LAST EDIT : 2024/01/27
In 1981/82, TSR, to promote D&D, published in comics a strip of cartoon-shaped ads. It depicted the adventures of Saren the cleric, Indel the rogue, Valerius the warrior and Grimslade the mage at Zenopus castle...
I am very grateful to Das Übernerd's post that made me discover these ads.
I am also very interested in the concept of the story being an endless loop as it was suggested in his post's comments
The first page's artist is unknown. When I wrote this post a decade ago I somehow had the information that this page might have been drawn by Keenan Powell, who is credited for her arts in early D&D rule books and extensions. But 10 years later, I can't find out where I got this info. I know I tried to reach her years ago but without success.
Thanks to Steve Sullivan who left comments here few weeks ago and with whom we exchanged by email, I had been contacted by Dagmar Simoneit Knorr who was Senior Art director at TSR advertising dpt. According to her memories, this very first page was given to Ray Cioni Productions to be done. Ray Cioni was mostly working with artist Kurt Mitchell at this time. (They were given the cover page of Dragon Magazine n°43 - nov. 1980 for instance)
Trying to get confirmation and more info from Ray Cioni productions, I found out that Kurt Mitchell sadly passed away in summer 2020 and decided to contact Ray Cioni directly. I got a reply from his wife Sally that announced me that Ray passed away on january 2021. Nevertheless, she kindly got me in touch with an ex-colleague of Ray. But as he only worked at Ray Cioni Productions from 1984, he couldn't be of much help regarding this particular matter.
End of investigation.
The second page was drawn by Jeff Dee and all the other ones by Bill Willingham while Stephen D. Sullivan was in charge of the script. I let you, reader, have a look at both Bill's interview (at the end of this post) and the comments left by Steve to have a great insight on how these artists took over the rest of the story. :)
You can find funny and very inspired frame-by-frame analysis by Christopher B of the 4 first pages at his "A Rust Monster Ate My Sword" blog. Enjoy ! ;)
It appears, as pointed out by grodog on grognardia blog, that the characters Grimslade and Valerius are taken -or at least very inspired- by TSR staff ones used in Lake Geneva campaigns as listed in The Rogues Gallery (TSR 9031, 1980). Grimslade being the character of Harold Johnson, who was manager of production at TSR during this period when Valerius being the creation of Erol Otus, artist and game designer.
Here are the description of our two protagonists as found in the module :
Concerning Saren, who appears on page 2, Stephen D. Sullivan confirmed in comments below that this character is his own creation as the story was missing both a cleric and a woman.
Now, a question remains : Is Indel an exclusive creation for these ads or is he also mentioned in some TSR module ?
Then I somehow managed to get another cartoon ad for D&D, relating adventures of Auric, Tirra and the wizard Khellek in the Dungeon of Roakire. (Also by Bill Willingham)
It s dated 1981.
My first bet, checking the TSR "reply-coupon" (not sure of translation here... :P) which doesn't include the UK address, was it started to be published before summer '81 as well as first 2 ads from the Zenopus series.
I did some digging, and in fact these ads ran from october '81 to april '82 in magazines like Dragon or Epic illustrated...
This is a 4 pages strip :
Thanks to Icarus who left a comment below, it appears our 3 heroes are NPC in the Age of Worms adventure path, a 12 parts D&D campaign monthly published in Dungeon Magazine. (#124-135)
Here is a little montage with their stats for an insight as found in Age of Worms Overload (add-on to the 12 adventures by Paizo) :
The NPC are lvl 5 at the beginning of the campaign but you can check their stats at lvl 10 in Dungeon #128.
And, icing on the cake, it also exists a third set !
This one has a title : Quest through the Savage Country
Dated 1982 (released from june), it is featuring a ranger named Rory Gallan and Shadrak the gnome rogue being recruited to help Khellek, the wizard from Roakire series.
It is obviously the sequel of the precedent story.
It was meant to be 6 pages strip but story ends in midstream as the following pages were never drawn according to Bill Willingham in his interview (cf end of this post) by Dirk Deppey.
Here s how it starts :
Any further infos about these ads or any other I am not aware of would be greatly welcomed !
Some Ressources :
- Bill Willingham in Drawing me Out : Ep. 7 : The TSR Comic Ads (YouTube video), Apr. 2020
- Stephen D. Sullivan's Original Dungeons & Dragons Comics: The Marvel Ads' Origin (YouTube video), Apr. 2023
- Bill Willingham interview by Dirk Deppey - The Comics Journal #278, Oct. 2006 (extracts) :
DEPPEY: Generally, when most people think of your work at
TSR, unless they were there buying the modules at the time, most people
that I know associate you with the ads that appeared in Marvel. In fact,
in that comics interview that you did for David Anthony Kraft, they ran
a random Marvel Dungeons & Dragons ad and, if I remember correctly, it wasn’t even your artwork. You weren’t the first person to draw those, correct?
WILLINGHAM: No. Myself and a fellow named Jeff Dee were the two artists in the art department that were very into comics. We’d even gotten to the point of getting a meeting with Gary Gygax to try and convince him to start a line of comics, TSR-published comics. He gave that idea to the Dragon magazine person, who just hated comics and everything about them and who said he looked into it and it’s not viable. So we were kind of disappointed that we’re both frustrated comic artists working at TSR. And TSR’s ad department, which is completely separate from the art department, did a deal with Marvel Comics to run ads in the comics and they did this little comic-strip ad. They hired some outside person to do the first one, who knew nothing, turned in this wretched first episode or whatever you call it.
DEPPEY: Yeah, it was ugly.
WILLINGHAM: And yeah, Jeff saw that before I did and went storming to the other building, pointing out, panel by panel, everything that was wrong with how they did what they did. And rather than fire him, they said, “Well, that all makes sense. Why don’t you do it from now on?” He did the second one and did a wonderful job and then — I cannot recall why — either he got bored with it or decided not to do it. I took it over with the third one, attempting to draw like Jeff Dee, who’s a terrific artist, whereas at the time I was anything but. And I think the results are pretty obvious for anyone who looks at that stuff now.
DEPPEY: Somebody posted all of the Marvel Comics ads on your message board, and I got a chance to look through it, and you could actually see your style improving from ad to ad.
