Wednesday Comics: DC, February 1983 (week 1)

My ongoing mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics that were at newsstands on the week of November 3, 1983. 

Atari Force #2: After how good the first episode was, I suppose it's natural the second might be a bit of a letdown. We're still "getting the band together," so we check in on Pakrat and Babe who pretty much repeat their story beats from last issue. Tempest faces prejudice from his (former) girlfriend and her father due to his mutant powers. Morphea has a chat with Martin Champion, who we find out is viewed as a bit of a kook because he believes there's an evil force behind the strife and conflict in this part of the galaxy (spoiler: he's right). The real spotlight here is on Dart, though. She and Blackjack have taken up with the rebels after their former employer burned them, but she winds up having to go one-on-one against Warbeast, a creature sent by the Dark Destroyer. 

DC Comics Presents #66: Wein and Kubert bring in Etrigan the Demon for his last appearance before Moore gets ahold of him in Swamp Thing. And there's an interesting thing: Etrigan rhymes here. I had always thought that was a Moore invention, as it wasn't an original attribute of the character, but no, Wein does it first. Anyway, Prof. Lang unveils an ancient, wooden statue of a Druid at an event, but it turns out that it isn't a statue but the actual evil druid, Blackbriar Thorn, who was turned to wood for his crimes. He comes to life thanks to astrological conditions, and Superman and the Demon must do battle against his sorcery. He's defeated through cleverness as Superman lifts the group he is standing on, severing his connection with his elemental powerbase, and throws him into space.

Kubert is an unusual choice for the Demon or Superman, but he draws a great wooden druid. What this issue most makes me think about is the real lack of rigorous formula for inclusion in the Who's Who, at least around the edges, as Blackbriar Thorn (1 appearance) gets an entry while Black Eagle (strip headliner with 6 appearances!) did not. I suspect the fact that Wein was editor of Who's Who had something to do with it. 

Amethyst: Princess of Gemworld #10: Dark Opal is seeking fragments of various houses gems so he can usurp their magical power. He doesn't have them all yet but next on his list is amethyst. There is an amethyst gem fragment in his domain thanks to Granch, but Opal hasn't found it yet and Amethyst and friends want to retrieve it. Topaz goes to convince his sister to join the rebellion while Amethyst and Princess Emerald face Carnelian.

Blackhawk #267: The death of Blackhawk's doppelganger provides ad opportunity. He hatches a plan (with Churchill's blessing) to let the world believe he has died, then infiltrate Germany pretending to be the doppelganger, Agent Schoener, and kill Hitler. Beyond that, a lot of the issue is given over to exploring the Blackhawks' attitudes toward Germans. They tell us several times that the German people are fundamentally different from other nations, and that Hitler has them utterly in thrall. Blackhawk's assumptions are challenged when he meets and falls for a waitress in a German restaurant. She happens to be a "Helga," having the same first name as Domino. All of this is fine but poorly integrated thematically, I feel like, with the main story, involving Blackhawk's failed assassination attempt and swift escape. Still, I appreciate the depth Evanier and Spiegle are trying to give the title.

Fury of Firestorm #20: Conway and Kayanan/Rodriquez are mostly doing setup this issue. Firehawk (Lorraine Reilly) and Firestorm start their relationship, much to the discomfort of Martin. On the plus side for him, he gets his job back, though maybe it isn't so much of a plus since it's due to the machinations of whatever shady entity his ex-wife is working with. Then, Killer Frost escapes prison, kills a few people and comes for Stein. 

Justice League of America #223: Months back, I said Conway's work on the JLA was underappreciated, and I stand by that, but this arc has been a counter-argument. Conway and Patton/Tanghal bring the Beast Men storyline to an end, and I'm not sorry to see it go. Given the number of heavy-hitters on the JLA, it stretches credulity that Maximus Rex and his cronies get the better of them at every turn, yet they do. Somehow Dr. Lovecraft is aware of Superman's power loss under a red sun and exploits it. Somehow, he knows Firestorm will get a power drain if he tries to use his power against organic material, and he exploits that, too. While the League takes out some of the Beast Men, it is Reena that does battle with Rex, and in the end, it's their continuing mutation into pure animal forms that dooms them, not the League's actions.

