Homage: 1982
Here's your exclusive advance look at the cartoon homage created during Episode 10.
Stephen D. Sullivan and I had a good long chat about the serialized “A Dungeons & Dragons Adventure” ads that ran in the pages of Marvel Comics back in 1981–82. Although mostly forgotten these days, I maintain that they played a key role in the early growth of the game, and deserve to be memorialized alongside the game’s greatest adventure modules and supplements. (If you haven’t listened to Episode 10 yet, you really ought to head over to YouTube and check it out.)
For my cartoon homage this week, I picked my favorite panel from the climactic episode of the ads’ first storyline. (Steve and I both do dramatic interpretations of the scene during the episode … definitely not to be missed!)
I really can’t overemphasize how much I loved these ads, or how big a role I think they played in introducing the new hobby of roleplaying to an audience that was just waiting for such a thing to be invented. I hope that love comes through in my homage, while at the same time being true to Bill Willingham’s incredible art.
As a subscriber to this newsletter, you’re seeing this art three days before it is released for general consumption. You also have the option to buy an art print of this or any of the cartoon homages (and if you’re a paid subscriber, you get a discount on those purchases).
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I remember these well as a kid. They were great.