When I was a kid we used to do the flea market and auction circuit and my stepdad would get all kinds of odd items. At some point he got a few boxes of Leaf Comicbook Candy and I captured some of them. I still have 6 of the 8 different secret origins books. I'm not a DC fan but these are super cool minis.
I guess I first spotted Suydam in Heavy Metal. But I can't be sure. It might have been one of his Aliens paintings from the 90s. I was a huge fan of both the movies but had zero interest in the comics so I ignored them.
When I saw Suydam's expressive, Frazetta-esque work I was stunned and fell in love. But like I tend to do with most of my artist crushes, I didn't dive too deep. I don't think I have ever read a comic by Arthur Suydam. I hope to rectify that by picking up the Cholly and Flytrap collection soon.
Speaking of... I did a little reading and found a couple of posts about these comics. This one was really interesting. Seems that Suydam's original run had a gay couple but in later reprints he inserted language to say the boy in the couple was actually a girl... so not gay? I'm not sure what's up with that. This article doesn't have any details about the whys, just the whats. Is Suydam a homophobe? That would be odd since he is the one who did the originals and only changed them much later. Maybe there was some other reason. I dunno.
Also... it seems Suydam later turned to doing basically Photoshop filtered art and ripping people off? And he is apparently an immense asshole to fans. Damn, dude. Check out the stunning portfolio work I'm picturing below. And then this bullshit right here? Never meet your heroes, they say. (Don't worry, I'm a blameless saint)
Anyhow... while digging through my storage building I found a collection of art portfolios that I had all but forgotten. One of them was Mysterious World by Suydam. It's a portfolio of 7 lovely black and white prints and it's gorgeous.
I also have this nice collection of Suydam art.
This is probably the oldest piece of art I have. I can tell by the way I signed it that this was the 80s. I remember drawing this in my swivel chair in my room with my drawing board in my lap. I was SUPER pumped about it. This was the best thing I had ever done up to that point. I was probably 16.
The character in front is Crolton, one of the demigods of my old D&D campaign. The character was created by a friend in junior high. After he stopped playing I just kept the PCs and developed the world on my own.
I can't remember who his girlfriend is. She had a name... but damn it's been ages.
I haven't read this entire issue of Conan. In fact, I'm a Savage Sword man so I pretty much turned my nose up at the color Conan comics. Those were for kids! They were rated PG.
It's funny though. Here Conan is in a bar being hit on by a hottie that "works here". They do everything they can to skirt around the fact that she's a prostitute and that they are going to get it on. Instead, they go somewhere to "talk". lol
Whose idea was it to make Conan fit into a line of books sold to kids anyway? I mean... I'm not complaining. Some nice covers came out of it. And probably some cool stories too. I wouldn't know. I was busy reading Savage Sword of Conan where there was boobs and shit.
It's been a mixed bag for a while. My interests have wandered. I'm like the dude in the boyfriend meme. By my side is RPGs, but my neck is craning and I'm totes checking out the curves on comics. Of course there's no reason my two great loves can't be slammed together.
I have noodled several new RPG concepts. Of course I've been working on GOZR for months, off and on. That will eventually come to light but it's such a visual experiment and the details change as I develop the game I just don't feel comfortable sharing too much right now. I think I have about 18 pages "completed". They are hand-lettered and loaded with art and I think it will be at least a very interesting RPG artifact for the discerning collector. And, hopefully, a fun game to play!
Mask Ragers is another idea that's been on my mind. You might have seen me posting a bunch of masked cartoon characters on Insta or FB or wherever fine posts are posted. Not sure what this project will end up being. I conceived it as a quick and dirty RPG that could be done in 24 pages. We'll see.
Suddenly and without warning I think I have my third Troika! book in the works. I did not plan it, I did not even realize it was happening. But Bombemoth - a swamp setting - has been conceived and I already have about 13 of 36 backgrounds written up for the thing. It is definitely part of the Supercalla Cozmos lineage, so it will fit in snuggly with Supercalla and Cozmic Metal Heads.
It's a "mature" blog (because nekkid drawings). So if you're cool with that, then pop over and check it out. If enough people show some interest I will do some books and/or some prints.
