Otus and Elmore open the art review

Each week I'd like to comment on some aspects of fantasy art. The artwork accompanying role playing games was one of their biggest draws for me, and always bring back vivid memories. There was a period in high school when my brother and I also scrounged fantasy novel book covers for scenes and characters that would inspire D&D adventures. Yet for the most part I was drawn to the artwork we found in role playing games. While a novel can paint wonderful scenes and characters through language, role playing games lean more heavily on their artwork to conjure images. Some game masters (like my cousin, Eric) can paint vivid images through the spoken word. Sometimes my imagination can take flight of its own accord during a role playing adventure, creating the most memorable of scenes. Still, I love looking at the art work of role playing  games. With little debate, it can be said that Dungeons and Dragons has produced among the very best of role playing game art. So, without further dilly-dally, here is an early classic by the infamous Larry Elmore.

This painting graced the cover of the 1983 Dungeons & Dragons Basic boxed rules set written by Frank Mentzer. It is otherwise known as the "Red Box" partly in reference to Elmore's red dragon. This edition of D&D was a reorganized printing of the Moldavy penned edition from1981, which was in turn a reorganization of the Holmes' edition from 1977, mentioned in a previous post. I mention these earlier editions because so many D&D fans have an image of the game ascociated with the cover painting from the edition they started playing. The Old School D&D revivalists have a particular love for anything pre-1983, which also gives them a dislike for anything, including art, ascociated with later editions. Presented next is the cover to Moldavy's 1981 boxed set, with a painting done by Erol Otus. Otus is considered by the Old Schoolers to be one of the the greats of D&D art. 

I never owned any books with Otus art, but I saw plenty of  them. I would agree that Otus is among the greats of the fantasy art genre, and his paintings have an unmistakable dreamlike, or an other-worldly, quality to it that has never been revisited in the artwork that graces D&D books. If you take these three paintings by David Sutherland (Holmes' 1977 edition) Otus and Elmore, you see that the subject is basically the same.

There is a dragon in its lair, treasures galore, and a warrior ready to to do battle with the great beast. The first two editions also have wizards, or magic users, added to the scene. Despite the similarity in content, the styles are wildly different. Sutherland's painting is etched deep in my memory as the first image of D&D I saw. I love it, even though Sutherland's artistic technical skills border on amateurish. Many players who took up the game after 1983 tend to look at Otus' paintings as amateurish and just plain weird, but the truth is that his technical skills as a painter are quite good. I suppose to many (particularly fans of Elmore and the like) Otus' skill is not immediately apparent due to his more simplistic style. To Otus' solid technical skills add the distinctive tone of his work, the surealism and strangeness of it, and you have a great composer of fantasy art. 

Then there is Elmore. His cover painting for the "Red Box" was a revolution in the role playing game world, as well as fantasy art in general. This painting of the red dragon and warrior immediately leaps out as something very nearly real. It is vivid, dynamic and tangible. Anyone looking at it can feel as if they are right there on the edge of the action. Compared to Sutherland and Otus, Elmore's work also simply looks professional. For almost two decades Elmore's realistic style of painting defined the direction of fantasy art work.  

The first Dungeons and Dragons product that my twin brother and I bought (well, I am sure our Mom gave us the money) was the "Red Box". We were nine years old on a family road trip traveling America's great Northwest, camped out in an Oregon State Park near the coast. My Dad was in Portland doing an interview with the Portland Museum of Art. My older brother Tor was off fishing at a pond much deeper in the forest. Leif, Mom and I sat at a picknick table unwrapping the box. It was just before sunset. I remember the tent, the campfire. Most every fan of D&D has that similar first "real" experience with the game that lives on in their memory; elevating that picture gracing the front cover of their first book to a lofty height that will forever define their image of role playing games and the world of fantasy in general. 

