More Gwelf

Larry MacDougall released another book in his Redwall-esque fantasy series, Gwelf last month. This one is called Gwelf: Into the Hinterlands. In this one, Willburton Fox and his party set out into the North, first the Scrublands, then the dangerous territory controlled by the Ravens and menaced by Rats, Trolls, and the Mange.

MacDougall's art is just as wonderful as the first book, and there is good worldbuilding in the union of the text and pictures.

Imagining the Hyborian Age

 The map of Conan's world by Katrin Dirim I shared the other day was interesting not just because her her artistic style (though that's great), but because of the way she chose to depict the Hyborian Age costume and material culture. The prevailing style, since the Frazetta covers have been a vague "barbaric fantasy," which each artist working their own variation on the theme.

Howard's stories, by contrast, tend to be much more "historical" in their depiction of these things--though they aren't really consistent in their historical era. Different locales in Conan's world seem to come from different points in history: there are High Medieval tales ("Hour of the Dragon", "A Witch Shall Be Born"), Golden Age of Piracy stories ("Black Stranger"), stories that seem to be set in the ancient world ("God in the Bowl"), and even stories that like ahistorical periods of a Medieval version of the 18th Century ("Beyond the Black River").

I think Dirm's idea to narrow this range a bit to make it make more sense is a good one. On Reddit, she says she capped the level of armor at roughly the early middle ages, and mixed in elements from as far back as the Bronze Age to keep the atmosphere.

I think this fits well with the more "ancient world" interpretation Mark Schultz does in volume 1 of the Wandering Star/Del Rey collection:

Some of the slight re-shifts of the names would be fairly simple. Iranistan becomes the Persian Empire (take you pick which one), and Turan instead of being a stand-in for the Ottoman Turks, are maybe the Parthians? Aquilonia and Nemedian could be recast as somewhat Carolingian Frank:

Though I have seen portrayals (and there is some support for it) that Aquilonia could be Roman!

The Age of Sail stuff in Zingara and the Barachan Isles would require the most change, but there have been pirates as long as there have been boats, so it's possible.

Hither Came Conan...

This map of the Hyborian Age world by Katrin Dirim is pretty cool, and gives a different sort of vibe than typical illustration of Conan's world. There are a couple of illustrations from Conan stories, too. You should check them out!

Can Willow be Redeemed by Moebius? Let's Take A Look

The original version of this post appeared in 2017. Then, I was criticized by a couple of people for being unduly harsh to the film Willow. On reconsideration, I suppose that is fair, though I still maintain it doesn't quite come together with anything like the same magic as Star Wars. There is now a new Willow series on Disney Plus and the comments I've heard haven't been great, but I'll reserve judgement for now.

Moebius's concept work, which I first glimpse in a magazine around the time of the movie's release is as great as ever. Perhaps it doesn't suggest a weird fantasy Willow or anything that radical, but it does at least suggest to me a decent Studio Ghibli-esque film might have come from the material. Let's take a look and (re-)imagine:

Here's the titular hero and (I believe) one of his Nelwyn fellows. Nothing of the pastoral gentility of a Baggins, nor the too literal "small folk" of the film. These guys make me think of Howard's diminutive and declining Picts in "The Lost Race," but also aboriginal peoples like the Emishi (in Princess Mononoke) or Ainu. A sense of the Nelwyn threatened by humanity (or Daikini) would have been nice. I like the long earlobes, too.

Madmartigan is the rogue with the heart of gold Han Solo type, but with a bit more wastrelness, he could have been a wuxia sort of character or Sanjuro from Yojimbo or Mugen from Samurai Champloo--both of which are great swordsman, too. Moebius gives us a design that completely fits with those characters, suggests a world of ronin or wandering swordsmen of some sort.

So at this point, you might be thinking, "basically he's just going to say Willow should have been more Asian?" So now I'm going to throw you off:

King Kael here (General Kael in the film) is described as "bestial" in the third draft of the script, which he obviously is here. Perhaps he is a lover of Bavmorda transferred by her magic? A reverse Beauty and the Beast (there's maybe a bit of Cocteau's beast about him. Maybe?) Or is he the captain of the flying monkeys, so to speak? Anyway, he fulfills a bit of a Witch-King of Angmar role, so fleshing out his badass villainy would have been good.

Now, it's back to the Asian stylings. The mask suggests (to me) childhood mindwarping courtesy of Bavmorda for the warrior woman Sorsha. Maybe she's just go a slight blemish, but has been convinced its a horrible disfigurement a la (some accounts of) Doctor Doom? Maybe her inhuman beauty as a daughter of the Tuatha de Danaan-esque folk of Tir Asleen is her disfigurement to her witch queen mother? Note that the mask isn't just a human mask, it's go that single Oni horn. Probably means something.

Lastly, I believe this is one of two fairly divergent designs Moebius did for the brownies--but in an earlier script draft Willow and baby get captured by elves who are described as wearing "samurai-type outfits and angry little haircuts." These are guys who (in the script) collect baby tears as part of their gig. Now think of these sinister little guys, like a mashup of the Indian in the Cupboard and the evil faerie of del Toro's Don't be Afraid of the Dark remake. I think we could do without the French accent Lucas specifies for their leader, though.

Not Available in Any Galaxy

 In the G+ days of 2016, I imagined what some Osprey Books Star Wars entries would look like. Here they are, rescued from the depths of tumblr:

A Game I Would Like to Have Seen

Logan's Run may have come out a bit too early for an rpg tie-in, but it seems like the sort of thing FASA would have got a hold of if anybody did.

