Yesterday, several of you sent me a link to an announcement by the United States Postal Service that, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons next year, ten new stamps featuring D&D artwork will be released.
My apologies for the poor quality of the images, but I couldn't find any higher resolution versions online.
While I'm glad to see that D&D is being honored in this fashion, I can't help but be a little disappointed that, with the exception of the stamp featuring Larry Elmore's iconic cover to the 1983 Basic Set, all of the illustrations featured are of very recent vintage. They're also, in my opinion, not even particularly interesting examples of contemporary D&D art. Granted, the odds that the game's current owners would deign to draw attention to the illustrations and illustrators of its formative years were slim, but, even so, these stamps are supposed to be celebrating a half-century of "the world's greatest role-playing game." Is it asking too much to see Tramp's PHB cover or maybe Erol Otus's cover to the 1981 Basic Set, too?
Ah well.
I asked for those same two stamps on another site.
ReplyDeleteThe PHB might be a little to violent, but the Basic Cover is a great example of a dragon in a dungeon.
For what it's worth as a cultural milestone, Warhammer got there first:
ReplyDeletehttps://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2023/08/an-important-question-about-warhammer.html
Cannot agree more strongly... I could easily see swapping out 4 - 5 pieces of art shown with something more evocative of D&D.
ReplyDeleteVery disappointing indeed. Should have had two art pieces from each edition if they really wanted to honor D&D history properly. You'd hardly know TSR existed from this mess.
ReplyDeleteWhile I regret the same nine, I must say that I am happy that (one way or another) a purple worm is on a postage stamp.
ReplyDeleteStamps are an interesting challenge because a piece of art that will work as a book cover might not work at the size of a postage stamp. I agree that they didnt include a wider range of art and that's too bad. I'm not surprised though. Some of those choices arent bad, like in the first 4, I think that's supposed to be Strahd, Tiamat, Drizzt and a purple worm. Those are all iconic and very dnd. The second group of 4 is just a bunch of randos though, why were they picked I wonder...
ReplyDeleteThey coulda put some Kieth Parkinson, Tramp or Otus like you say, they had lots of great options!
Agreed: that’s shitty. But nice that they have a purple worm in the mix.
ReplyDelete*sigh* It is what it is.
Yup, a complete miss by the USPS. There is so much great art from every era of the game that a much better selection should have been made.
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ReplyDelete> Granted, the odds that the game's current owners would deign
> to draw attention to the illustrations and illustrators of its
> formative years were slim
>
Actually, the 2018 D&D book "Art & Arcana: A Visual History" by WotC has quite a lot of art from older D&D publications. I own it and like it a lot, although - unless your a serious fan of the art - you'll probably only read it from cover to cover once, and then perhaps browse through it for the art from time to time. If you know where to look, you can even find the entire book online (*cough* archive.org *cough*), although if you like it I really can only recommend you actually buy the hardcover.
Most D&D art nowadays feels off, like it is TOO digital, you know what I mean? It kinda lost the "artist touch" of the good old days when it was drawn by hand...
ReplyDeleteThat could be said for the majority of modern art in the fantasy & scifi fields, not just in gaming circles, much less just D&D. Even many comic books look wrong to me now. Really makes me wonder how artists who habitually draw on a screen expect to retain their relevance as AI art generation matures.
DeleteI expect this is an attempt to appear relevant to a generation that didn't really grow up with snail mail. From that perspective, the 5e aesthetic may make sense.
ReplyDeleteOh please — WHERE IS THE TOPLESS AMAZON TRACED FROM A PLAYBOY MAGAZINE?! YOU CALL THIS ART??
ReplyDeleteWell said indeed. :)
DeleteWell, according to this news item, the specific art pieces were chosen by an art director for USPS, and not WotC itself. Oh, well.
ReplyDeletehttps://icv2.com/articles/news/view/55795/dungeons-dragons-goes-postal
On the 25th July the Royal Mail in Great Britain will also be issuing a set of stamps for Dungeons and Dragons, but no images until nearer the time
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