WILLINGHAM: Oh really? I can’t.
DEPPEY: Really?
WILLINGHAM: All of that stuff just… I can barely look at it, it’s so embarrassing to me.
DEPPEY: The story stopped in midstream; was that because the ad department had done something or was that because you had left TSR?
WILLINGHAM: No, actually, I left TSR before those stories ended, and they kept… Steve Sullivan was writing those things, I was drawing them… and they kept us both on on a freelance basis to continue doing them, but at some point, we’d finished up one little storyline and were just starting another, and someone in some other department or whatever had decided, “You know, maybe running comic-strip ads in a comic book is not the way to go.” Which I agree with, by the way. You want your ad to stand out. It’s like, if you run comic-strip ads in a magazine that isn’t comics, it’ll grab your attention, but why see a commercial that’s just more of what you’re reading anyway?
There were a lot of restrictions. TSR was getting very weary about the bad publicity it’d been getting. Remember when James Dallas Egbert disappeared in the sewers at some point, allegedly playing Dungeons & Dragons, and all that?
DEPPEY: Yeah, and somebody did a very bad after-school movie on it.
WILLINGHAM: Yeah, Mazes and Monsters with Tom Hanks. TSR was getting a lot of bad publicity then, even though it turns out he didn’t disappear in the sewers playing D&D, that he had decided to hitchhike to Texas to see his dad. His parents were divorced. But, you know, that’s not a sexy story. Any case, TSR was very worried about, you know, “We don’t want to get a bad rap.” Some of the religious groups were saying this was promoting magic and demonics, so there was a lot of rules. We have this group going to the dungeons: Don’t ever show them actually killing anything; don’t ever show a cleric doing anything because that will get the religious people upset; don’t show them grabbing gold because we don’t want to promote greed. [Deppey laughs.] Very sort of silly, silly rules. So if you’ll go back and notice, a lot of the comic strips are… you know, they’re wandering through the dungeons, some animal leaps out at them and then that’s the cliffhanger ending. Then the next strip will pick up later, after they slay the jackalwere, or that type of thing. We showed a lot of what happens between all the interesting things happening. But at some point, I think someone in the ad department just decided, “This isn’t going anywhere, we’re gonna try a different tack,” and canceled it mid-story.
WILLINGHAM: No. Myself and a fellow named Jeff Dee were the two artists in the art department that were very into comics. We’d even gotten to the point of getting a meeting with Gary Gygax to try and convince him to start a line of comics, TSR-published comics. He gave that idea to the Dragon magazine person, who just hated comics and everything about them and who said he looked into it and it’s not viable. So we were kind of disappointed that we’re both frustrated comic artists working at TSR. And TSR’s ad department, which is completely separate from the art department, did a deal with Marvel Comics to run ads in the comics and they did this little comic-strip ad. They hired some outside person to do the first one, who knew nothing, turned in this wretched first episode or whatever you call it.
DEPPEY: Yeah, it was ugly.
WILLINGHAM: And yeah, Jeff saw that before I did and went storming to the other building, pointing out, panel by panel, everything that was wrong with how they did what they did. And rather than fire him, they said, “Well, that all makes sense. Why don’t you do it from now on?” He did the second one and did a wonderful job and then — I cannot recall why — either he got bored with it or decided not to do it. I took it over with the third one, attempting to draw like Jeff Dee, who’s a terrific artist, whereas at the time I was anything but. And I think the results are pretty obvious for anyone who looks at that stuff now.
DEPPEY: Somebody posted all of the Marvel Comics ads on your message board, and I got a chance to look through it, and you could actually see your style improving from ad to ad.
WILLINGHAM: Oh really? I can’t.
DEPPEY: Really?
WILLINGHAM: All of that stuff just… I can barely look at it, it’s so embarrassing to me.
DEPPEY: The story stopped in midstream; was that because the ad department had done something or was that because you had left TSR?
WILLINGHAM: No, actually, I left TSR before those stories ended, and they kept… Steve Sullivan was writing those things, I was drawing them… and they kept us both on on a freelance basis to continue doing them, but at some point, we’d finished up one little storyline and were just starting another, and someone in some other department or whatever had decided, “You know, maybe running comic-strip ads in a comic book is not the way to go.” Which I agree with, by the way. You want your ad to stand out. It’s like, if you run comic-strip ads in a magazine that isn’t comics, it’ll grab your attention, but why see a commercial that’s just more of what you’re reading anyway?
There were a lot of restrictions. TSR was getting very weary about the bad publicity it’d been getting. Remember when James Dallas Egbert disappeared in the sewers at some point, allegedly playing Dungeons & Dragons, and all that?
DEPPEY: Yeah, and somebody did a very bad after-school movie on it.
WILLINGHAM: Yeah, Mazes and Monsters with Tom Hanks. TSR was getting a lot of bad publicity then, even though it turns out he didn’t disappear in the sewers playing D&D, that he had decided to hitchhike to Texas to see his dad. His parents were divorced. But, you know, that’s not a sexy story. Any case, TSR was very worried about, you know, “We don’t want to get a bad rap.” Some of the religious groups were saying this was promoting magic and demonics, so there was a lot of rules. We have this group going to the dungeons: Don’t ever show them actually killing anything; don’t ever show a cleric doing anything because that will get the religious people upset; don’t show them grabbing gold because we don’t want to promote greed. [Deppey laughs.] Very sort of silly, silly rules. So if you’ll go back and notice, a lot of the comic strips are… you know, they’re wandering through the dungeons, some animal leaps out at them and then that’s the cliffhanger ending. Then the next strip will pick up later, after they slay the jackalwere, or that type of thing. We showed a lot of what happens between all the interesting things happening. But at some point, I think someone in the ad department just decided, “This isn’t going anywhere, we’re gonna try a different tack,” and canceled it mid-story.
I used to love reading these adds, back in the day, and always wondered why they were never collected into a comic.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment !
ReplyDeleteGlad this post found some reader ! :)
I am still looking for other D&D cartoon ads, if ya remember having read any other one, dun hesitate to tell me. (I tried to find the following pages of the last sequel but without any result yet...)
