Doomslakers to Black Pudding

In 2016 I was fishing around for a zine. I knew I wanted to make one, just wasn't sure what it was going to be. One of my early ideas was Claw Claw Bite, but that title was already taken by a Pathfinder zine, I think. A few days later I settled on Black Pudding.

But before all of that, there was Doomslakers! After all, I already had the blog. I don't remember why I didn't roll with Doomslakers as the title other than maybe I didn't want it confused with the blog. I'm not sure.

But here is the original cover for the first issue of what would become Black Pudding. Of course I used this art for Black Pudding issue 2... I felt like issue 1 needed to have an actual black pudding on the cover, so I drew one.

 

Black Pudding Thoughts

The covers to all 8 existing issues of Black Pudding.

Black Pudding issue 1 was published November 28, 2016. In a little under a year, it will celebrate its 10th anniversary. And that blows my mind.

The reception of this zine in the indie RPG and OSR gaming world was very warm. It received a lot of positive reviews and excited replies of "nice work!". That sort of positive feedback made me feel very good about what I was doing. And it still does. I am not an artist who makes a living at art. I create things because I need to and because it keeps me from losing my mind. It's a compulsion to go on a journey and the feedback is part of the journey.

So, thanks for all the kind words over the years. I love hearing your stories of getting copies in the mail and I love seeing the pics of them. I love hearing about the classes and monsters in the books being using in gaming tables in places I've never been and probably will never see. It's uplifting in a way I can't express with words.

From the moment I compiled the first 4 issues of Black Pudding into a single volume, I knew there would a volume 2. But beyond that... I had no plans. Literally no plans. No plan to stop, no plan to continue.

But I love creating this zine. It allowed me to explore ideas and explore this weird world I had in my head all these many years, stretching back as far as the first time I ever played a roleplaying game.

I'm not entirely sure where things go from here. I have ideas. I've been quietly working on a standalone Black Pudding (or Doomslakers) RPG, which is loosely underpinned by the mechanics and game system of my other game GOZR. This is a departure from B/X D&D rules, but I feel strongly that it is a necessary change.

And wouldn't it be kind of cool to have a such a game finished for the 10th anniversary? Just an idea.

I'm also thinking about Black Pudding comics.

But these are topics for a later time. Thanks again!

Making Zines!

I've been making zines. Kind of obsessively. I have no idea what triggered this, and that's fine. I tend to strike while the iron is hot, or I try to. If I don't do it that way then I don't get shit done.

Zines. I've made about six of them in the past week. Mostly sketchbooks and comics. Stuff I already had lying around and decided to paste up into little books, print on my shitty old laser printer, trim with my shitty old paper cutter, and staple into zines. Maybe add some dashes from paint pens on the covers.

I've written about this before, but I consider my first encounter with the concept of a zine to be from around 1980 when I got my wee child hands on some mini-comic sized DC origins comics. I remember thinking "wow... you can make comics this small?" Later, around 1987, my friend in high school introduced me to some proper small press zines and APAs. Proper zines... 8.5x11 sheets of paper with photocopied pages folded and stapled into digest sized books. A revelation!

I created lots of them in the 90s. Traded with other zinesters. Had a grand ole time. Then the internet came along and changed literally every fucking thing in the world.

Anyway... I've been making zines again. The only real difference in my methods this past week is that I'm pasting up in Photoshop instead of with scissors and tape.

The first one I made is the 24 page Hymla the Horn sketchbook. I had just finished drawing two dozen or so drawings of this plump barbarian wench in my square sketchbook, so the drawings were all in a square format. I printed these on 8.5x11 and then just trimmed them down to their final 4x4 size.

Once I held this on in my hand I knew I had once again been bitten by the zine bug. I had to make more. After all, I have a metric ton of material lying around I can use to create these little books. Let's have some fun, then.

Next up, I created another square format book collecting various recent sketches and drawings. I called it Swim With the Fish based on a drawing of the same name. This one was also 24 pages, as were most of the ones I made this week.

Then I created one called Space Run, which is a bunch of doodles of weird space people and ships.

After that, I kept going. I made I Am a Robot... Can you guess what's in it? Oh, there's a follow-up called My Metal Head but I don't have one printed out right now to photo. Also about robots.

So the most recent one I put together I just finished a few hours ago. It's called Yria. That's that name of the implied setting of Black Pudding (explicit in issue 7). It features a 16 page comic about Zarp, my little red devil character. The idea here is that I'll do an issue now and then featuring comics that take place in this world. Fun, right? This one is a digest sized zine, larger than the others.

Yeah, so this has been a hoot. I would like to put all these up for sale on my website soon. I just need to sort out the shipping method and costs. I know you can drop a single mini comic into a standard envelope, which would be the price of a single stamp. But mailing all of these at once would cost a bit more. I'm thinking somewhere around $5, media mail, in the USA.