So, yes, for me it was Larry Elmore and his red dragon and warrior.  Leif and I spent hours that night reading through the books, setting up the dice (you had to color the numbers in with a wax crayon in those days) admiring the two pot mental figures that came with the set. We stayed up for hours because Tor never came back from fishing. All three of us, Mom included, delved into the "Red Box" to distract our growing apprehension at Tor's absence. The first book in the set included a short solo adventure that introduced players to the basic rules of D&D and provided the feel for role playing games. This was the story of Aleena the Cleric. Several classic black and white ink drawings by Elmore accompanied the adventure, which included zombies, an evil wizard, and the cleric laying dead on a dungeon floor. These were not the sort of pictures I really wanted to be looking at in the dark of night at age nine, camping in a forest, waiting for your missing brother to return. We all became so edgy that finally we began shouting for Tor, headless of the other campers, who I am sure heard the of fear in our voices. Tor eventually came trudging back into camp, into the light of our our fire. He told us the tale of how he had lost track of time and not started back towards came until twilight. He lost the trail in the dark (with visions of Friday the 13th stuck in his head) and had wandered around for a terrible long while until our shouts helped him find his way back to camp. With Tor safely back, we could once again happily appreciate the promises of adventure that the "Red Box" had to offer. 

Below are some of the Elmore drawings that accompanied the story of Aleena the Cleric. There are many times when I find Elmore's black and white ink drawings to be more evocative than his paintings. The drawing of the warrior standing over his fallen friend is one example. 

 

Last of all for this post, the cover paintings from the "Blue" and "Green" boxed sets that served to round out my introduction to D&D. These are more typical of a majority of Elmore's work with wilderness settings as opposed to dungeons or other interior. I love both of  these paintings as much as the "Red Box" cover. I also loved how they brought the game out from the dungeon and into the living world above. 

Wind Master and Viking Boy meet

Thomas F. Deitz has been on my mind lately. Tom was a marginally well known fantasy novel author in the 1980's and 1990's. He was a peer in the Society for Creative Anachronism, being a member of the Order of the Laurel. He was a rather accomplished visual artist, as well as an exceptionally good tailor. Tom collected fantasy and science fiction novels like no body's business. Wall-to-wall bookshelves teeming with said literature were part and parcel to his abode. Tom also collected old Lincoln Continentals and car magazines. He had nearly as many car model kits as he had novels. If you were either an automobile or fantasy enthusiast, Tom's ramshackle dwellings were national treasures.

Tom in SCA garb playing the herald 

For all this, my relationship with Tom was simply as a friend. We had our first introduction at an SCA meeting at the University of Georgia, and crossed paths again a few days later at a Toli practice, also at the University of Georgia. More on SCA and Toli in posts to follow. This was my first week at UGA as an undergraduate student. Tom had graduated years earlier with a Master's in English, but the impish inclination in Tom was powerful and he never left the liberal and youthful world of the college campus behind.  I had no inkling of Tom's accomplishments when I met him. Later on, his accomplishments never played a role in our friendship. What I loved about Tom was his free spirit, his odd courage, and the fact that he was just simply a gentle and pleasant person. Tom had a small catalogue of phobia's, including driving cars. (So odd considering how much he loved the things. When driving, Tom would take massive detours to avoid making left turns.) Despite Tom's fears, on our second meeting, Tom was playing Toli, one of the more violent sports on the planet. Physical prowess was never one of Tom's strong points. When we first met he was a small, rather soft looking, middle aged man with a beer gut. I thought it was so cool that he still had the gumption to play such a physical and dangerous sport.