There were just these 8 newsstand ads (Marvel & DC) and then the 6 (IIRC) that Bill did on his own for Epic. They ended when the ad campaign decided, suddenly, to change direction without even a month to wrap up.
DeleteFrom what I understand, there aren't any additional pages. The guy that was in charge of creating the adds felt that they just didn't stand out enough, and stopped having them produced. Bill Willingham talks about how they came out in an interview he did.
ReplyDeleteInterview found (I added the link in post as well as artists' ones).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the hint !
But damn... I wanna know the end of the story...
T___T
how frustrating heh... XD
I used to love these, back in the day, as well! I'm pretty sure that Stephen Sullivan had something to do with them (he might have even done the art on the first one), as I remember talking with him about it at Gary Con two years ago.
ReplyDeleteI just wrote them -- when Jeff, Bill, & I took them over after the 1st episode. Bill seems to think I might have helped write some of the Epic ones, too, but I definitely wrote all the newsstand ads after that first one. The first one was done by an ad agency, IIRC.
DeleteI saw the one where tirra the elf is fried by a beholder and thought khellek set this up to off the lawful elf and leave lawful auric to recieve the helm of alignment change turning him into warduke...
ReplyDeleteIIRC, War Duke was created by Tim Truman as a character design for the D&D play figure line. Tim "directed" the US designs of those products, and actually went out to (pretty sure it was) New Jersey, where he holed up in a hotel with fellow Kubert alums and just drew for a week. (That group included Steven Bissette and John Tottleben, IIRC, and may have had Ron Randal and possibly even Tom Mandrake and Jan Dursema (sp?)) I think he may have done the original War Duke drawing in TSR's Art Department, though. Wish he got royalties on that sucker! :)
DeleteIndeed it really looks like Warduke's helm... interesting point !
ReplyDeletePhotobucket fucked it all up...
ReplyDeletePictures will be reloaded soon...
Re-upload done. Tsss. ;)
DeleteAdded the W.Billingham's interview part concerning these ads for a record.
ReplyDeleteAwesome article thanks!
ReplyDeleteBut can you fix the link to 2c? The one with the purple worm.
Heya,
Deletelink fixed... no idea why the link was corrupt... Anyway, thanks for the info and for passing by ! :)
A marvelous resource!
ReplyDeleteI am running the D&D Adventure "Age of Worms", and it includes Auric, Khellek, and Tirra as adventurers from the "Free City of Greyhawk".
I read an article from the author, and he mentioned their original source …
This was a great retrospective at the comic ads!
Thank you so much!
You're very welcome as it is a marvelous comment ! I wasn't aware of the Age of Worms adventure... I ll soon add some lines about it in here as well as our heroes stats. Thanks for the info !
DeleteGrateful you passed by ! :)
O_oV
I wrote the newsstand comics ads. Bill & I did all but the first of those mainstream comics ads. That 1st one was done by a hired ad agency -- and it sucked. Bill, Jeff, and I convinced them to let us do them in house, but Jeff dropped out after the next one we did (I no longer remember why.) But, I wrote the series and Bill drew it. Later, he also did the Epic series on his own. The plug was abruptly pulled on both campaigns for no good reason -- though the "rules" we were working under were pretty strict, and the danged COUPON kept getting bigger and bitter.
ReplyDeleteAs to the character, the original ad people probably pulled those name from an existing product. I don't doubt that at all, though I don't remember anyone remarking on it at the time. I created Saren because we needed both a woman and a cleric, and of course Jeff and Bill gave her the visual. I wrote the rest of the characters as if they were original to us, despite where their names came from.
Many thanks for passing by and offering your part of the story as you recall it after all these years. These details are precious infos. I will add these in the post.
DeleteYou mention that the first one was not done by TSR people but by hired ad agency. In his interview, Bill Willingham confirmed an external person was hired to do this but not specifically mentioning an "ad agency". Somehow, when I wrote this post a decade ago, there were some mentions on the web that a certain Keenan Powell may have drawn this first one as she, like a bunch of other amateur artists, did some of the first D&D modules covers art in mid-70's (she was in highschool at that time). According to what I read, she was Gygax's wife's half-sister and I guess that she was doing these freelance for a few bucks. As she graduated in 1983 to become a law attorney, it would have been possible she did this first page in 1980 to get a little income during her studies. But these are obviously only speculations in the end. (I do remember that I tried to contact her about this back then without getting any response).
Thanks for the info about Saren being your own creation. Very glad you spent some time to write a comment on my tiny blog !
O_oV
You're welcome. Please excuse the couple of typos! I actually stumbled across this because of another series of posts about the comics today, and that led down the rabbit hole. If you want, I can check about the artist on the first comic. My memory is that it was an agency, but that may have just been my memory's shorthand for "out of house." I'm still in touch occasionally with Dagmar and Gale who were TSR's in-house advertising at the time, so one of them may remember. Though I do remember that, at a party a few years back, Gale's memory of all this was a bit different than mine -- but then, so is Bill's, at least a little. (I'm almost dead positive that he inked that first strip that Jeff drew and I wrote.) In an interview I saw with him earlier today, he even gave me credit for working on the Epic D&D ads. I thought "Did I?" But then I looked at the 1st of those, and it's clearly NOT my writing -- though it's possible we talked about it at some point. I actually remember being surprised that he was doing the Epic ads on his own. But I figure he just charmed Gale and Dagmar into it. (They always liked him a lot! Ha ha.)
DeleteAnyway, I'm glad that people still enjoy the ads, though we never got to finish the 6-episode arc of the 2nd one. The ad department had agreed to that after the first set, but then... Things changed at TSR. They did that a LOT. :)
Amazing. So the 2nd Epic series was meant to be a 6 pages one ? Nice to know ! (Indeed I always wondered on how it would turn on only 4 pages... :D )
ReplyDeleteIt would be wonderful if you could get more info of this first page. Despite the quality of its narration and art, it is the first D&D comic page ever published and this will lead to the ads series you will work on and later on real comics. Somehow the very beginning of an idea.
To me, a simple french collector of D&D comics, these ads have a particular vintage and exotic rendering. We haven t got that much of comics ads here in france, when it was obviously not that rare in US. (ie super heroes ads strips, etc). And this particular post is one of the most visited among my blog. So I guess these ads series is a very iconic and nostalgic thing to many.