Wonder Woman #311: Mishkin and Heck continue the gremlin storyline, and we learn some of the history of the alien species. It turns out the bigger aliens from last issue are really just replicas used by the gremlins to throw off suspicion. Anyway, they agree to return Wonder Woman's invisible jet, but Wonder Woman and Trevor manage to make off with the robot plane too before the gremlins' ship returns to the stars. Meanwhile, Circe gets ahold of Major Griggs.

In the Cavalieri and Speigle Huntress backup, Nedra Borrower and Terry Marsh have stirred up public animosity toward the Huntress. It's so bad that the cliffhanger ending sees the Huntress in the grip of an angry mob. We also learn that Marsh is in the employ of Earthworm, and his moves against the Huntress are to get her out of the way to help Earthworm's baby-selling ring.

Vigilante #3: Wolfman and Pollard/Marcos figure having a guest star from the popular New Teen Titans can't hurt. Vigilante is chasing Cyborg and an organized crime figure, Stryker, through a forest with the intent to kill Stryker who was only found guilty of a firearm possession charge due to a "technicality." Cyborg is trying to get the guy to prison alive. There is a lot of back and worth about Vigilante's philosophy and he (multiple times) justifies killing the guy, but when he gets the change, he can't do it. When Stryker kills somebody and takes a hostage, Vigilante kills him. Vigilante's ideas about exactly what the parameters of his mission are seem to be evolving; he certainly is willing to kill, if necessary, but he isn't an executioner. We also get an indication that some shadowy organization trained him, which was something I had wondered about. Chase also mentions that "somehow" he got years of training in months, which lampshades why he's suddenly so formidable, but I wonder if that's ever really addressed?

Kiss of Blood (part 1)

 We had our first session of They Came From Beyond the Grave! last night adapting the Call of Cthulhu adventure, Kiss of Blood.

The cast:

• Tony Kovac - San Francisco cop whose vacation in the Old Country is anything but relaxing. (Jason).
• Jess Barrow - Half of the occult folk-rock duo, Fata Morgana, gifted with second sight. (Andrea)
• Dean Starkey - The other half of Fata Morgana. A guy used to gettin by on his wits.

The three Americans arrived in Karloczig, Wystdovja Vale, (in Slovenia, on the Adriatic) for different reasons. Kovac was going to get a vacation and help local cops out on a case as a favor for a friend. Dean and Jess had been booked to play the local festival around Walpurgis Night. None of them imagined they'd wind up working together to find a missing girl. Well, the players did, the characters, not so much.

While Kovac discovered Inspektor Hochmair wasn't exactly overjoyed to have his help. Jess and Dean met Gustav Homan, the father of the missing girl, Matilda. They also heard that there were a lot of disappearances around the village of Karloczig, but the local Burgomeister doesn't take them seriously. There are legends about the castle Heidenstein up on the hill. It's cursed, it's said.

That night at the festival, Jess sees an eerie, mysterious woman, perhaps watching her, but the woman disappears before she can point her out to Dean.

After a night of attempting to out-drink Hochmair, Kovac is awakened early by a knock on his hotel room door. There's been a body found. Hochmair takes him to the office of the coroner (and doctor) von Kluge. The woman is young and brunette, but she isn't Matilda, but someone from out of town. She has been mutilated, as if by some animal, her throat ravaged and her body partially exsanguinated.

They Came From Beyond the Grave!

This weekend, in the spirit of Halloween, I plan to run a one shot (well, probably two shot before it's over with) of the Onyx Path game They Came From Beyond the Grave! It's part of their series of They Came From games, each made to sort of emulate some cinematic genre from 50s to monster movies, to Italian Sword and Sandals pictures, to (in this case) 60-70s horror films of the Hammer, Amicus, or AIP variety.

All these games use the Storypath system which is basically a descendant of the old White Wolf d10 dice pool system, but lighter and with some mildly narrative mechanics, like Rewrites which players can use to change the results of bad rolls or get a bit of narrative control. One of the things Rewrites can be spent on (though this is an optional rule) are Cinematic Powers which imbue the game world with the elements of the low budget films it's emulating. For instance, there's Dangerous Liaison wherein a player can pay for an awkwardly inserted scene (utterly free of danger!) to romance an NPC.

Players have other, less game-reality bending extras to employ like Tropes, Trademarks, and Quips that lend bonuses in specific situations. In fact, if I have any criticism, it's that the system is perhaps a little overstuffed with options for an otherwise "at the light end of rules medium" game.

Anyway, I plan to run to run Cthulhu Dreadfuls Presents #1 - Kiss of Blood, which is a very Hammer Horror flavored scenario. It seems easy enough to adapt.

Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1984 (week 4)

I'm reading DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on the newsstand on October 27, 1983.

New Adventures of Superboy #49: Nice Kane cover. Kupperberg and Schaffenberger have Clark and Lisa go on a date to see a Smallville performance by Zatara. When the magician's magic accidently opens a portal allowing the barbarian warrior, Turlock the Berserker, to invade Earth, Superboy's and Zatara's powers combined aren't enough to stop him. Luckily, Johnny Webber, the former Dyna-Mind, has genuinely reformed and surreptitiously renders aid.

In the Dial H backup, Bridwell/Rozakis and Bender/Giacoia reach the end of this arc and with it the entire series. The Master remains confused as to his goal in all of this, and our heroes can't help him. When the Wizard that created their dials shows up, he merges with the Master, and it turns out they were actually two parts of Robbie Reed, the original Hero Dialer from the 60s. He tells the kids how he got split and how he lost his original dial. Thanking the kids for their good deeds, he decides wisely to retire from hero-ing and gives his dial to Nick. The Dial H kids get one last appearance in Crisis.

Ronin #4: Miller really takes his time with this one. It looks good but not a lot happens. In one half of the story, the Ronin gets around (eventually) to rescuing Casey from an underground cannibalistic tribe. In the other, where things happen at a bit of a quicker pace, Peter McKenna, concerned about Aquarius' move into weapons manufacture, comes to believe Taggart isn't himself. That's true, but McKenna is unprepared when he discovers the truth about what's behind Taggart's sudden personality changes.

Arion Lord of Atlantis #15: Picking up where last issue left off, Mara attacks Chaon with predicable results. The god of Chaos gloats for a little while, but then Chian senses the danger and comes to Arion's aid too. She rescues Arion from the sewers, but Chaon (disguised as the priest Trykhun) slaps a spell on Mara so she can't say anything. He urges Arion and Chian to go back to the sewers. They fight a gang of mutant folks of some sort then reach something called the Flame of Hjerta.  Chaon tricks Arion into thinking Chian is dead to goad him into attacking. Somehow, if Arion strikes him, he'll achieve victory and be able to destroy existence, but this isn't clear to me. Anyway, thanks to Mara's ingenuity in discovering she has telepathy (not just in animal form) and her persistence, Arion gets wise to Chaon's plan, and instead strikes the Flame, ending Chaon's threat for now.

Action Comics #551: Kane is on art and Wolfman is back as the writer. With him, the simmering Vandal Savage storyline gets mentioned again, but it's mostly it's just background. Two children are going to die without an experimental medication from the Soviet Union, but the supply is being held up due to an attack by Afghan militants. Superman races to get the drug in time but is held up by emergencies around the globe. 

All-Star Squadron #29: The Shining Knight has just finished a sortie against German raiders over Britain when he gets a request to assemble with all the All-Stars back in America. Pondering whether to leave his native Britain, he tells Churchill of an adventure he had with the Seven Soldiers of Victory, which is essentially a retelling and expansion of Leading Comics #3, where all Seven Soldiers get a solo mission in Golden Age team comics fashion.

Detective Comics #534: Moench and Colon/Alcala continue the story from this month's Batman. The captured Dr. Lignier refuses to give up anything to the police, and Jason doing his own investigation can't turn up Ivy's location. When the Wayne Foundation execs that visited Exotica get up and walk out of the office though, the situation gets more urgent. Ivy calls them to her, and her plants and machines steal their brainwaves to create more of those plant men. 

Batman figures out the fire was ruse, and Ivy is still at the site of her "old" Crime Alley hideout, just underground. He and Jason go there, but Ivy throws a vine rope around Jason's neck and Batman has to fight the plant men. It's Jason that saves the day by turning the tables on Ivy and getting the garrot around her neck and forcing her to call off her minions. Later, with Ivy in custody, Batman announces Jason is ready to be his partner, and they humorously discuss possible codenames.

In the Green Arrow backup by Cavalieri and Patton/McManus, the Werewolves of London motorcycle gang make off with the black box everybody's after, and The Detonator also escapes. Green Arrow gets a captured gang member to tell him where they're holed up. When he goes to the Werewolves' hideout, another of their crew gets the jump on him before he can do anything.

