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Art Evolution 1: Jeff Laubenstein

Art Evolution 1: Jeff Laubenstein

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a2-slavers2I’m a gamer, a lifer, someone who at the age of thirty-nine doesn’t get to roll dice like it did at nineteen, but I still take a week’s vacation every year to hang out with High School friends and revisit campaigns where characters have been on paper long enough to legally drink in the U.S.

My love for fantasy role-playing goes back to middle school. There, I was introduced to Dungeon’s & Dragons, but it wasn’t just the concept that inspired my love affair, it was the art. The first piece of fantasy role-playing art I ever saw was the module A2: Secrets of the Slavers Stockade.

I stared at it for a full hour in History class; flipped through the pages trying to figure out why the cover wasn’t stapled on, and went home convinced this was something I had to get involved in.

Enter the Sears Christmas catalogue and TSR’s D&D Basic Edition red boxed set. Once I saw Larry Elmore’s red dragon and seemingly endless treasure trove, I convinced my mother to order it and began a journey lasting nearly thirty years.

I still buy gaming supplements for art alone, collecting entire genres and systems knowing full well I will never have the time to play them. If you put a great cover on it there’s a good chance I’ll buy, and I devour new talent almost as fast as I’ll snap up a collector’s piece from the seventies or eighties on eBay.

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Art of the Genre: Boot Hill‘s Ballots & Bullets: The 80’s Magic of TSR

Art of the Genre: Boot Hill‘s Ballots & Bullets: The 80’s Magic of TSR

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bullets-and-ballots1As I was walking the hallowed halls of the Indianapolis Convention Center during this year’s GenCon, I managed to uncover a handful of truly wonderful relics. Perhaps the greatest of these [although I contend that L3 Deep Dwarven Delve by Len Lakofka with Wayne Reynolds art in 1st Edition format is still in the running] was this masterpiece from TSR’s defunct Wild West game Boot Hill.

Now you may be asking “Boot Hill, really?”, and indeed I would be saying the same thing — if I hadn’t made it a personal quest to uncover many secrets about early TSR artists and their antics in the legendary ‘pit.’ So we have BH3 Ballots & Bullets by David James Ritchie, which by no means defines the game or genre, and yet played out in the cover is a true stroke of genius. Here, in muted color, we are once again reminded as fans of the fantastic comedy of artist Jim Holloway.

The four men featured here are all that truly matters about BH3, as right to left we are shown TSR Art Director (and cover artist for such classics as B2 Keep on the Borderlands and D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth) Jim Roslof, a very Jimmy Stewart looking Jeff Easley; the gambler himself, Jim Holloway, and all the way to the left on horseback, the crazy old coot Larry Elmore (click on the image at left for a larger version).

Yes, that’s them, the entire TSR ‘pit’ crew circa 1981. Looking at this cover it seemed as though I had a snapshot of that time period, but this was even better. Having these artists, all in their youth, portrayed by the hand of one of their own made this purchase perhaps the greatest in my collection.

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Spectrum 16: Now Fortified with Black Gate!

Spectrum 16: Now Fortified with Black Gate!

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spectrum16spectrum-16b1Spectrum 16, edited by Cathy and Arnie Fenner, was published this month by Underwood Books.

I’ve been a fan of these books since the first, way back in 1994.  There are a lot of Best of… anthologies gathering the most acclaimed short fiction each year but, until Arnie and Cathy thought of it, no anthologies collecting the finest art. It was a stroke of genius, and that first volume was a hit. They’ve been at it ever since.

The books are full color and include lush layouts covering Advertising, Books, Comics, Concept Art, Sculpture, Editorial, Institutional, Unpublished — and even a lengthy Year in Review.  Spectrum 16 weighs in at 264 pages, and is just $39.95 for the hardcover (I bought mine for $26.37 from  Amazon.com). This year the Grand Master is Richard Corben.

Browsing these books is marvelous. Top-notch science fiction and fantasy often sets my imagination soaring, but not in the way that really great artwork can. The editors collect an astonishing array of diverse images from hundreds of gifted artists — pictures that are humorous, baffling, erotic, beautiful, disturbing, breath-taking, and everything in between. Depending on what your imagination is like, these books can be more diverting than a Stephen King novel.

This year is a special treat because the editors have seen fit to include Malcolm McClinton’s cover to Black Gate 13  in the Editorial section — in all its wrap-around glory. “Gladiatrix” was Malcolm’s first cover for Black Gate, and the first wrap-around image we’ve published since BG 3. It’s a knockout piece, and the response from readers was universally positive.

It’s a proud moment for us.  I’d like to congratulate Malcolm for being included — and also for a fabulous cover.