When I started this blog after some years of collecting D&D comics, I was willing to offer to the people sharing the same interest, as much info about these as I have been able to gather during my collecting journey. Back then, there wasn t much and all was scattered.
And no need be sorry for some typos... especially considering that my own english must be kinda weird to any native-speaker. :D
Anyway, many thanks again for sharing !
O_oV
Yeah, I decided today was the day to answer questions about the D&D ads, and once I ran into one thread it led me to the others. So, to save time, I did a bit of cut-and-pasting (not realizing how complicated some threads were), and I made some mistakes in the original post. Whoops. (Also, didn't know for certain if some of these older blogs would still be active, and didn't want to write new stuff only to have it vanish into the ether. :D )
DeleteI've reached out about the artist on the first ad. Hopefully, I'll get a response.
Bill said in a YouTube video on the D&D ads that I saw today that the Epic one was supposed to be six. And then I remembered that's what we'd negotiated with the ad department for the newsstand, in theory to give us more time for story (and monsters). But, of course, the story kept getting eaten up by the coupon. I think we had 9 panels in the first ad I wrote, and we had 4 panels of art in the last! And then they just ended it with no notice at all. Sigh!
But, at least we tried. And those and the unused Dragonlance pitch that Tim Truman and I did are the earliest D&D comics. (The pages of that DL pitch, from the very beginning of the project, are up on my site, I believe.)
And I agree but disagree with Bill on having the ads as comics. While I can see wanting the ads to stand out from the books themselves, comics readers are used to reading comics, and thus would likely read the ads, whereas they might skip over a "normal" print ad. That's my theory, anyway. ;)
I'm dying to find out who the artist was for ad 1!
DeleteSteve, I realize we're speaking of very short stories, yet can you say anything as to the implied "setting" and "continuity" of the two comic series?
ReplyDeleteYou say: "As to the characters, the original ad people probably pulled those names from an existing product. I don't doubt that at all, though I don't remember anyone remarking on it at the time. I created Saren because we needed both a woman and a cleric, and of course Jeff and Bill gave her the visual. I wrote the rest of the characters as if they were original to us, despite where their names came from."
Basically, what you did is create a new micro-setting, with its own continuity, which only shares a couple names (Valerius and Grimslade) with the Rogues Gallery, which is set in Oerth.
In Oerth, Valerius is a lightly armored swashbuckler. There's a drawing of him by Erol Otus in the back of the Rogues Gallery. While in the Enchanted Lands of the D&D Comic Strips, Valerius is a heavy-armored fighter.
And the place names mentioned in the comics have no precedent in Oerth or the Known World of Mystara. Which further affirms that it's a parellel timeline and parallel world-setting, offset from both Oerth and Mystara.
As for the Zenopus connection. The dungeons of the ruined castle of Zenopus exist in your world, and also exist in another micro-setting, which also is seemingly distinct from Oerth and Mystara: which I call...
"THE GLOBE OF PERIL: The Basic World of the Boinger and Zereth Stories of John Eric Holmes" which is seen on the Holmes Basic set, and in the posthumously collected Tales of Peril.
For the world depicted in the D&D Comic Strips, I offer the name...
"Stephen D. Sullivan, Bill Willingham, & Jeff Dee's ENCHANTED LANDS: The World of the D&D Comic Strips."
(If we discover the name of the first artist, despite the naive style, I'd add her/his name to the title!)
P.S. DUNGEON magazine affirms that Auric, Khellek, and Tirra also exist in Oerth. Yet, rather than take that to mean that all the unique places of the Comic Strips must be plopped down into Oerth (or Mystara), I take it to mean that either parallel version of these characters exist in both Oerth and the ENCHANTED LANDS; Or that the 3 characters began their careers in the ENCHANTED LANDS, but actually crossed over via a planar gate into Oerth, where we find them in the Paizo adventures.
ReplyDeleteStephen, which do prefer?
There are other "parallel personas" in Tim Truman's action figures: Auric's piecemeal stylin' armor apparently served as a model for Warduke's similarly piecemeal armor. And Khellek served as a substantial inspiration for Kelek, Evil Sorcerer.
I'm working with Mike Gray (author of XL-1, the only D&D adventure which tied in with the Action Figures) to co-design an aficionado-crafted campaign setting which fills out the World of the AD&D Action Figures. That's why I'm delving into the question of their relationship with Auric and Kelek.
P.P.S. While researching the Green Dragon Inn, I found Stephen Sullivan's DRAGON magazine adventure from 1980: https://www.annarchive.com/files/Drmg037.pdf
ReplyDeleteMaybe it was what got Stephen noticed by TSR?
This was a complete mini-setting, called "Narrion and the Land Surrounding." It was not tied to any existing campaign world. I suggest that this could serve as the setting for the D&D comic strips. There are suggestive similarities:
The Dark Forest (from the comics) = The Black Forest:
"THE BLACK FOREST
This dark, dense mass of trees stretches from just past the Mound
of the Oracle far to the southeast of the land beyond Narrion."
"The Savage Country" (from the comics) = "the wild country":
"The small town of Narrion is located precariously on the very
edge of the wild country, and as such is often a stopping place for
adventurers going from one area to the other."
"Being so close to the wild country, the town has
found it necessary to have a large (30’) wooden wall (with a small
parapet) constructed around its perimeter in order to keep certain
undesirable types from raiding the town after dusk."
And more specifically, "the Edge of The Wild" and the "Jarkung Lands" beyond the Edge:
"THE JARKUNG LANDS
If one were to follow the Moor Road northeast from Narrion for
many miles through the Moor and past the end of that desolate bog,
one would eventually come to the Edge of The Wild and the Jarkung
Lands.
(cont.)
(cont.)
ReplyDeleteThe "ancient castle" (in the last panel of the comics) and the "very ancient castle" in the center of the Black Forest:
"No one knows what lurks at the center of the Black Forest, though it is generally agreed to be either a very ancient castle, or a dragon, or both."
Not that there couldn't be more than one "ancient castle", but it is an example of a similar milieu.