Jonah Hex #80: Fleisher and Ayers/DeZuniga pick up where last issue left off. Hart rescues Jonah but the arrival of the sheriff means Hex has to do his recovering in jail. Hart agrees to go retrieve the letter which will exonerate Hex--though not from this most recent false charge--but he's captured by Turnbull's men who also want the letter. Emmy Lou (dressed like a "Sexy, Native American Princess" Halloween costume) is at the jail at the same time Mei Ling visits making things awkward. Man of Two Bloods shows up that night and busts Hex out of jail. Meanwhile, Hart has escaped the goons, but Turnbull is off to get the letter.

Hex and Turnbull have a confrontation at the place the letter is hidden. It ends up with Turnbull getting rattlesnake bit. Dying, he still aims a pistol for Hex's back...

World's Finest Comics #299: The intriguing cover only barely has any connection to the interior. I have to hand it to Kraft here: This story is a really modern-seeming condemnation of colonialism for something from 1983. Superman and Batman (still tense with each other over the Markovia incident) follow Zeta into the tree. Zeta, still pondering his place in the cosmos, plans to send them to two different places where they will be individually tested. They agree.

Batman meets the aliens at the top of the Cosmic Tree who tell him that their world is in danger of over-population. The Cosmic Tree is a portal to other worlds that they use to seek out new colonies for their people. They claim their enemies at the bottom of the Tree are impatient with the pace of things and want to commit genocide on Earth to hasten colonization. Superman arrives at the bottom of the Cosmic Tree, and he meets a group called the Sensitives who can see through time. They claim that the aliens at the top of the tree are dooming their race by preventing them from colonizing new worlds. Superman is lied to by the "Present" who was creator of the Pantheon. 

In the end, the problem is communication. Both sides of this struggle have stopped talking. However, both plan to exploit the Earth and destroy humanity. It's only the timeframe and means they are arguing about. We are told their society is nothing but consumers who produce nothing,

Batman and Superman manage to trick the aliens, allowing Superman to get back to Earth where he can stop Mu of the Pantheon from executing his plan. But the portal closes and Batman seems trapped on the alien world.

A 10th Azurthversary

This week marks the 10th anniversary of our Land of Azurth campaign using 5e. While nothing's for certain, I suspect we will "finish" in this year as the big conflict with the Wizard of Azurth that simmered in the background for several years and finally boiled over the last two will come to a conclusion.

I wrote a post on the last anniversary which felt necessary not only because nine years is a nice run (though it is), but because we had faced adversity due to the pandemic and the loss of two members of our group--Eric due to burnout on tele-anything and Jim to cancer--and I felt like our perseverance needed to be commemorated. 

I don't want to just repeat what I said there, so I won't. Instead, I will say that 10 years of a an elfgame with a group of friends which now includes a new addition, Kathy, who plays the Mortzengersturm pregen, Zabra, gives me completely different insights and perspective on gaming than my nearly 15 years of blogging or the latest wisdom dropped on social media. 

Games are a social activity. While rpgs are fun to theorize, write, or argue about, the real alchemy comes in the playing of them. And, for me at least, the playing of them not mainly in pickup games with strangers, though I don't discount the fun in that, but with the same crew, repeatedly.

Thanks to Andrea, Bob, Gina, Kathy, and Tug, for still being here, and to Eric and Jim who came most of the way. Azurth wouldn't be the same without you. 

Wednesday Comics: DC, January 1984 (week 3)

My mission: read DC Comics' output from January 1980 (cover date) to Crisis! This week, I'm looking at the comics on newsstands around October 20, 1983.

Thriller #3: Scabbard wants the President of the U.S. dead, and he's coercing Salvo to do it by kidnapping his mother and putting a bomb under her skin. Scabbard's holding a train on the LA-New York route hostage unless the President surrenders himself. He also wants Dan Grove to join him on the train for some reason. Dan isn't thrilled about this, but the team isn't giving him much choice, and a visit to Beaker's confessional where he revisits his father's death helps a bit. Meanwhile, Proxy is already on the train in disguise, and the rest of the Seven Seconds prepare to go into action.

