enjoy getting out, especially after this past year, I really wasn't ready for it. It was a stressful trip. So my past couple of weeks have been creatively barren, I'm afraid.

The worse thing about travel is people. I guess I'm more anti-social than I thought. I just wear out so fast when I have to mix it up with other people. This is one of the reasons I don't go to conventions very often. They are a mental grind for me.

Anyway, I'm back now. Maybe the fires of creation will heat up. Definitely no shortage of projects that are calling for my attention. I just don't know what sort of energy I have to give them.

New Website

You might have seen me posting on social media about the new website. Go and check out jvwest.art where you will find tons of art and links to all my RPG related junk.

I could switch to blogging on that site but I've been here a long time so I guess I'll keep using blogger. It's fine.

100% True Story

HOW DID YOU GET INTO GAMING?

It was 1984, I was 13. I had a crush on my math teacher, Mrs. Kendall. She was a short, plump woman with chubby red cheeks and an overbite. She had these delicious black rimmed glasses and wore simple dresses. But they were snug enough that her ample curves couldn't help showing through. I was 13. I noticed this shit.

Anyway. Um... one day after class I stopped to chat her up, like you do at that age. I was putting on my moves, talking about Conan comics and she clearly wasn't into it. She was rushing me. Time to leave. I got the message eventually and left the room with a cool swagger, pushing up my glasses to show solidarity.

In the hall was my buddy Sam talking to this tall dude I saw around but didn't know. His name was David and he had in his hand a thick biology book that contained no references to evolution and this other book with the fucking weirdest looking creatures on the cover I had ever seen. Title said "Monster Manual". It was some next level strange bullshit. He also had this little blue ball in his hand... like tiny. Like a toy. Kept saying it was a "20 sided die", which sounded like complete nonsense to me.

Well, turns out that book was for this weird board game without a board called Dungeons & Dragons. He was looking for some players and Sam was volunteering us to join the game. As it turns out, I remembered Mrs. Kendall one time talk about a game like this where you used numbers to represent character traits. Like you'd have a strength score or something. She seemed to think it was a useful math tool or some shit, so I was like in my head going "This could be my way in" so I was like "Yeah man, let's play."

So we did. I played a character (you make up characters) called Beano the Cheesey Wizard. David, who was the MC of the event, didn't seem to love that name but he was like "whatever, just roll for initiative". Beano was kind of a skinny, weak, silly asshole who wore a fedora and carried a big sword. Now... here's the thing about the game. Wizards couldn't use swords. David said I couldn't have a sword and I said the price list says 15 gold pieces and I have 48 so unless the shopkeeper shoots me, I'm buying a fucking sword.

I got the sword, but wasn't allowed to use it. I know, it's fucking stupid. But the rule book says I can only use a dagger, dart, or staff. I mean, in the words of Lars Ulrich, "they don't actually put anything there to stop you, like spikes"*. So I carried that fuckin' sword and made a point of threatening people with it as often as possible. But the MC was stubborn and would not let me use it. I played this up. "Beano tries to draw his sword but some invisible force stops his hand. He struggles against it... clenching teeth and pushing at the force but to no avail! Frustrated, he casts Magic Missile instead."

Beano was killed by kobolds who laid a pit trap. Poor bastard fell in, taking 6 damage... 4 more than his hit point total. Then a kobold shot him with an arrow for 6 more and he was at -10. Apparently, according to the MC, -10 is a big deal. I said "Look, I'm fine with Beano being dead. I'll roll up a dwarf named Cormac Mac Daddy. But if this shit doesn't get me to second base with Wanda Kendall I'm telling people you shave your nads."

David lit a cigarette at that point. Not uncommon back then. He was older, maybe 17. I remember Toto playing in the background when he looked at me and said "That might play well with my rep.". Someone, I think Jesse, knocked over a can of Dr. Check at that point, spilling it on the Monster Manual. Not sure what happened next, but it's not important. I did score that copy of the Manual from David later that year by trading issue 107 of Savage Sword of Conan. I didn't mind the Dr. Check stains, but it pissed me off that pages 17 and 18 were stuck together. Seriously, David? What the actual fuck.

When I relayed the story of Beano to Mrs. Kendall she smiled, nodded, and said "Ten foot pole could have found the pit trap." I believe the "ten foot" comment was a phallic suggestion, honestly. And, if I'm being straight, it kind of put me off a little. Like... what was she suggesting anyway? Feeling incredibly self-conscious, I stopped making moves on her and kept our potential affair to myself for private time. "Tow the line, love isn't always on time", right? But I still kept playing in David's D&D game. Cormac made level 3 before succumbing to a roper's grasp. His sister, Fanny Doodle Mac Daddy, inherited his +1 war hammer and lived on to see level 9.

That is the truth, I swear it. Every detail.

*He was talking about driving between the lines.

Thought Eater Returns

Good to hear from Froth over at Thought Eater blog! Welcome back.

Go check out Froth's blog because there's a lot of cool stuff to find there.