The "Mountains of Ash" (from the comics, which are evocative of Tolkien's Ered Lithui (Mtns of Ash), the border of Mordor) imply a Sauronic dominion. See "the Dark Lord" in the Narrion setting, as seen in historical glyphs on the dungeon's wall:
"The first pictures on either wall are bas-reliefs of a man in a long, flowing, floor-length robe with a face-covering, horned helmet through which only two evil, orbless eyes can be seen. This is the Dark Lord.
The first series of pictures shows the Dark Lord sitting on his iron throne, thinking of dark, vile schemes. He creates (mutates) the hideous toad-like Stalker and sends the creature to lead one of his many armies. While this war was being conducted in far-off lands, a powerful lord and mighty wizardess had the audacity to direct their army against the very stronghold of the Dark Lord himself"
If the comic strip's implied setting were melded with Narrion and the Surrounding Lands, then the Dark Lord would live beyond the Mountains of Ash.
Both milieus share a "jackal" motif. Jackalweres and "Dead Jackal Inn" in the comics. In Narrion's dungoeon, there's a jackal-faced idol (presumably a god/demon):
"a jackal-faced idol with a small, lidded vase in its hands"
An indirect parallel with the Portown + Green Dragon Inn + ruined Tower of Zenopus locales of J. Eric Holmes BASIC D&D sample setting, also seen in Holmes other works, such as his Maze of Peril novel (which is otherwise a distinct world from the D&D comics, and also distinct from Oerth.)
The town of Narrion is the parallel of Portown. Narrion has a Green Dragon Tavern. And the comics have a "ruined Zenopus Castle." So if Narrion and the Surrounding Lands were to encompass the D&D comic strips, Narrion would be the stand-in for Portown, and it would have a similarly situated Green Dragon Tavern and Zenopus Castle.
Though not an exact match all around, there are evocative similarities, which is understandable since both were written by Stephen Sullivan, and were written in a similar timeframe: 1980 (Narrion) and 1981-1982 (comic strips). The two references to "the wild country" rare especially close to "The Savage Country."
Hey fellow D&D Comic Strip aficionados - today (8/1/2021) I received a response from Stephen Sullivan, which I'll post here. (There's a character limit to posts, so I'll split it into chunks.)
ReplyDeleteStephen Sullivan says:
Hi Travis --
I’ll try to tackle these in order, more or less.
Because the first ad originated outside of TSR, I don’t really know where they got the names. Chances are, they picked them out of some product that I wasn’t aware of then and remain unaware of now. Though I think I went through all the products at the time, I certainly didn’t remember any origins for those names when the crew and I took over the ads. I remember that Rogues Gallery product a little, and it’s certainly likely that the art agency pulled names out of it, just to sound “authentic.” I doubt we’ll ever know for sure. Any appearances after 1981, though, would have to come from the gallery or possibly even from the ad comics themselves.
I leave that to historians to figure out. But I’m almost entirely sure that Bill, Jeff, and I were unaware of any previous uses of the 3 names in the first comic. I know I wasn’t, and I don’t remember either of the guys mentioning it to me when we took over. So, no history came attached with them. They were blank slates. We kept the 3 characters because we were continuing the ad series from where it started.
As to the setting… Again, I don’t know about any references in the 1st one that might have come from other TSR products -- and I don’t have it in front of me to look, BUT… The rest of it came purely from Steve & Bill Land, that is, out of our little heads.
You have to remember that we were also D&D creators and had our own game worlds beyond the official TSR ones at the time (or even now). So, we weren’t even remotely concerned with connecting the strip to any given D&D setting. Nor did I tie it into my game world, and I don’t think Bill tied it in to his. And the same goes for the ads he did on his own for Epic Illustrated. We were just making this stuff up -- though we did want it to sound adventurous and echo the excitement of D&D. That was our assignment, not to tie it to anything specific.
Even the early D&D modules, after Basic/Expert didn’t have to tie into any specific world, as I recall. Though I think Tom was trying to tie them into his own little sub-D&D world -- and maybe others were doing the same. This was the Wild West, and there wasn’t a lot of pressure to conform things. We were creating things, not adhering them to existing worlds or continuity, for the most part.
So, it’s possible that after 1981-2, when we were doing this, people took elements we’d created (or picked up from the 1st comic) and used them in other settings. Though I freelanced for TSR for decades after I left, I didn’t keep careful track of any product continuity they might have later imposed.
I strongly suspect that the 3rd E characters you mention were tributes to the comics, because I’m almost entirely certain that Bill made up the Epic characters, as I made up Saren (with Jeff & Bill) for the Marvel newsstand comics ads.
(And honestly, I don’t remember knowing until just now that it was Lawrence & Tom’s B/X world that had been named Mystara and the subject of so many later things -- though maybe I knew the name at the time.)
Anyway, the comics weren’t set there. 🙂 They were in “Steve-Bill Land.” (Or Bill-Steve Land, if you prefer -- or just Bill Land for the Epic ones, though you might argue they were set in Ironwood, I suppose.)
Let me catch my breath a moment before looking at the numbered questions...
As I just explained, we were making the comics up to be a fun D&D adventure, and not set in any specific world. Bill (and Jeff) and I are proud guys ;-) and just as capable of making up fantasy settings as our contemporaries at TSR. And that’s what we were doing. We were trying to encourage others to try the game by making things as exciting as we could within the strictures of the ad -- which started out fairly loose, but quickly grew more and more tight in response to fears about the Satanic Panic and other such nonsense. (And, yeah, the D&D stuff had to be set in non-Greyhawk worlds for legal reasons. Long story.)
ReplyDeleteWell, you have to realize that we created B/X while I was there. I was an editor on both, wrote some sections, and certainly did playtests while we were putting it all together. On an ongoing basis, I was playing as a handful of different characters in Frank Mentzer’s AD&D game, which was the “big game” going on at the time outside of work. Most of the time we played other games outside of work, including a very memorable Schick Call of Cthulhu campaign. Zeb and I later ran CoC, too. I only ran a few sessions of MY version of D&D -- which included slightly altered stat sets and spell points -- set in my world of Illion. THE TWILIGHT EMPIRE: ROBINSON’S WAR, my comic in Dragon, was also set in that world, and I”ve also written a story or two set there. (As well as a couple of unpublished novels.)