Power Lords #2: Fleisher and Texiera/Dee continue the story from last issue, and we discover that Arkus's blast didn't destroy Adam and Shaya, it merely sent them to the Dimension of Doom where they will be imprisoned forever. There, they meet the boastful, orange, sauroid Sydot who knows of a way out through an interdimensional cavern guarded by monsters. They make it out, but all this battling has drained Adam's power gem, so they go looking for a means of recharge. They try the Toranian power crystal, as one does, but it has been destroyed by Arkus. They have no choice but to seek the Wellspring in a distant dimension. After some trippy scenery, they arrive at the place. There's a guardian that resembles a golden, child buddha. The Extraterrestrial Alliance is also there, and a fight breaks out. When the fight is over, the villains are revealed as illusions. The guardian reveals the power was in Adam all along. Our heroes fly out to confront the villains in the final issue.

Batman and the Outsiders #6: Barr and Aparo start this one off with the Outsiders settling into their civilian lives in Gotham: Halo starting school, Katana and Black Lightning starting jobs, and Geo-Force and Metamorpho visiting Dr. Jace in the hospital. Then, there's an attack by a new villain, the Cryonic Man, who tries to steal an artificial kidney that's supposed to go to a young girl who is a patient at the hospital. While the Cryonic Man talks to his family who seem to have been in suspended animation for decades, the Outsiders lay a trap for him. He takes the bait, and it leads to a fight on a Gotham City highway. In the end, the Cryonic Man takes Katana hostage and manages to freeze the rest of the team in liquid nitrogen.

Green Lantern #172: The new creative team of Wein and Gibbons take over, and they waste no time dispensing with the detritus of the old storyline. Jordan flies up to Oa, greets his friends, and has his hearing in front of the Guardians. They allow him to return to Earth, and he gets back in time to reunite with Carol and manage to fight some earthly crime. The spaceship he bought and has been traveling in for several issues is never mentioned, and poor old Dorine who has been his companion for the last few stories is only mentioned in a line of dialogue (telling us Hal dropped her off on her homeworld).

In the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps backup by Klein and Gibbons, a professional scavenger Metalfinder on a distant world finds an unconscious Green Lantern, the Green Man, and salvages his ring and power battery. When the Green Man wakes up, he tries to warn the villagers about the threat from the Spider Guild, they but won't return his stuff. When the Spider Guild does arrive, he suggests they can keep the metals from the ship if they help him, and they agree. The plan works and the village is now metal-rich, but the Metalfinder is now out of a job and about to leave town! He asks Green Man to take away the riches of the other villagers so he can be their supplier again, but the Green Lantern refuses.

Legion of Super-Heroes #307: Levitz and Giffen/Mahlstedt begin the teasing reveal of a new menace. A group of Legionnaires investigating a destroyed planetoid encounter and are forced to flee from something so powerful they namecheck Darkseid in categorizing it. Meanwhile, Elemental Lad can't believe he was elected chairman. With another group of Legionnaires on a difficult diplomatic mission to Khund, we find out Saturn Girl is pregnant. The mission is interrupted by the arrival of the menace to Khundia. The Legionnaires hear the Prophet proclaim Khundia's coming destruction!

The story juggles a lot of characters, action, and character bits nicely. It's a bit exhausting in this era of decompression, but I think I like this approach a bit better in some ways than the Claremont/X-Men style of handling big casts. Giffen's art here straddles his Kirby-influenced past and the simplification and packed grid layouts that are coming, showing both styles.

Sgt. Rock #384: The main story by Kanigher/Redondo has Easy in Sicily where they encounter a fatalistic old farmer and his recalcitrant mule. After a firefight in a cemetery, the paisano has a change of heart and goes off to join the partisans. 

For the first time (at least that I've noticed), the other two stories are reprints. Friedrich and Thorne present a story about war in the trenches not ending just because there's an armistice from Our Army at War #227 (1971). Glanzman clues us in to how liberties work on WWII era naval vessels in a piece from Our Fighting Forces #138 (1972).

Supergirl #15: Kupperberg and Infantino/Oksner reveal Blackstarr's origin, and sure enough she is Mrs. Berkowitz's daughter who got separated at Aushwitz. She came to feel abandoned by her mother and when taken in by the camp commandant and his wife, begins to identify with their ideology and view her own people as weak. She kidnaps Berkowtiz, trying to decide whether to kill her. Supergirl intervenes and their fight that takes them to the center of the universe. When Blackstar manipulates gravity around her to reduce Supergirl to atoms, Supergirl rushes towards her. The overwhelming gravitation draws close two black holes which rip Blackstarr apart. Supergirl returns to visit Berkowitz, and wordlessly shares with her a sad smile before flying off. Ultimately, this arc seems to have abandoned its themes (such as they were) for a superhero fight.

