Never having been a huge reader of comics, I keep forgetting that, during the late '80s and early 1990s, DC Comics published a number of titles based (mostly) on Dungeons & Dragons settings. One of them was set in Krynn, the world of Dragonlance. From what I understand, the Dragonlance comics were prequels that took place before the events of the first novel, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, and consequently introduced a number of original characters to serve as its protagonists alongside more familiar names.
Since I haven't had the chance to read these comics, I don't have much more to say about them specifically. However, I am fascinated to discover that, starting with issue #22 (August 1990), the series had a fair number of issues whose stories took place on the continent of Taladas, the setting of the Time of the Dragon boxed set for which I retain a fondness. I suppose this makes sense. If the comic writers had to keep away from the more familiar War of the Lance storyline, looking to a new and mostly undeveloped part of the larger Dragonlance world is a good choice.
Did anyone read these or any of the other TSR comics published by DC? Were any of them any good?
Not much of a comics person either... I didn't really realize they had explored the other continents of Krynn aside from Ansalon.
ReplyDeleteOnly Gammarauders, and only as a historical curiosity now, because I'm curious about the rules of the game being published in the letter column section and if/how Gamma World any of the content may be useful. I've always been a comic book nerd, but super-heroes (DC + X-men). That I could do solo. RPGs are about the stories that *I* could tell, so I didn't need comic book versions of them. Comics were about the 50+ years of lore that I could immerse myself in. My creativity with comics was solo (mostly a universe I was creating and unappreciated characters and series of DC, which was going through a Revival Era post-Crisis). RPGs were group endeavors. I missed the whole D&D novels trend too. My novels were SF, not Fantasy. So the venn diagram never overlapped on fantasy RPG comics.
ReplyDeleteThe entire 10-issue run of the Gammarauders comic is available in pdf form over here, including the light RPG rules (which I'd put about about on par with TWERPS, if that means anything to you):
Deletehttps://archive.org/details/gammarauders-010/Gammarauders%20001/
There were also comics from other publishers based on Villains and Vigilantes and Champions in the 80's and maybe early 90's. As I recall, they weren't very good. On the other hand, Bill Willingham adapted material from his V&V modules to The Elementals, published by Comico. And that comic was excellent.
ReplyDeleteAccurate across the board, there. Read Elementals if you can, skip the rest unless you're a fanatic completist.
DeleteMy younger brother had a handful of these, as well as DC's AD&D series, so I managed to read a few of both. A couple of interesting things:
ReplyDeleteA) they often included "game notes" in the back to translate characters, magic items, etc. to actual game-able material.
B) they were published BEFORE the advent of 2E (at least, the ones I read), and so stories and game content were crafted with 1E sensibilities.
The stories I recall were interesting enough. Some were even, mm, "poignant." But it is still late 80s comic book melodrama...not terrible, but not high art either.
The AD&D comics had more interesting things going on (so far as I was concerned), but the DL comics had more robust storytelling. As one might expect.
However, it's been decades since I've read ANY of these so I can't recall much aside from a handful of highlights.
I have read both the AD&D and Forgotten Realms complete line. I agree with JB above, they are interesting, but not must reads. I have a certain fondness for them, but I don't know if I would recommend them, even to another comic book reader. Interestingly, the AD&D and the Forgotten Realms are both set in the Forgotten Realms, and have crossover events.
ReplyDeleteI despise Dragonlance, so I never read this particular comic, but I did read the other two. They were OK.
ReplyDeleteI still have every issue, what would you like to know?
ReplyDeleteMostly, whether you thought the comics were any good? Did you enjoy reading them and why?
DeleteAlmost the entire Dragonlance comic was little sets of 4 (since you enjoy historical context). For example, issues 9-11 were "the arena of Istar Part 1/4" series. Often these series would have different people, or combinations of people as creators. So Mishkin/Randall/Elliott were the team for issue 22 pictured above. They were also the team that did Issue 1-4, 17-20, 22-25. These were good and enjoyable series because they created a sense that the world was a big place and that these 4 issues were catching a small slice of it, and the characters were bit players but were acting according to their convictions. Other teams of creators were less good and enjoyable. Sometimes the series felt as if they couldn't decide if these were published for fans of the genre or for fresh news-stand type readers who knew nothing of "Fantasy RPGs". It was all over by issue 34.
DeleteThey took some interesting risks. With "A winter's knight" issue 17-20 the story was set 50 odd years in the future, the blonde character above was in her old age and was interacting with 40 something young leaders and their children. Issue 21 was the only standalone. For issues 22-25 she was as pictured above. LOVED these risks and experiments with the format. I am assuming that they were disasters financially.
These are still my favorite D&D comics:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.pinterest.com/pin/marvel-comics-of-the-1980s-tsrs-dd-adventure-ads--651051689886578066/
I haven't read the D&D comics, but Gammarauders is a hoot,
ReplyDeleteIndeed, although teh light RPG published in Gammarauders might be the biggest draw. For those who missed the series, all ten issues are available online as pdfs:
Deletehttps://archive.org/details/gammarauders-010/Gammarauders%20001/
I've read most of the Spelljammer ones, and some of the AD&D and Forgotten Realms comics. If you like fantasy and late 1980s/early 1990s comic book story telling then they are enjoyable enough, but not overly remarkable.
ReplyDeleteI liked the V&V limited series. Jeff Dee art, classic V&V characters. It was fun. The Champions series was worse.
ReplyDeleteThe Forgotten Realms comic line was the best of the lot, in my view, as it generally told the story of a "campaign" - an over-arching quest to find and banish evil artifacts from the Realms (that's often sidetracked with personal character drama).
ReplyDeleteThe problem with this - and most D&D fiction - is that a lot of it was probably a lot more fun to play than to read. You can practically hear the dice rolling behind a lot of these stories - and while that might make for a great interactive story, it doesn't always make for an interesting one to read.
One interesting cycle of comics, rpgs and novels is Wild Cards. First we have super-hero comics, which begat the Champions rpg, which begat a home game run by george rr martin and played by many SFF writers, which begat the Wild Cards shared universe of novella compendiums, which begat a Wild Cards comic series. Unfortunately the comics did not carry the pedigree of its antecedents forward.
ReplyDelete