I think that’s a cool name for the world of the newsstand D&D comics. Though I do have to point out that the fill-in-the-blank ad copy was written by the advertising department, and not any of the three of us. Sullivan, Willingham, & Dee’s ENCHANTED LAND (of D&D) does have a pretty nice ring to it. :) Certainly, that could be an unofficial name until one of us tries to pick up the story again in some form. Though as I pointed out, Bill’s Epic ads seem very much like his IRONWOOD setting to me. (I’d be happy to lump it into Enchanted Land, though, if that’s easier for you fans.) ;-)
That’s an interesting idea. I don’t know if Jeff or Bill would want to finish it, but I’d be willing to give it a stab. I don’t have time to track down whomever might be the person to authorize and pay for such an effort, though. Also, part of me has thought it might be fun to finish it on my own, possibly in prose, completely outside the official continuity, with renamed characters, etc. I do remember roughly how the 2nd set was supposed to end, and I may have actual notes somewhere in my files. If fans want to take up a “Finish the D&D ad comics!” cause, I doubt that I’d fight it. :D
Oh. Yeah. See, here you suggest what I’d been thinking. :D An off-brand finish or maybe not-quite-a-remake. I could ask Jeff about maybe kickstarting it or something -- but he doesn’t really even remember working on it, ‘cause he left after one ep! I think he might be more likely to be interested than Bill, and Bill can be hard to reach. But, I’ll think on it. It would be much easier for me to write a finish to it in prose. Do you think anyone would be interested in that? (Or even to produce a script for fans to draw it.)
[cont.]
ReplyDelete[cont.]
A campaign setting would take a lot more work, and I’m not sure I’d have time for it. Though I have been working with another guy to bring my DR. CUSHING’S CHAMBER OF HORRORS into a game supplement (currently) and then a full campaign setting in the future. So, I suppose something like that might be possible -- if there was enough enthusiasm for it.
It’s fine if you want to share my answers with the wider D&D community. You can even talk generally about maybe continuing/finishing off-brand, to see if people would be interested.
Off-Brand would honestly be the best and easiest way to do it -- and the best way for me and any artists associated with it to profit. (Unless someone at WOTC could be persuaded to front some real money for it.)
I leave drumming up support for it with you and the other fans. I’m busy writing 3 or more books right now. So I don’t have time for any more!
Well… Unless people will really support it. ;-)
I have restored all the comic strips and hope to find time to put them up on my site -- www.sdsullivan.com -- along with the story of their creation fairly soon.
Well, as soon as I can find time. ;-)
Thanks for your interest!
-- Steve Sullivan
PS -- Your connecting the comics with my Pit of the Oracle module is fascinating. I haven't seen that for SO long. I'm not surprised, though, because it all came out of the same part of my mind, and the way I (and my friends) played and ran D&D, as opposed to the "official" TSR way.
ReplyDeleteI've had a couple of people suggest that I should re-do that module or do a sequel or something. So many things to do, and so little time!
Dear travis,
DeleteFirst of all, thanks for passing by and enriching this subject with your comments. :)
I just edited my post with my little investigation concerning the very first page of these ads. No certainty yet on who did it tho.
O_oV
Good work Kuronon, on trying to track down the artist and author of issue #1.
DeleteI think your research will probably be the final word, unless Keenan Powell chimes in to affirm or deny. But Steve's memories of an outside agency match your findings.
Looking at the cover of DRAGON #43: though this is in pastels, versus the inked-line art of the comic, one can see similarities: the crumbly, "droopy", "bulbous," whispy/sketchy (light-handed) style is similar. See the sort of "droopy, bulbous" style of the witch on the cover, and then look at the Shambling Mound in the comic. Mitchell's signature on the witch cover is sort of cartoony itself. https://archive.org/details/DragonMagazine260_201801/DragonMagazine043/mode/2up
I'm going to make an educated guess that Ray Cioni authored the strip. Because his LinkedIn resume calls him "Director" and "Producer" of Cioni Artworks (1977-1996). And that he "Directed and produced animated commercials" (which the D&D comic is), and that he "Expertly supervised creative team (both staff & freelance) of graphic artists". So best indications are that Kurt Mitchell was the artist, and Ray Cioni was the director/producer/supervisor (=author).
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ray-cioni-82557313/
So looks like the Marvel/DC Strip roster is: Cioni, Mitchell, Sullivan, Dee, and Willingham.
Dagmar and I did a LOT of chatting about this after my earlier comments here, and that's how she (with encouragement and back-and-forth from me) finally sorted out that it was Ray Cioni and Kurt Mitchell who created that first ad.
DeleteSo, that part is correct, as far as anyone can remember. And it's likely that Ray may have written -- or at least directed -- with Kurt creating the art and the final product. (Plus the ad department on the coupon.) :)
[Travis here. I realized after I posted Steve's responses above, that I'd asked Steve additional (numbered) questions on facebook that I hadn't posted here. I ought to have posted them at the top of the thread, but better late than never. Here's more of the context for Steve's answers. Again, split into multiple posts due to character limit.]
ReplyDeleteHi Stephen, I really appreciated your thoughtful comments on the history of the D&D comic strips. I just posted a couple comments there about the "implied setting" of the comics: https://kuronons.blogspot.com/2010/05/d-comics-review-part-1-cartoon-ads.html
But to be more specific:
-Oerth/Greyhawk? The comics have a couple nominal similarities with Oerth: the names Valerius and Grimslade. But these are depicted quite differently. For example, in Oerth, Valerius (Erol Otus' PC) from the Rogue Gallery is an unarmored swashbuckler, vs. the heavily armored Valerius from the comic. And the various placenames from the comics (Mountains of Ash, The Savage Country, etc.) are not known in Oerth. Yes, Auric, Tirra, and Khellek later appear in Oerth (in the 3rd Edition era), but they might have crossed-over from the "world of the D&D comic strips" into Oerth via a planar gate or something. Or there might be parallel characters which exist in both settings (Oerth and the D&D comic strip world); for example, the characters and places in the Keep on the Borderlands officially exist in both Oerth AND Mystara.
