Saturday, May 21, 2011
Willingham Gamma World Adventurers
This weekend may is shaping up to be a busy one, so posting may be lighter than usual, but, to tide you over, I leave you with this piece of Gamma World art by Bill Willingham, which appeared in issue #4 of Polyhedron. I'm not usually a big fan of Willingham's artwork, especially for fantasy, but I can't deny that this piece has a certain something.
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I love those guys! If you saw my illustration for the "Time Displaced" article in Fight On! #10 you will notice an uncanny resemblance to these two...
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised that your not that big of a fan of Williams as well. To me, both he and Jeff Dee help bridge the gap to bring more comic book fans to embrace D&D. In fact,it was his depictions of the Drow that help convince this old X-Men fan to get into the Hobby when I was a wee lad.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised that your not that big of a fan of Williams as well. To me, both he and Jeff Dee help bridge the gap to bring more comic book fans to embrace D&D.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing is that it's precisely the "comic book-y-ness" of Willingham and Dee that usually breaks the frame for me. The buff physiques and painted on armor of these two artists' D&D illustrations simply don't jibe with my preferences these days.
You say these days, but was there a time when you did? I mean both artists are equally just as old school as Tramp or Otus ever were back in the day. Maybe now the influx of comic-style art has become redundant but 30+ years ago it was a novel approach. Plus, they illustrated some great pieces:
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/3r9px6g
http://tinyurl.com/3ju5drl
I couldn't imagine the golden age without them.
You say these days, but was there a time when you did?
ReplyDeleteI don't think my stance on Dee and Willingham has changed all that much since I was a kid. I like some of their pieces a great deal (Dee's paladin from The Rogues Gallery remains a favorite of mine, for example), but, by and large, I never much liked a comic book style for D&D art. I'll admit that my opinion on this score has hardened as I got older, but I still prefer Tramp, DCS, and Sutherland to Dee and Willingham by a wide margin. I associate their artwork with the late Golden Age (which I sometimes call the Electrum Age), when D&D was first becoming a mass market phenomenon but before it became wholly decadent.
Interesting. My second favorite cover of a gaming product (the first is the original Traveller box) was Willingham's cover for the otherwise uninteresting Lands of Adventure from FGU. It moves, I think, far from the "comic book-y-ness" of some of his other work, having a more melancholy, atmospheric tone. Image here.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you mention Bill Willingham, because I just saw him today! He was the secret (i.e.; not previously announced) guest creator at the Minnesota Comic Book Association SpringCon.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was cool to see him because he had done some old-school gaming art in addition to comics. But I can understand how comic book style art might not go with your picture of gaming.
I have mixed feelings about this.
ReplyDeleteI like the "savages who are entirely comfortable with super-science" feel. I like the fact that they make a good pair in several ways- PSH & mutant, fashion model & stone cold killer, white with grey gloves/grey with white gloves.
But it drives me nuts that the PSH has his hand over the muzzle of his weapon! I know it's nitpicking, but I cannot even begin to say how much this bothers me.
Dee and Willingham were two of my favorites. Thier B%W line drawings were such an inspiration.
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