I'll post about it when I can. Anyone interested in getting these can keep their eyes peeled. Each copy is unique because I'm adding a bit of paint color to the cover and signing them. Plus, as is the nature of hand-made zines, each is necessarily unique because you're printing and trimming by hand. Also, my old laser printer has spotty blacks... which I kinda like. Gives it a bit of texture.

More later. If you are a zine fan, let me know about your zines or your zine collection! I love that stuff.

Thinking About Comics & Zines

A lot of folks know me pretty well as a TTRPG guy, specifically for Black Pudding zine, The Pool, and maybe GOZR. But I was a comics guy before that. I did small press comics from 1988 through pretty much the early 2000s. Then I switched to doing digital comics until around 2012 when I shifted gears into doing RPG stuff all the time.

I have a habit of compartmentalizing my life. So the era when small press comics was my whole world has been neatly packed away (actually not very neatly, I'm not a good archiver). That era, mostly the 90s, was great fun and I still know a lot of folks who I met during that time. Mostly through the mail via small press co-ops like Small Press Syndicate and United Fanzine Organization or through zine and comics review rags like Factsheet 5, Poopsheet, and others I can't quite remember.

At some point I hope to drag out all my old zines, including the ones I made, and make a series of posts about them. Maybe a new feature on my blog where I yank out a handful of random zines and talk about them on a weekly schedule or something. That sounds like a fun thing to do.

Anyone reading this who is into zines and small press comics, comment and let me know. I don't feel as connected to that scene as I used to be. I'd like to reconnect, especially now that I'm making more comics than I have in a very long time.

Doomslakers Zine

Just before I started creating the Black Pudding zine, I fiddled with different names and ideas for the project. One was Claw, Claw Bite!, which I love. But there was already a zine by that name (I think it was Pathfinder-based, if I remember correctly). I thought I went straight to Black Pudding after that, but then I just discovered a hidden, dusty folder from 2016 called "Doomslakers Zine". Had a couple of files in it, including this cover concept.

Of course, this art was used for Black Pudding #2. But I guess I had the idea to call it Doomslakers first. Not sure why I didn't go with that, since it would have aligned nicely with this blog. But I guess I always felt like the name "Doomslakers" wasn't epic enough. I think it's a grand ole name, and kind of funny. But that's just me.

Black Pudding 8

Black Pudding #8 is now live on DTRPG and itch.io!

This moist issue features new classes (death witch, feral knight, goon royal, among others), spells, magic swords, adventures, and weirdo monsters such as the troglozyte. Glorp your copy today!

Hymla the Horn vs. the Eye Am cult

PDF available now. Stay tuned for announcements about print copies, once those details are decided.
 

Witzend

I only know about Wally Wood's Witzend zine by way of seeing Vaughn Bodé's cover for issue #7, pictured below in all its violent glory. I have never see a Witzend in the wild nor held one in my hand. This post is just going to be me learning about this zine and sharing the knowledge for posterity. Mostly my own.

Vaughn was nothing if not subtle.

Wally Wood launched the comic in the summer of 1966 as a way to give his artist friends and upcoming artists a way to showcase their own work, owned by them, by their own hands. This is important because back then the major comics publishers owned the absolute FUCK out of everything the artists did. If you wrote a comic or drew it or lettered it and it was published by Marvel or DC then it was Marvel or DC who owned that work, top to bottom. Creators were paid labor, period. So things like Witzend attempted to change that dynamic.

Here's a nice write-up about the zine by Charlie Meyerson, I believe from Grimjack.

Limited-edition comics publications until then had almost all been projects by fans, interested mainly in writing about or drawing characters owned by Marvel, DC or out-of-business publishers. Witzend was one of the first efforts by professionals to publish their own work, featuring characters they created and owned.

Publicized mostly through those other limited-edition magazines, the first issue of Witzend came out in the summer of 1966. It featured work by Wood, and a collaboration by Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta. “Most contributors got nothing except their work in print,” Pearson says. “It was very important for them to get their copyright on the material. Look back at those issues: our copyright notes were in 18-point type. We wanted to be sure everyone would see them … because at the time there was none of this ‘sharing the rights with the creators.’ It was a real breakthrough.”

Looks like Pearson continued to publish Witzend after Wood sold it to him for $1.00. They published 13 issues over 19 years (sounds like MY kind of pace). There's a lovely looking hardback collection you can snag if you're willing to drop a couple hundred bucks.

I love that this ad tells you to remember to put your zip code on the order!

Ultimately: I want all 13 original issues. Currently I own zero. Given the prices and conditions of these rare books, it is unlikely I will ever have them all. But that's ok. Gives me something to look forward to, right?