Swamp Thing #20: This is Alan Moore's first issue as writer of this title, and he's joined by artists Day and Totleben. I don't think this issue was included in the original, first trade paperback of Moore's run, and there's a reason. As the title suggests it's tying up "Loose Ends" rather quickly. After defeating Arcane, Sunderland Corporation comes for Swamp Thing and his allies. Liz and Dennis, whose relationship seems to be over just as it seems to have been starting, luckily escape a bomb left in a motel room for them and are forced to go on the run. Abigail is like Liz, disenchanted with her partner, though perhaps for better reasons. Matt is drinking still, but his broadcast hallucinations/demons appear to be better. Perhaps they are just under his control. Swamp Thing spends a lot of the issue brooding about his place in the world before he is shot dead (apparently) by Sunderland goons.

Warlord #77: I covered the main story here. In the Barren Earth backup by Cohn and Randall, some unknown technological power is notified of the re-activated battleship Jinal found last issue. She's barely had time to show off a few of its wonders, before someone takes remote control and causes it to be destroyed. Jinal and friends decide to seek out this hidden power.

New Talent Showcase #1: This is an anthology book to (as the title says) showcase "new" talent. I'm not sure if the talent was responsible for the creation of the characters as well as the stories, but it's interesting that there are no straight-up superheroes among them. The first, "Forever Amber" by Margopoulos and Woch/Maygar, tells the sort of origin of a biracial young woman in Southeast Asia who gets powers from Kali after a gem she stole from a Dacoits Temple becomes embedded in her palm. She plans to find and confront her American father who she believes abandoned her mother and her.

Skydogs by Kellog and Mandrake is a swashbuckling romp with the twist that the titular rogues have a ship, Moonjammer, that flies via a balloon (I think). Hawke and his mate Ndemba find themselves embroiled in magical doings after the rescue (I guess) of a princess of India. "Rock of Ages" is a oneshot involving a timeloop by Tod Smith. Klein and Scott Hampton present their sci-fi Class of 2064 strip. A virus is stolen from a lab on Mars. Later, a group of high school kids are traveling to Earth on a school trip, and Pern meets a young girl who is secretly carrying the virus with her.

Weird Revisited: Middle-Earth in Blacklight

I've been thinking about this sort of material again, recently. The original version of this post appeared in 2021...

It's well known that hippies were into Tolkien's work. Some of its themes appealed to them, certainly, but like with Lee and Ditko's Dr. Strange comics, there was also the idea that the works might somehow be drug-influenced. The author, it was assumed, might be taking the same trip as them. This was, of course, a false belief, but it was one that existed.

I this appreciation of Tolkien filtered through 60s countercultural and mixed with the prevalent cultural representations of fairytale fantasy led to a subgenre or aesthetic movement within fantasy, most prevalent in the late 70s and early 80s, before D&D derived fantasy came to ascendancy. While this subgenre likely finds expression in literature and even music to a degree, I think it is most recognizable and definable in visual media. It's evident in works like Bakshi's film Wizards and the Marvel comic Weirdworld (both in 1977), and in the Wizard World sequences (starting in 1979) of Mike Grell's Warlord. Elfquest (1978) shows the influence to a degree. Bodē's Cheech Wizard (1966) and Wally Wood's Wizard King (introduced 1968 but significantly presented in 1978) are either the oldest examples or its direct progenitors.

Essentially, the subgenre eschews the serious world-building of LotR for a more drug-influenced riff on The Hobbit, often with greater use of anachronism, camp, and sexiness, and often with a degree of psychedelia. Beyond the Tolkien influence, these works tend to share a number of common features:  a "traditional" visualization of elves and dwarfs as "little people," arising in folklore and classic illustration, but coming more directly from Disney animation and the fairytale comics of Walt Kelly; the influence of Denslow's Oz illustrations or the design aesthetic of The Wizard of Oz (1939); absurdism and humor borrowed from underground comics and Warner Brothers cartoons; unreal landscapes and visually alien settings informed by Sword & Sorcery and science fiction comics rather than historical or mythic sources of Tolkien.

Given they were contemporaries, D&D shows some in influence from these sources, primarily in its early art and occasionally humorous tone. But as a game that arose from wargaming there was always a thread of verisimilitude or equipment fixation that runs counter to this freewheeling psychedelic adventure vibe. Also, the violent, heroic narratives tended to have less room for the silly or less competent characters of psychedelic fantasy works.