I think the setting has a lot of rpg potential, particularly as developed in the TV series.

Weird Revisited: Chances Are Walter Velez Has Illustrated Your Game

The original version of this post appeared in 2016, but it's still true today...

Sure, it's the Frazettas and Fabians, or Blanches and Buscemas--or even Elmores and Caldwells whose art fueled most of our gaming imaginations, but at least for my game, the works of George Velez hit a bit closer to what the reality is at the table.

Exhibit A. See that? That's a pudgy wizard running from a dragon that looks like it doesn't have a whole lot of hit points.

This is all the PCs trying to parley with the leader of the NPCs at once.

The fight didn't go exactly how you planned? Quelle surprise.

Hassled by annoying little people? It's been known to happen.

Operation Unfathomable Covers

 Jason Sholtis tells me that the work on the remaining Operational Unfathomable Kickstarter items is drawing to close, which is good news to a lot of people. Jason requested I send him all of the cover designs I had brainstormed for the various products. I had not looked at any of these in 4 or 5 years, but once I dug them up and thought they were worth sharing, though none of them may get used on the actually products.

This was my first design for the Completely Unfathomable omnibus. I mainly just wanted to give it an omnibus sort of feel.

This is for the same book, but thinking a bit more out of the box. It's meant to look like an old bubblegum card wax pack wrapper. 

This is the is the second design I did for Odious Uplands. It's meant the reference the sort of WPA national park posters. 

This was my proposal for the DCC version of Completely Unfathomable. It references the Skywald Publishing horror magazine style (even with a riff on it's "horror mood" tagline). It's my least favorite of these.

Images Under A Dying Sun

 Thinking about doing something with this old post condensing my ideas about Dark Sun. Here are some images that get me in the right frame of mind. No actual Dark Sun art here, though of course a lot of that is pretty inspirational.

More from the Alex Toth Casting Agency

 More Alex Toth art, subtle for NPCs or monsters:

Wednesday Comics: Logos and Directions

Logos

If you are a fan of comic book (and other media) logo design, you should be periodically checking in on Todd Klein's pages, where he providers commentary on classic logo treatments and his own design process.

I also discovered yesterday that Rian Hughes (designer of all of DC's very modern Tangent line logos among others) has put out a book hos his designs called  Logo-a-gogo: Branding Pop Culture.

From Implosion to Crisis

I've also decided in the coming weeks to return to a project I mentioned about a month ago of reading all of DC's output in the years between the DC Implosion and Crisis on Infinite Earths. I believe I've settled on cover date of January 1980 as my start date (this would have been comics on the racks in October of 1979). This is about a year after the end of the implosion, so things have settled in again. It also gives me a year's less comics to read than starting in '78.

Look for this starting next week in this space.

Ootherion Logos

 Jason Sholtis is working a comic set in the world Operation Unfathomable called Ootherion: Ape Myrmidon. He asked me to come up for a logo for the comic. I did several iterations, not because Jason is demanding but because I wasn't satisfied. Here are the last two I did:

I don't know which will appear on the comic, but I'm relatively satisfied with both of these.

Werewolf Trooper!

 

Art by Jason Sholtis

The werewolves were supreme in the 32nd century. Only the destruction of the moon final broke their reign.

Weird Revisited: On Venus

This post appeared in 2016 and was itself an expansion of a post from a couple of years prior but with art...

Art by Luka Rejec

Wet where Mercury is desert and as fecund as that world is barren, Venus is covered by warm, shallow seas and dense, tropical forests. Its natives are women--or creatures in the semblance of women. They are seldom surpassed in all the Cosmos in beauty, if one can abide their inhumanly colorful skins and their hair the texture of flower petals. They go almost entirely naked, and chastity is not counted a virtue among them.

There is a ruler on Venus, recognized by Earthly and Mercurian powers, called the Doge, who is always from another world. This title may be held by a man or woman, but in either case, the floral and lovely native Venerians are the Doge's solicitous wives or concubines. The Doge's identity is always hidden behind an ornate mask of that durable Venerian fungal matter that resembles teak. The ruler scarcely wears any more clothing than the Venerian women, save for the notable exception of an impressive phallocrypt, decorated and enlaided with gold, for public ceremonies.

A Doge’s rule lasts only a Venerian day, as measured by the fixed stars, which is hundreds of Earth days. When the sun sets, the Doge is taken by the Venerians into the forest and is seen no more.

More Classic TSR Settings as 70s Paperbacks

In comments on my last post of this sort, a request was made for Planescape and Spelljammer. I was happy to oblige.

Art by Bruce Pennington. Title typeface is Dynamo (well, actually Nougat which is an homage).

Art is by Richard M. Powers. Title typeface is ITC Busorama.

TSR Settings as 70s Paperbacks

For no good reason, I decided to reimagine two classic D&D settings as 70s mass market trade paperbacks.

Art by Ken Kelly

Art by Sanjulin

Inspirations for A Revised Spelljammer, Annotated

Sailing ships in space. Like Disney's Treasure Planet or the Pandarve cycle of Don Lawrence's Storm.

An Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon sartorial base...

Julio Ribera

...garnished with 70s bande dessinée artists' science fantasy eclecticism.

Don Lawrence

Weird worlds and numerous micro-worlds. The Little Prince's B 612 would fit right in.