Layout Noodle

I come from a small press comics background, a DIY ethos. "Back in the day" we would draw our comics and then photocopy them, paste them (with glue) onto "flats", then photocopy the flats and collate and staple them into zines. It was a 100% manual process. I still have old yellowed flats in boxes in storage for comics I published in the mid 90s. (I need to do some house cleaning)

Fast forward to the digital age. In the 2000s I mostly published my stuff online. I did some print zines, such as Random Order Comics & Games, and I attended the Small Press and Comics Expo (SPACE) a few times to sell them. But I was mostly online, not in print.

In the early 2000s I experimented with digital layout. I played with Word, InDesign, and Dreamweaver. I used an early version of InDesign to layout my game The Questing Beast.

When I got back into RPG publishing in 2014 or so, I partnered with my friend Matt Hildebrand who has handled almost all of my layouts since then. I don't know what magic Matt uses but I don't question it. From the Umerican Survival Guide to Wormskin to virtually everything Goodman Games publishes, Matt's layout skills are on display everywhere.

The exception was with a few projects such as Black Pudding. That zine is laid out "traditionally" in the sense that I'm literally shoving raster images all over a canvas. I'm just doing it digitally rather than with photocopies. The layout process is manual. And fun.

Currently I'm in the mood to learn how to use modern layout tools again. I own Affinity Publisher and I've been playing around with it, getting my toes wet. I did an 8 page layout that is so damn ugly I won't show it to my worst enemies. I will burn it with fire. But it was instrumental in teaching me how to get started and some things to avoid... like stroke lines on inserted text boxes. Ugh.

Stay tuned for more of this riveting material. Next up I want to articulate my thoughts on the current trend of super high quality slick DIY RPG books vs. low key simple DIY RPG books.

Review: Black Pudding #5

Here's a nice review of Black Pudding #5 by Matthew Pook. Thanks, Pookie!

Has it been THAT LONG since #5? There's a #6 out there too and I'm "working on" #7. Each issue is taking longer to produce because my interests are drifting elsewhere. But I still love the zine and have no intention of putting it to rest yet.

Mangrel

Here's a drawing I did for Phantasmagoria #3... the menacing mangrel will mangle your head!

Here's a rejected alternate version with darker background. I kinda like it... but maybe its too many lines.

I Am On Sunday Zine Club

As promised, here I am on Jeremy "Frosthof" Smith's podcast for the Sunday Zine Club. I have not listened and I am not sure if I can listen. Not yet. I'm weird about my voice. I guess we all are.

Please let me know if I sound like a complete dumbass.

Thought Eater

Jeremy "Frothsof" Smith is a podcaster and absolute RPG nut. He loves gaming, has a passion for talking about gaming, and is, by all measures, a great person. I had a great time going on his podcast to record for this Sunday's Sunday Zine Club. The episode isn't up yet as it isn't Sunday, so I'll post a link tomorrow.

I wanted to post this and acknowledge that Jeremy took a stand on the right side of the argument in the recent Bob Bledsaw II discussion. That's not always easy to do when your audience contains at least some people who are either a) in agreement with assholes or b) want to "keep politics out of gaming". Jeremy stated his opinion and stood by it. Good on him.

On a lighter note, I love that Jeremy's podcast exists because it's a really nice way for me to get the aggregate of cool shit that's happening in gaming while I'm on my way to work! I can take mental notes and remember to go to his blog later and click the links I heard him talking about. Good stuff.

Prowess AC

From the pages of Black Pudding #6, here is a house rule about armor class.

Prowess AC is an idea that I think would serve any sword and sorcery campaign well. If you're doing a high magic game, probably not so much. I'd also strongly encourage allowing PCs to improve their ability scores over time and/or having a more generous stat generation method than 3d6.

For those who might complain that this is unrealistic because of real world combat, all I can say is keep doing you and I'll keep doing me. Peace out.

But seriously, feedback is always appreciated on these little house rules as I don't always have the opportunity to test them out.

Underground Down Below

The biggest feature of the new Black Pudding is the 8-page adventure based on Evlyn Moreau's stunning little map shown below. In the same way I created Vault of the Whisperer in Black Pudding #2 based on a map by Karl Stjernberg, I created Underground Down Below based on Evlyn's map. I hope someone gets to play it and have a good time.

Beastfriend Class

From the pages of Black Pudding #6, here's a class that I think might actually engender peaceful solutions to conflicts. Certainly if I was playing this class I'd be trying to avoid battles. Now, that's not in any way an argument against fighting in RPGs. I love a good combat. But there are a million ways to game and killing shit is just one of them, right?

Black Pudding #6 is Alive!

I just dropped the new issue of Black Pudding on an unsuspecting population.

It's free to download if you want. Drop me a few bucks if you can and if you dig the work.

I will post about the print version at a later time.