-Known World/Mystara? The comics could theoretically be located in Mystara, since Schick & Moldvay's Known World had just been designated the default setting of the 1981 B/X D&D (first seen in Cook/Marsh's Expert Set). The 1981 timeframe of the comics matches this. But again, the placenames do not match any known places in Mystara.
Sure, anyone could easily adapt the comics to fit in either Oerth or Mystara. But, I'd like to hear your perspective. Some questions:
[cont.]
1) I realize its most likely that you just sort of made up an archetypal, fun, "generic" D&D story, and that's that. But did you have some idea that the story was loosely set in Greyhawk? Or the new Expert Set Known World Continent? Or was it basically a totally generic story?
ReplyDeleteNote: Lawrence Schick states (link): "Up to that point [1981] most of TSR’s scenarios had been set in Gary Gygax’s World of Greyhawk, but we couldn’t use that [for the new 1981 B/X D&D], as it was Gary’s personal campaign setting, and was reserved for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game products."
2) Were you playing AD&D or BD&D at the time? If so, do you remember whose world(s) you were playing in at the time? Did you DM? If so, what was your home campaign setting? (Or were you too busy working to play much?) Just wondering about the inspirational context for your comics writing.
3) The final coupon in your Newsstand Series speaks of "enchanted lands of dragons and magic." If your comic series were a standalone micro-setting, not tied to Oerth or Mystara, I feel that would be a fitting name, something like:
SULLIVAN, WILLINGHAM, & DEE'S ENCHANTED LANDS: THE WORLD OF THE 1981-1982 D&D COMIC STRIPS
Or do you have a better name for such a "world of D&D comic strips"?
4) With the upcoming return of Tim Truman's Action Figure characters, Warduke, Strongheart and crew (in the Sep, 2021 5E adventure The Wild Beyond the Witchlight), do you think it'd be worth trying to contact one of the WotC designers, such as Mike Mearls, to see if they'd pay you and Jeff Dee to finish the last panels of the Newsstand and Epic strips? It's be a nifty promotion.
5) If not, I think there'd be a way to produce an "off-brand" finale, by naming the characters a bit differently (maybe they switch to using their last names), and by depicting them a bit differently (maybe they got a haircut and new suit of armor). If you and Jeff Dee did a Kickstarter, with the goal of finishing the final issues of the two strips, I think people would dig it!
6) Furthermore, you could even do am ENCHANTED LANDS campaign setting. It'd probably be successful and lucrative. You could map out the world. Just call the places from the comics by a slightly different name: e.g. The Savage Country > The Wild Land; The Mountains of Ash > The Lithui Mountains (to deftly snag a Tolkienian word), etc.
If you respond, I'd share you answers with the wider D&D community (except for if you speak about doing an off-brand finale or campaign setting; I'd keep that under wraps).
I love your contributions to D&D culture - thank you!
-Travis Henry
Austerlitz, N.Y.
P.S. A little about myself: I'm a interviewer for the Vaults of Pandius - the Official WotC-designated Mystara Fansite. You can see my interviews here: http://pandius.com/shenry.html
P.P.S. Here's a thread where I'm unpacking the ENCHANTED LANDS setting of your D&D comics: https://thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=27638&p=288558#p288558
[further sharing from Steve]:
ReplyDeleteI actually knew that about Ray and Kurt -- at least that Ray was in charge of the job and Kurt likely drew it. But I’d been holding that back to publish on my site along with a more complete story of how the comics came about. 😃
Props to Kuronons for tracking it down. I think my eventual post, along with restoration of the comics, will still have something to offer to the fans. 🙂 He actually supplied me with the scans I’ve used for the restorations.
I think it makes sense to put the Epic stuff in Ironwood. It matches Bill’s style and sensibility. Of course, WoTC doesn’t own that setting, but… like me, Bill was working in the style and places he was/is comfortable. And why not? We knew the “feel” of D&D/AD&D of that time as well as anyone.
And honestly, since you’ve asked, I was really writing the D&D comics as if they were set in my game world of ILLION, though not in any specific place, and Narrion and the rest of that adventure as well. Heck, I wrote Pit of the Oracle while I was in college, before I went to work at TSR, so clearly it was/is more my world than anything from TSR. (Though the editorial change of my white box Balrogs into far more powerful demons probably completely unbalanced the setting! 😮 But they had to do that for legal reasons, I understand.)
Anyway, after picking up the pieces from the first episode, I basically did what I wanted with the stories -- or, I should say, Bill, Jeff, and I did what WE wanted.
So, whether y’all want to place the comic series in Illion or in its own Enchanted Lands, I’m good either way.
Technically, I did have another D&D world, too, the one I created for teaching D&D at the MIT High School Studies Program -- which was supposed to act as a bridging dimension between Illion and the world of my teaching partner, Marty Sirkin. That was a very small “half world” intended to teach concepts of the game to our students. (The first time D&D was taught in a college or university, so far as anyone knows. 1978-79, IIRC.) I think I called that world Nonar, and I did quite a bit of work on it, considering it was something like 100 miles square.
So theoretically, the D&D comics could have been set there, too. But, basically, we were just making up the place names etc. as we went along, rather than me using existing place names from my D&D worlds.
As I said above, I’m good with it being in one of my worlds or its own. I was just doing my own thing. We all were.
Glad you located DR. CUSHING and added it to the database. As I think I said, we’ve got a supplement out now, and I hope to have a full sourcebook (and game?) out at some point.
I’m glad you think that fans might be interested in a prose version of the finish -- or even the whole series -- as an off-brand item. Doing it as prose would probably be fastest and easiest, though Jeff Dee does seem interested if there could be some kind of actual payment involved. 🙂 I don’t think it’s fair to ask an artist to draw a couple of comic pages for free. Doing a comic page can take a long while.
Of course, writing a prose story takes a long while, too, but at least I’m only “wasting” my own time -- not someone else’s. 😉
Frank and Bruce are both good friends of mine, but I wasn’t aware of them releasing stuff they’d done at/for TSR. Interesting that if there’s no profit involved, WoTC may just let it go.
But, I’d rather either get paid, or own my work, or -- better yet -- both.
So, please, if you can build support for an off-brand continuation, either prose or comics, or an “official” one with some type of pay… Keep me posted.
