First Friday

June's first Friday gives us Thrilling Wonder Stories with a Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers sort of affair.

For more Thrilling Wonder Stories...

Fantasy Friday

Ah, it's first Friday again and our pin up this month is Startling Stories featuring a dragon fighting a robot with the ever present endangered yet scantily clad heroine.

Fantasy Friday

First Fantasy Friday of the new month brings us to our pinup for March.

In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming

Now this is enough to descend you into madness, no?

17 inch model sculpted by Gabe Perna. More of his nightmares at Toiletface.

Fantasy Friday

And now for some post-apocalyptic psychosis brought to you by The Who, Ken Russel, Eric Clapton and crazy Arthur Brown....

Fantasy Friday

As I'm (madly) preparing for my Swords & Wizardry game at the Tucson RPG Guild (my first public performance as DM) I've just got a real short Fantasy Friday image today. It's from my calendar collection and is a cover for Thrilling Wonder Stories.

Fantasy Friday

What can I say about Jeff Jones. His fantasy art speaks for itself.

Starting with his black and white illustrations for the likes of Creepy and other black and white horror comics, he later moved on to the paperback book cover market, even rivaling Frazetta's savage fantasy.

In the mid-seventies he founded the Studio along with Berni Wrightson, Barry Windsor-Smith and Michael Kaluta.





And just 'cuz....


Check out more of Jeff Jones' Sci Fi and Fantasy art visit his website www.jeffreyjones-art.com

Fantasy Friday

UPDATED
With the shambles that Hollywood is making of Howard's brooding barbarian I thought I'd go this route today for our Fantasy Friday feature.

What is pulp fantasy?



Hollywood doesn't seem to have a clue.

The images are cover paintings by Jeff Jones whom I'll be talking about a bit more next week.

Fantasy Friday

I love calendars and for the past number of years I've been picking up calendars of pulp fiction covers, for obvious reason. So this month's cover is from Planet Stories, a pulp magazine that was published for about 20 years starting in 1939.

Fantasy Friday

Today's Fantasy Friday brings us one of animation's fantasy masters, Ralph Bakshi with his film Wizards. Pure Gamma World, D&D, Mutant Future mash-up which no one has topped since. Classic cell animation, beautiful organic background paintings and trippy effects enhance the other-worldly atmosphere that modern CGI animation has yet to even tap.




Bakshi called this his "family film" and yes, there are elves and faeries and funny looking wizards but there is also mutant goons and Hitler and dark animated demons. It's got some pretty dark and heavy themes but Bakshi believed that kids can handle that. He felt that you didn't have to 'dumb' things down for kids (something that I tend to agree with).

I watched this again over the holidays and it's still inspiring. You don't see this type of animated feature anymore which I miss greatly.

This film would lead Bakshi down the road to his next feature "The Lord of the Rings" a year later.

Fantasy Friday

First I want to wish everyone a healthy and happy new year. May your dice roll well in your favor!

I wrapped up the year with Edgar Rice Burroughs' first Mars book; "The Princess of Mars". For the first Fantasy Friday of the new year, I thought I'd dish up Gil Kane's 'John Carter Warlord of Mars' put out by Marvel Comics Group in the early 70's.


Gil Kane was known for his classy silver-age illustrations for DC comics which helped revived the the super-hero genre in the early 60's. It was when he moved to Marvel that his characters exploded with a dynamic power that rivaled even the great Jack Kirby. He became one of Marvel's preeminent cover artists of the early 70's defining the tone for the era. Beyond super-heroes, Kane was best know for his fantasy work which included Conan and John Carter for Marvel as well as one of the first graphic novels, Blackmark.

Some of Gil Kane's Conan Covers

Gil Kane left us on January 31, 2000 at age 73. Though he is gone, his lifetime of work will live on for years to come.

Fantasy Friday

No one captures the spirit of classic dungeon exploration better than Peter Mullen. Peter Mullen's stylized fantasy art has been a staple of the Old School Revival and his work has been featured on the covers of Fight On! Magazine, Knockspell Magazine, Swords & Wizardry Core Rules and White Box, as well as various other published material. From his paintings, pastels, and pen and ink work, his odd and eerie visions of heroes and monsters burst forth from the page to draw the viewer into the exciting yet deadly atmosphere of treasure filled tombs and outlandish horrors.

Alas, I blab too much when but a few pictures will do what words cannot.

Explore Peter's work now!

Fantasy Friday

This Friday I'm taking a step slightly outside of classic D&D.

I've been reading the rules for the original Gamma World and taking a look at Goblinoid Games' Mutant Future. There's a lot of interesting things there that I'll chat about in future posts. Anyway, theses images head in that Mutant Future, Gamma World direction featuring the infinite creative mind of Jack (The King) Kirby. And if you're looking for any mutant world inspiration, Kamandi is a great place to start!

You can probably find many of the back issues on the interwebz but DC comics has put together a nice Kamandi collection of Kirby's far-out stories.

Fantasy Friday

For Fantasy Friday today we have a very special treat. Over at Ninja Mountain Scrolls there is a great podcast featuring an extended interview with TSR artists Erol Otus and Jeff Easley. Also at the virtual table is artist Stefan Poag and Goodman Games.

It's a great listen as they chat about creating the illustrations for classic D&D material and talk a bit about gaming, TSR, the old school movement and Swords & Wizardry.

Fantasy Friday

Instead of just sticking with art drawing for Fantasy Fridays, I'm expanding it a bit to include other imagery to get your old school pulp fantasy juices flowing. This week is the classic Golden Voyage of Sinbad. It's got more pulp fantasy than you can shake a 10 foot pole at. An evil sorcerer whose use of the dark arts drains his life essence (played with great gusto by Tom Baker), a barbaric cult living in the ruins of a much older temple, dark caves and traps, the voluptuous slave girl played by Caroling Munro and some of Harryhausen's best creations. It's actually quite dark at times.

This is, by far, my favorite Sinbad movie though they all have their iconic horrors. If you haven't seen this movie in a while, revisit it. It's amazing how close to classic D&D this film actually is.



My Grandmother use to take my brother and I to see these films and it's something that I'm very grateful for. These brilliant fantasy films obviously left quite an impression on me which wasn't lost when I first saw the Homes Basic D&D box cover.

Friday's Fantasy Art

As I prepare for tomorrow's 2nd Annual Tucson ComiCon, my head is filled with artwork and drawings and I got to thinking what is one of the most captivating classic D&D dungeon crawl images? I'll have to go with the classic B1 In Search of the Unknown's David Sutherland III's drawing of the Room with the Pools. The apprehension at the pool's dark liquid, the blackness beyond, the fighter's alertness to danger, the wizard's pointy hat, all of these elements make for a great atmosphere that the old game inspired.
By far, one of my most favorite images and one that has stuck with me ever since.

Enjoy!

Friday's Fantasy Art

Every Friday I'll be posting a piece of, what I consider, fantasy art that inspires old school play. Since I'm finishing up the Lancer publication of Conan the Warrior I thought I'd open this up with Barry Windsor Smith's Red Nails splash page from Marvel's Savage Tales issue #2.