In fact, those of you who like the blog's content please let me know either by posting comments or maybe by hitting me up on Instagram or wherever you find me online. I'm not really hard to find. I'm just another goofy bastard doing what I love.
My wife got me this for the ole birthday and I love it.
If you like Bodé, you'll fucking love this.
So, for personal context, a lot of people compare my art to Bodé. I am a huge fan. But honestly I didn't discover Vaughn or Mark's work until I was 30 years old. And yes, you can certainly see a shift in how I draw before this and after it. I turned 30 in 2000 and it was around 2002-2003 that my cartoon art style really started to gel. Before that I was a stiffer, more boring artist, I believe. Hell, I'm not even sure how I drew shit in the 90s.
But let's peel it back a little more because Bodé's style had an impact on me BEFORE that time. How? Because Vaughn's work had already infiltrated pop culture, which infiltrated me. I watched Ralph Bakshi's Wizards when I was about 17. I watched Fire and Ice around that time, and Heavy Metal. I had issues of Heavy Metal. I owned Richard Corben comics. I was into Mike Ploog and Frank Frazetta. Vaughn Bodé is a large figure in that same lineage, though I wasn't able to land on him until a decade later. His influence was in me via Wizards, which of course was immensely influenced by Bodé.
We artists don't like being compared to other artists too closely. It feels weird. I don't "draw like Vaughn Bodé", I draw like J.V. West. And J.V. West was inspired by Bodé, Frazetta, Corben, and Willingham like a bomb.
Today when people say my work reminds them of Vaughn Bodé I am humbled. I can't think of a better compliment, to be honest.
Way back in the stone age days of G+, there was this weird game that fermented and grew in my peripheral view called Troika!. I ignored it. Not because it didn't look cool or whatever, it's just that it wasn't D&D and wasn't interesting to me at that time. The guy who made it, Daniel Sell, was also a peripheral figure in my view. I had read and been greatly inspired by Daniel's blog post "How to be an adventurer" on his blog What Would Conan Do. But my brain didn't connect those dots at the time.
The game was also associated with Jeremy Duncan, another figure looming in the periphery of my brain but who I just didn't know much about. Turns out he drew most of the original weird art for it.
Soon Troika! seemed to be the talk of the town. There was a Kickstarter. There was something about a "Numinous" edition. G+ died somewhere in that time zone and I'm honestly not sure which event came first. At some point I finally got a copy of the game and read it and was quite inspired. It's a damn fine game, and I'm going to talk a little bit about it here.
THE GAME
Troika! is a hack of Advanced Fighting Fantasy, a popular British RPG that originated as a choose-your-own kind of adventure book series. I'm not sure the author likes referring to it that way or not as I'm not terribly involved (like... not at all) in Troika! comings-and-goings. In a guest post at the blog Thoul's Paradise, Daniel said this:
"Troika is the inevitable hospice of a tired mind."
And this:
"It was built as a strongly worded objection to the vogue of transparency and usefulness. It still holds immediacy, since anyone can play the game in a matter of hours if they want. They just need to go limp and enjoy a state of comfortable confusion. The book doesn’t need to tell people that it expects them to decide what is happening for themselves since it offers few answers and the answers present are contradictory."
So it seems the author is not a fan of clarifying the intent of his game. Not only do I respect this, I admire it.
The game is a bit like this:
You have a Skill score and some Advanced Skills that represent what you are good at or about.
There are two types of rolls.
Roll Under means roll 2d6, trying to get under your Skill + Advanced Skill.
Roll Vs. means rolling 2d6 + Skill + Advanced Skill vs. an opposing similar roll, probably made by the GM.
For combat, you have Stamina. This functions like hit points. When it runs out you are dead.
Initiative in combat is determined by pulling stones from a sack or cards from a deck or something similar. I used the Troika! initiative cards, which I highly recommend. You put x number of cards in the stack for enemies and each PC gets 2 cards. You draw out a card and that person goes next. There is an end of round card that is mixed in as well.