Truth be told, Tom took an interest in me right away. I had a Viking name and a Viking appearance, complete with long, blonde hair. I must have looked like a character from one of his books come to life. Tom often called me Viking Boy. Whatever the circumstances of meeting, we became close friends, and it was a friendship that never included much of anything beyond sitting down to talk about life. Despite having so many parallel interests (cars not included) we never played role playing games together, we did very little SCA activity together, we didn't discuss literature, or fantasy novels, or even JRR Tolkein. I olnly read one of Tom's books, his first one, Windmaster's Bane. Although we both loved traveling, we only took one trip together, which was to pick up a car my twin brother had abandoned in Mississippi. We took a train down and drove the car back to Georgia. With Toli, Tom showed up less and less as the years went on. He didn't have health insurance. So, Tom and I were just friends, kindred spirits I suppose. We clicked in the most ordinary of ways. Tom was one of my favorite people. But, as Tom said once, we never found ourselves on the same page. We never really did. I was one of his odd-ball younger friends that would show up out of the blue, then disappear just a quickly. He also called me Chaos Boy, both because of my personality, but also on account of the chaos I threw his life into when I made my random visits. We both wanted a closer or more grounded friendship, but these thoughts occurred at different times and on different assumptions between us.

Windmaster's Bane, by Tom Deitz

There is  much more to be said about Tom. For now I will just add one memory that really describes Tom's character. When visiting him once in his home town of Young Harris, Tom and I were shooting the breeze as usual. Tom was drinking a beer, expanding (or improving upon) the gut, and I was probably drinking tap water since I don't drink alcohol and Tom never had any beverages in his house other than beer and tap water. Anyhow, Tom told me about this encounter he had had earlier that day in the little post office up the street. Tom was fetching his mail out of his PO box, and chatting with whoever else was there, as was pretty typical for Tom. One middle aged southern belle who had driven up from Atlanta for the weekend appreciated Tom's friendliness and found fit to tell him how awful it was that Georgia  was getting overwhelmed by Mexicans and you couldn't hardly go anywhere where now without seeing a Mexican. She was about to say more, but Tom cut her short with a passionate oratory. How dare she think he shared her ignorant and racist views just because he was white and had a Southern accent. He could only wish that there were more Mexicans or El Salvadorans or anyone of some foreign extract in his home town. Every time he ate out (nearly every night really) Tom went to the Mexican restaurant in Hiawasee, or the Thai restaurant in Hiawasee, because the restaurant owners and their families were so friendly, open minded, hard working, and knowledgeable about the world, and their food tasted better to boot. having said his fill, Tom turned around and walked out, leaving her gap mouthed and fumbling for some sort of response.

That was Tom, in his own way brave and fierce, an advocate of free thinking, diversity, and just keeping life as interesting as possible. He lived what he believed in. He also told me it was not great form to end sentences with prepositions. Now every time I end prepositionally, I am reminded that I am not at all a good writer. And I remember Tom.

Tom died of heart failure a few years ago, in 2009, surprisingly young since all of his elder kin folk lived into the 90's or beyond. I think Tom's mother even outlived him.

This is a link to an exhibit celebrating Tom's life and work. I miss Tom. He had such a great impact on my life in college, a very formative time. I miss Tom because he was such a good friend.
http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/pexhibit/deitz/index.html

The first adventure

I was rather young when my cousin, Eric, introduced my brothers and I to the role playing game of Dungeons and Dragons. Eric must have been a junior high school student at the time. I was age six. This would have been about 1980 or 1981.

I hesitate to label myself a D&D nerd, or a role playing game fanatic. I hardly fit the stereotype. Yet that first encounter with D&D is still very memorable. It was a magical moment. As a six year old I listened, fully enthralled, as Eric described our characters making their way up a stony forest path, stumbling into a trap and set upon by goblins. Eric was ruthless as a dungeon master. Within minutes all of our characters lay dead on the hard, cold ground. His dad, Uncle Dick, made the oft-hand comment that Eric should take it easy on kids as young as us.  I don't recall a stitch of who or what our characters were, but to a six year old, the scene Eric painted was better than any movie or storybook. There was that narrow path littered with rocks, a dark and cloud filled sky, a biting wind carrying dry leaves and scattered rain drops into our faces, and a forest of bare trees with the winter closing in.