What is that sme...OH CRAP!

ASIDE: I know it's Zine Quest month. And that's weird because I didn't time this for that reason at all. Everyone who knows me knows I named my imprint "random order" because that's kind of how I create things. Randomly.

An RPG Folder Named Destiny

A continuation of this series wherein I examine the contents of my RPG folders and sort that shit out.

Dungeon Gits is a "very small" RPG by Scott Malthouse. You get what's on the tin with this one. It's very very small. I read the rules today for the first time (that I remember) in like less than 1 turn*. And it's great! It's a simple 2d6 + mods vs. target system with an open ended class and knack setup. You can whip up a character in... (pauses to go whip up a character, start to finish, setting timer...)

*If you don't know how long a turn is you need to turn in your old school license to drive**.

**I kid. No such gatekeeping shall be rendered here.

Yep, it took me 3 minutes and 15 seconds to create Dilhawl the Fisher Fish. Well over half of that time was spent buying gear.

One question I had was about a rule on page 4 that says "you can only use weapons or armour with a bonus equal to your Bashing attribute". In my mind that should be "equal to or less than". Otherwise my dear Dilhawl can't use a dagger... one of the only weapons he could afford to buy. Am I mis-reading that?

I could dice with this game. And it's creative commons, so you can take this little bad boy and reskin, remix, hack, supplement, and tear it up all day long. Just give Scott credit. Here's a review of the game, which is probably longer than the game itself.

Cool art, maybe public domain? There's no attribution. At first I though this one was Erol friggin' Otus.

O Povo do Buraco #1 is a Brazilian zine written for Lamentations of the Flame Princess. Carlos Silva and Tertoleone give us words while Diego Santos gives us pictures. The pictures are really cool, very comic book in style. The writing seems fine but the English is a little uneven. Not a big deal, as long as you know up front that this was probably originally Portuguese and has been translated.

This bit is on page one, wherein the author describes The Hole, a wretched place of vile cultish activity:

"cruelties that none of these soft-heart millennials would dare to imagine in their deepest darkest nightmares"

 Which is kind of a weird thing to write in an RPG book unless you actually want to alienate the youngest portion of your potential audience. But hey, LotFP is a game-ethos that attracts shock-value creators. I mean, if  you're into both fantasy and something like grindhouse or slasher flicks or the like then this is probably a good fit.

Anyway, the zine seems to be describing a village that has become the hub for a drug ring. The drug is in the Vatapá, which is a kind of shrimp-bread-peanut mush. Very interesting. If I was gonna run or play this I'd want someone to make that dish and bring it to the table in exchange for like 6 re-rolls or something. Neat.

Black Pudding Heavy Helping Vol. One... Still Alive!

Never hurts to promote your work now and then...

Black Pudding Heavy Helping Vol. One is a re-organized, slightly re-mixed hardcover collection of the first four issues of my OSR-style RPG gaming zine Black Pudding. It's heavy on style and cartoony fantasy art with plenty of game-ready stuff like character classes, monsters, spellbooks, and ready-to-roll dungeons!

Luchadors!
Catgirls!
Hoard Horrors!
Whispering Vaults!
Sinewy Barbarians!
A Goblin!

With some nice contributions here-and-there from people such as Matt Hildebrand, Karl Stjernberg, Jayne Praxis, and Ed Heil!

The hardback book is a mere pittance at $18 and if you're cheap or you don't do paper then you can get a PDF for a trifle $6. You cannot fail in this adventure. But if you do, there's a random table to find out what the monster does with your ruined corpse.

Get yours while supplies last!

Front cover

Back cover

Srükárum

Here is Srükárum, servant of Sárku and lord of the Legion of the Despairing Dead... for James Maliszewski's Tékumel zine, The Excellent Traveling Volume #11, which is due out very soon.

I am not an aficionado of Tékumel. I never even heard of it until around 2012 or so. But I do remember seeing ads and/or mentions of Empire of the Pedal Throne, probably in old issues of Dragon Magazine. Here I wanted to keep with the sort of bat creature theme from the Book of Ebon Bindings. The text describes horrible fumes and smells so you can see that coming out of the nostrils and the mouth of the prince himself. And yes those are sacrifices tied together in the summoning squares, per the explicit details of the ritual from the Book of Ebon Bindings. Now you can summon demons too!

Reviews from R'lyeh: Black Pudding #4

Pookie over in the UK has kindlyreviewed another issue of Black Pudding. It's always a real treat to hear how other people view my work. I'm always a little surprised by bits of it. For example, Matthew Pook always comments on how my art is cartoonish. And it totally is! I just don't always notice it myself, to be honest. Even when I try to draw detailed, realistic things they apparently look very cartoonish.

I'm a cartoonist!

Anyway, thanks for the cool review, Pookie.