Here's the front:
And here's the back:
Keith also sent along a scan of a Dragon magazine mailing envelope, which has some nice artwork on it as well, although it's less impressive than the stuff we've seen for the Dungeon Hobby Shop.
By the time I subscribed to Dragon (starting around issue #65 or thereabouts, maybe a little later), the magazine came in a plain (brown?) mailer without any illustrations or decoration on its outside beyond (I think) the Dragon magazine logo. That's a pity; I really like these quirky envelopes and wish I had seen them back in the day.Thanks for these, Keith!
They shifted over some time in the double digits to the more boring mailing covers. If my moduels weren't a bit buried, I'd try to reconstruct when they switched over...
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know if there are any libraries out there with a special collections section dedicated to gaming and role playing games? because there should be. Makes me wish I could take an on-line archival class while I still have the chance.
ReplyDeleteJason,
ReplyDeleteHere in Toronto, there's The Merrill Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy that does in fact include a section devoted to RPGs.
Hmm.
It's RPG collection is very AD&Dcentric but still great that someone is doing it. Maybe it's the librarian and historian in me but someone needs to be collecting and storing these books in a secure place while they are still around to be found and collected.
ReplyDeleteI'd just hate to see these books, any RPGs to be precise, to be lost to the hands of time.
I have a feeling that Charm Monster is gonna fail if the fighting man hits the serpent with his ax... I guess it comes down to speed factors... or not.
ReplyDeleteCute stuff. I also started buying Dragon in the mid-sixties (66 was my first issue, I believe, though I purchase mine in the mall rather than subscribing), so I never saw mailing covers.
Jason,
ReplyDeleteI think the Merrill Collection relies heavily on whatever is donated to them, so it stands to reason they'd likely have more AD&D materials than anything else. On the other hand, at least some of this stuff is being preserved under archival conditions and it could in principle serve as the nucleus for a more wide-ranging and in-depth collection of materials pertaining to the hobby.
The Merrill Collection looks like a promising start. Since it has temperature controlled preservation, it might be a good place for gamers to donate items.
ReplyDeleteJames,
ReplyDeleteThat's what I am guessing. Most collections like these are donations. Libraries don't really want to sink their funds into this type of collection unless they have a stated interest in it. Syracuse University, for instance, has a decent collection of Lewis Carrol Alice in Wonderland ephemera. They brought out a first edition to let us see when they gave us the talk about archival work.
As someone with an interest in role playing games I would love for some library to do this but I don't think see that happening until someone gives them a huge chunk of books that gives them the impetus to go forward with this and even then I doubt they'd make the effort to collect more without an aggressive and competent archivist in charge.
Either way good for Merril, another thing to love about Toronto. One of my favorites cities. Would love to live their for a year or 2.
Is this collection related to Judith Merrill the SF author in any way?
ReplyDeleteIs this collection related to Judith Merrill the SF author in any way?
ReplyDeleteYes. She started the collection by donating her own books and magazines to the library and helped establish an endowment to keep it going.
Wow, that Sea Serpent really flubbed its save versus a Charm Monster scroll. I would gauge it's at least 15HD. "It was a bad roll Ripley, a bad roll..."
ReplyDeleteGood stuff!
You can see another one of these envelopes (front and back) in this thread on Tome of Treasures:
ReplyDeletehttp://tomeoftreasures.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4141
One side features the same party as the other envelopes fighting a giant; the other side features a similar but much larger giant picking up the Dungeon Hobby Shop.
Bowling Green State University, in Ohio, has an extensive Popular Culture collection with all sorts of weird stuff, like Jack Chalker's fanzine bio of Scrooge McDuck. I don't know that they've got RPG stuff there, but I also don't know that they don't.
ReplyDelete