Eric and his family lived in Flagstaff, Arizona. At the time we lived in Spearfish, South Dakota. On that long car drive home we played D&D for hours on end. We had no rule books or dice, just paper, a pencil, and our imaginations. We tore paper into little scraps and numbered them from 1 to 20. This served as our dice. We would take turns being the dungeon master, whose main job was to draw simple cave maps. There would be a few winding tunnels connecting several caverns, each of which had a monster living in it. Because my twin brother and I had an awful fear of spiders at the time, giant spiders featured prominently among our very small  cast of monsters. One cavern would always hold a chest full of treasure, but our main goal seemed to be to kill the giant spider. The characters we created on that car ride were always simple fighter/warrior types. I guess they had two or three statistics - hit points, armor class, and the damage that a sword or dagger might deal. Once we arrived back home in Spearfish, we only played D&D a few more times. Our Mom bought us (or found us) a used rule book, and helped us read through it and create characters. This is the now famous (among role playing circles at least) Holmes Basic rule book published in 1977. We were mostly absorbed by the book's equipment lists, perhaps because our supply of weapons and armor had been so limited on that car drive.

                                         cover of the the Holmes edition by David Sutherland

As I said, we only played a few more sessions of D&D at that time. Our parents kept our lives full of activities: hiking in Spearfish Canyon or Lookout Mountain, exploring old gold mines and mills, riding bikes, skiing, soccer, a wide assortment of art projects (my Dad is an art professor), plus getting dragged to all manner of folk dance gatherings, foreign exchange student gatherings, art faculty meetings, and so on. Left to our own devices, our favorite activities were to explore vacant lots, throw rocks, play in the dirt, and hunt for insects, reptiles and frogs. With all of this helping us grow up big and strong, who needed D&D?

One memory that always floats back to me on a breeze is the sound of my Mom's voice calling us home to dinner; "Tor, Leif, Soren." Tor is my older brother by two years. Leif is my twin brother, older by six minutes. Being the youngest, my name was always last to be called. This is when we were youngsters living in Spearfish, meandering around our neighborhood as the evening came on. "Tor, Leif, Soren. Time to eat dinner." Mom's voice was loud and clear, but always came from far away. I love the sound of that call.
Also in Spearfish, everyday at 6:00pm the fire station would sound the alarm. You could hear it anywhere in town. We always knew when it was 6:00pm.

The swallow takes flight

The American begins with a line from the gay English poet Oscar Wilde, and his story "The Happy Prince".

     "I am waited for in Egypt," said the Swallow. 

I begin here because this blog (oh how I hate the word, blog) is inspired by memories, and oddly enough this line is one of my more poignant ones. Presently I am bombarded every hour by by a hail storm of of such missiles, these memories, that I am soon to be buried alive. I asked a friend if this was normal. He said sure it is, that's what we call nostalgia. But this is not nostalgia; this is an ambush, and this is murder. My plan is to write my way out of this assault.

Oscar Wilde's tale of the the golden statue and the swallow that fell in love with him (Him) left a deep mark on my childhood, right  up there with "Free to Be You and Me". I didn't read Wilde's story until I was in college. We watched film version of it in the 3rd or 4th grade. I connect "The Happy Prince" with memories because the film has such a nostalgic feel, its two main characters holding fast to their dreams even as winter and the harsh realities of their world close in around them. Around the time I saw this little film (it was a Friday afternoon, elementary school in Alpine, Texas) I made a vow to myself that would never grow up, remain a child forever. Well right there I went and buggered myself. It's no wonder that I so often find myself bombarded by memories. 


The American writes of memories, deals a counter blow on the front lines of nostalgia. Yah, yah, yah, but what is the American really writing about here?

• The highlights of my youth: role playing games and all related aspects.
• Autobiographic schlep. 
• Thoughts on American culture and society.
• Growing old as a diplomat, the American abroad.

If I don't write about role playing games, I don't think I'll be able to hold my own interest for more than a post or two. 

So, time for this swallow to fly. It is not the African variety with a propensity for transporting coconuts. This is the American bird taking wing.