There is a Luck score. You can spend Luck only for a couple of benefits, including extra damage on a hit. You can also make Roll Under Luck rolls, which are kind of like D&D's saving throws. So, as in DCC RPG, when you spend Luck you run the risk of being out of Luck when you have to make that fateful Roll Under Luck test.
Over time, you get to roll 2d6 vs. your various Advanced Skills, trying to roll OVER them. If you do, you get to improve them by 1. This is how you advance and learn new skills. But advancement isn't a big concern with this game. I don't think the game is meant to play in "campaign mode".
Casting spells costs Stamina points. Your wizard will become quite weak and fatigued if you try to blast everything around you all the time like Tim the Enchanter.
For character creation, you roll on a d66 table (36 results) to see which background you get. Each background is like a little evocative description of a character at one place in time. You get a little flavor text, some skills, and some items. From there you can mold the character in any way you wish. The backgrounds ARE the setting for Troika!.
Ok, that's pretty much it.
THINGS I LOVE
d66 tables: Love 'em. I've adopted their use in other projects I've been working on. While Troika! is not the first time I saw a d66 table, it is definitely the game that made them loom large in my mind. I also started using d44 and d88 tables as well.
Backgrounds: Love 'em. So much flavor and world-building can be stuffed into these simple little portraits. You can, and should, write d66 background tables AS SETTINGS. I've written two of them myself. It's god damn fun.
Damage tables: Love 'em. They allow you to have a pretty wide variety of weapon damage only using 1d6 per damage roll. It's a nice visual artifact too. You could add a secondary 1d6 table to your weapon for weird FX. Like if it's a strange esoteric device maybe it sometimes zaps, sometimes burns, sometimes freezes. Interesting idea. See how this game inspires?
Inventory system: Love it. I am absolutely stealing it for my own games from now on. If you want that hand grenade handy, put it at the top of your list.
Spells: Love 'em. Very simple and direct. We don't need to know about how many cubic meters a wizard can burn. We just need the broad strokes.
Monsters' miens: Love it. Like a mini reaction roll table tailored to each critter.
Initiative stack: Love it. Quick and dirty and doesn't get in the way. Initiative systems always irritate me because they slow things down. This one does not slow things down. But see below.
The actual physical book: AWESOME. If you don't have a copy of the hardback Numinous Edition, GET IT. Lovely little tome that feels good in your hands and has delicious art by Jeremy Duncan, Dirk Detweiler Leichty, Sam Mameli, and Andrew Walter.
Initiative stack: I LOVE the concept and it plays fast. But it has mixed results. It can lead to long stretches where one player is unable to act at all. Which leads to kind of ridiculous results... Mid-combat, you are literally in the face of the enemy but somehow 4 other PCs and 6 other enemies take actions before you. I know this is a GM fiat thing. In that situation, the GM should just let the player go next. But that means ignoring the initiative rules, which invites the question "is this a good system or does it need work?". Players in my Troika! adventures seemed to be on the fence about it.
Skill and Advanced Skill: The language is clumsy. It's straight from Fighting Fantasy, I believe, so this is carried over. But it would be easier in play if it was something like Level and Skills or Power and Skills. Skill and Skills = a bit of confusion.
Roll Under/Over: Similar to Skill/Advanced Skill, the fact that your core mechanics require you to roll under for some things and over for others is confusing at the table. It is very simple and easy to grok, I know. And it damn sure works. But over the years I've been running games this problem has always reared its head whether it's old school D&D or Troika!. Players who aren't familiar with the game and who probably won't school themselves on it will ALWAYS ask "Do I roll high or roll low on this one?". And it is annoying to have to answer it over and over. So I prefer game designs that don't mix and match these mechanics.
OVERALL
I love the shit out of Troika!. It's a solid, fun game that plays fast and loose. It is endlessly hackable and inspiring. I'm all about inspiration, so I tend to gush about this game. It captured my imagination in a way that very few games ever could. So far I have published two books based on the game and plan to do more.
This is my first doodle of a GOZR character sheet. The game keeps evolving as I write/draw it. Right now it is as simple as it's been so far and I like where it is heading. But I'm gonna need a separate character sheet for wizards...
