Maps of Four-Color Fantasy Lands

When secondary world fantasy made the jump from literature to comics in the wake of Tolkein and Howard it brought the tradition of the world-map along with it.  This was the 1960s, and comics books hadn't quite gotten the memo that fantasy was completely serious, as this first map shows:

"I feel like a character from Howard or Tolkein. Pretty soon, though, I'm gonna wake up and find this is a spaced-out dream. And I'm gonna swear off reading sword-and-sorcery sagas!"

-- Jim Rook, Showcase # 82 (1969).

Myrra is the fantasyland that rock musician Jim Rook, and his girlfriend Janet Jones, get transported to in Nightmaster, starting in Showcase #82 (May 1969).  Rook is revealed to be the descendant of Nacht, an ancient warrior of Myrra, and the only one who can wield his ancestor's Sword of Night, and save the world from the evil Warlocks.  Nightmaster was the of writer Denny O'Neil and artist Berni Wrightson.  As some of the place names on the map might suggest (Duchy of Psychos, for instance) there was a bit of a late sixties camp element to Nightmaster's adventures, but not as much as some of the names might suggest.  Nightmaster ran through just three issues of Showcase.

This next map is a bit more traditonal. It's notable how set the tropes had become by 1975:

"...On a nameless world in a forgotten time..." is a pretty typical beginning for these sorts of things, and that pretty much sums up Wulf the Barbarian (pretty typical).  The series was from Atlas/Seaboard Comics (helmed by Stan Lee's brother Larry Lieber) and ran for four issues in 1975.  Wulf is the son of royalty, orphaned when trolls in the service of an evil sorcerer, killed his parents.  Wulf spends the next decade training as a warrior to reclaim his kingdom.  As one might imagine, the road to reclaiming that throne is potholed with a number of fantastic obstacles.  Wulf was written and drawn by Larry Hama, and inked by Klaus Janson for his first two outings, with multiple creators pitching in on the last two.  This map is from Wulf the Barbarian #3.

Descriptions for Hypothetical Hexes

In a clearing at a crossroads A Llanowauk warrior, bloody-eyed from overuse of stimulants harvested from Ancient caches, stands atop an overturned, giant, green stone head of a scowling god or demon. He loudly proclaims his strength and puissance at arms and calls for challengers. Despite well-worn state of his other possessions, his sword has an uncanny gleam.

On shores of the Lake of Vermilion Mists nearly naked female divers are inspecting their haul of rare ultramarine scintilla. Here and there their bodies bear what appear to be wave-like, mauve tattoos, darkened to the color of fresh bruises in the lake’s lurid, roiling glow, but are actually scars from the lash of urulu tentacles. The divers become tolerant to the hallucinogenic effects over time but not the pain, so they try to snatch the scintilla when the urulu are lost in courtship combat dances.

A gigantic fallen tree serves as a bridge over a deep ravine, but an arachnoid free manshonyagger makes its lair on the tree's underside and on occasion will catch and devour passersby. It cannot but heed its Ancient deep programming, so a human or humankin may command it, but only with the proper codes. The bottom of the gorge bears the possessions and bones of those who have passed before and not recalled them.

A domed inselberg rising from the forest is reputed to be haunted. Daily at solar noon, two identical angelic combatants, milk-white with prismatic-feathered wings, and large, bird-like eyes, grapple in the air above. Neither is ever able to overcome the other, and though their blows land with such force that onlookers claim they can feel shockwaves from them, there is never any sound. When the hour passes, they shrink and fade like shadows before the moving sun.

These are from this world.

Mountaintop Chalet of the Frost Giant Czar

ANTIGENCON, GenCon's online evil twin, is going on right now on G+ and as a part of that Jeff Call ran Mountaintop Chalet of the Frost Giant Czar. Jason Sholtis, Michael Gibbons, Chris P. and I played secret agents of the Lawful Church (the Radio Church of Pelor) sent in the rescue a missing bishop.

It was all very James Bond (in the 1967 Casino Royale sense). We pretended to be a wealthy foreigner (Sheik El-Ruptor) and his entourage to gain entrance then proceeded to find our contact and the bishop. We alas did not discover the Czar's evil scheme, but we did set the chalet on fire with dynamite and escape via a ski-lift handcranked by one of our team with a Girdle of Giant Strength and a Haste spell caste on him.

The Czar escaped to no doubt menace parties in the future!

Off to the Printer: Azurth Adventures Digest

The first Azurth Adventures Digest is going off to the printer today. It's full color, 28 pages, featuring art by Jeff Call and Jason Sholtis. There's a ten page mini-adventure local: The Candy Isle, random tables for generating colorful Motley Pirates and some flavorful tidbits on other islands, suitable for inspiring adventures.

Art by Jason Sholtis

Wednesday Comics: Moving Fortress & Subterra

Moving Fortress by writer Ricardo Barreiro and artist Enrique Alcatena first appeared in the comics anthology Skorpio in Argentina. In 1988, it was translated into English with the help of Chuck Dixon. It tells the story of Bask De Avregaut who is making his way across the desert in an aerostat when he comes upon, and is captured by a warlord commanding the titular moving fortress. The Warlord is out to defeat a rival and reclaim his bride. De Avregaut is initially made to feed the fortresses boiler, but after proving his skill with gunnery in battle, he comes to play a more pivotal role in what follows.

Subterra is the sequel, picking up with Bask following the events of Moving Fortress. This time he crashes in uncharted mountains and is taken prisoner by a weird and decadent subterranean civilization.

Both volumes are weird fantasy brought to life by Alcatena's artwork. With designs, a little bit Gothic, a little bit Lovecraft, and a little bit Asian, his pencils are an integral part of bringing the weirdness.

Eclipsed

Bruce Gordon was wanted to watch a solar eclipse in Africa, but the locale sorcerer Mophir tended like his intrusion and cut him with a mystic black diamond. When the eclipse occurred, Gordon was replaced with Eclipso, a shaded faced Hyde to his Jekyll. This all went down in House of Secrets #61 (1963). Eclipso has stayed around as a DC Comics villain ever since, despite the fact you'd think the rarity of eclipses would limit his power.

This would make an interesting lycanthropy-like curse in D&D, as well. Under dim lighting (say twilight, maybe, or a facsimile thereof) an infected demihuman becomes its evil/chaotic counterpart: elves become drow, dwarves duergar, halflings black hobbits, etc. with associate abilities. Humans would become orcs, maybe? I don't know.

Hydra House Ads

The Azurth Adventures Digest (and hopefully more products to follow where appropriate) will have some house ads in the style of those you might see in comics books of the Bronze and Silver Age. Here are the preliminary versions of some of those that will be in the digest:

Artwork here by Jeff Call and Luka Rejec.

Art you may recognize from Weird Adventures by Adam Moore, newly colorized.