As I said, I to intend to post a History of the D&D Marvel Ads along with the page restorations at some point. Though I was hoping to us it to help cross-promote some kind of project when I do (either a continuation or to boost something of my own). 🙂
Would love to see the restored comics and your own historic account at your website: I think it'd be a lasting resource. People keep coming back to these lost TSR gems. I myself have gone back to Kuronon's history several times over the years, and only now put the puzzle pieces together enough to reach out to you.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Bruce just kept writing the Heldannic Gazetteer (which had been vaporware), and later a whole Alphatian series (with full-color hex maps), as if he never left TSR. All as Mystara fanworks. No problem. You can see his tremendous post-TSR output here: http://pandius.com/bheard.html
I would certainly like to help bring your story's ending (and possibly Dee's art) to fruition in a lucrative way. As a writer and designer myself, I understand the necessity of being economically supported for the work. It can be hard to get a hold of WotC folk. But I have a couple avenues to try. Also, just getting your nascent ideas and history posted at Kuronon's and your site is an action which may bring it to the attention of others who might help in some way. If it hadn't been for Kuronon's little site, the D&D comic strips would still be almost totally unknown and forgotten.
Grateful for your sharing on creative relationships between ILLION, Narrion (heck, they both end in -ION!), and the Marvel comic strip...and "NONAR." I think the aesthetic is the key thing. Like you say: the style and sensibility. It's all "Sullivanian aesthetic." It fits together. Even if you didn't actually plop the comic-strip locales on the map during your home campaign sessions back in the day, they're potentially there together...especially if you yourself affirm this. (Cool detail on the presence of proper Balrogs in ILLION.)
I'm not attached to the phrase "enchanted lands"...it's just that, even though they were coined by ad-folks, they are a part of the your comics, as printed. Whether that's a key phrase or not, ILLION itself surely features "enchanted lands of dragons and magic" in some sense of the words!
Your MIT High School teaching setting, Nonar too. Super interesting. Of course then more good questions arise about what Marty Sirkin's campaign was like, as it was linked to yours. But first things first. I think it's a shame that the first generation of home campaigns haven't been documented even better. If I had a ton of resources, I'd like to get your campaign totally documented and published (alongside Rob Kuntz's, Steve Marsh's, and so forth). I have some intention of proposing that to a few publishers with some resources (e.g. ENWorld Publishing), but as you know, only a few ideas come to fruition. 🙁 Right, a campaign setting is a big thing; finishing a comic strip could be more doable.
This is all great history - I'm super appreciative. I'm a pretty deep D&D history grognard, yet honestly, I'd totally overlooked your name and role! I'm going to send this compiled convo to Shannon Appelcline - of the Designers & Dragons history books. You were right there, in the thick of the golden age of D&D/TSR. If you could remember which sections or facets of the B/X rulebooks you especially helped write or polish, that would be especially interesting. Or anecdotes of personalities from back in the day. Could be a great thing for your website. (Not to pile even more things on ya!)
ReplyDeleteRight, I would need to check with Bill W. to affirm a connection between the Epic Series and Ironwood, but what you say makes sense. At the very least, you (as author of the Marvel/[+DC?] Series) affirm that Bill's Epic Series is felt to be a different continuity, from your perspective.
Yes, from a strictly IP perspective of course whatever appeared in a TSR product can't be openly tied to an author's own IP. But this situation is similar to John Eric Holmes' world: though of course TSR/WotC fully owns the IP from Holmes' BASIC set (Portown, Tower of Zenopus, etc), it's clear that his self-published novel, the Maze of Peril (which is his own IP), and his many DRAGON magazine short stories (which have reverted to become his estate's IP), are of the same milieu. No problem. He just called Portown by another name: Caladan, and didn't explicitly refer to the name "Zenopus." Otherwise, it's clearly the same body of work.
I've really enjoyed your articulate and thoughtful sharings!
-Travis
For further convo with Steve on the comics (and his other D&D work), see the Piazza thread; I cross-posted everything there, and will continue to update that thread with any further findings: https://thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=27638&p=288832#p288832
ReplyDeleteThanks a million to Kuronon for holding the brightest torch on the D&D comic strips.
You re very welcome. Thanks again for all the time spent commenting here. Much obliged. :)
DeleteAnd torch-holding kinda fits the froggy I am ! :P
O_oV
Added link to Drawing me Out : Ep. 7 : The TSR Comic Ads, Apr. 2020 with Bill Willingham.
ReplyDeletePut B.W. interview extracts in a bigger font too, for a better reading.
As well, slightly rewrote tiny parts of this post for a better understanding.
Adding to what Travis said, thanks for helping to keep interest in the D&D comics ads alive. If they hadn't cancelled the campaign, I'd have been happy to keep doing them forever, probably. Who knows, maybe they'd have become the first D&D comics somewhere like Marvel & DC!
ReplyDeleteSadly, TSR was repeatedly uninterested in doing comics, as you can see from both this experience and the one Tim Truman and I had pitching a Dragonlance comic, right at the beginning of that whole project.
Sigh! At least we all did good work.
Hail, Stephen! I'm back from obscurity! We've discussed the original ad before, but know I have a question about Quest through the Savage Land. The gal in green is mentioned as Khellen's apprentice but she is never introduced. So what is her name? It seems to be a glaring omission. Good luck with your future endeavors. Also, if anyone is interested, I wrote a D&D story-- Fear No Evil at Inkitt.
ReplyDeleteHi all, Cullen Bunn is a comic book write who ALSO loved those old D&D comic ads. He loved them so much he did a 26 page adventure in that style. It is pretty good!
ReplyDeleteYou can read it all here for free! He is planning to do another story soon.
https://www.patreon.com/posts/deepest-all-93503429?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
And here is a new take on the whole concept by Cullen Bunn. Cullen is an established comic book writer. He loved the D&D comic ads enough that he did a 26 page adventure. So cool!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.patreon.com/posts/deepest-all-93503429?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
While the art is rather good in that series, and comics are neat ... a random, independent artist crowdsourcing on Patreon isn't the same as an official D&D advertisement comic series.
ReplyDeleteIt's a neat idea and everything, especially the one-page format ... but, the link is only barely tangentially related.
It's like referencing Batman in a thread about Moon Knight.