Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Mythmere wrote:I think cartoony art fails almost always ... but witness the cartoons in the DMG.

Yes, this is one reason why I never liked the art of the Brothers Fraim so prevalent throughout HackMaster products.

I frankly don't see anything "bland" about the Yggsburgh cover, although I am not sure that it is appropriate for the work that resides within it.

dcs wrote:

Mythmere wrote:I think cartoony art fails almost always ... but witness the cartoons in the DMG.

Yes, this is one reason why I never liked the art of the Brothers Fraim so prevalent throughout HackMaster products.

I frankly don't see anything "bland" about the Yggsburgh cover, although I am not sure that it is appropriate for the work that resides within it.

Well, that's a good point. I think it conveys a sense of adventure, but the knightly feel isn't quite on point.

A cover has two main jobs IMO: to convey a sense of adventure and to put the reader into the right frame of mind to appreciate the contents that follow. The Yggsburgh cover does a good job on the first, but I agree it falls short on the second. It's not very Greyhawky.

JS: whether you like the picture or not, you can't say it fails to match up with pulp art from the pulp era. It actually is pulp art from that era that TLG bought rights to, and it's from one of the major pulp artists. Certainly that doesn't mean one has to like it, but it can't be accused of missing the pulp mark except insofar as it misses the "blood and thunder" side of S&S pulp, which it certainly does miss. But it's pulp art of an amazingly high quality of rendition, composition, and for hitting the feel it aims for. Yet, as DCS points out, it might not have been the best match for GH (oops, I mean Yggsburgh).

A Conanesque Frazetta piece would have been a pretty bad match too, though.

I find a lot of work from the Victorian era and the early 20th c. very appealing. Pre-Raphaelite technique applied with a D&D (rather than, say, Arthurian) sensibility could produce great covers, I think. Howard Pyle was a master of pen and ink.

Many contributors to Savage Sword of Conan magazine conveyed a "pulp" vigor. Barry Windsor-Smith went into realms beyond the usual expectations of comicbook art.

P. Craig Russel has done some grand stuff in an "impressionistic" vein, and I'm sure there are many others in the comics field whose work would not be classed as "cartoonish" except for the medium in which they appear.

Most 2e and 3e art, as well as much fiction cover illustration from the 1980s on, strikes me as lacking heart. Although I prefer more traditional painterly techniques to the "painted cartoon" look, my real objection is the shallowness (or total lack) of emotional engagement.

Sword and sorcery should be illustrated as Howard wrote it: with passion!

Mythmere wrote:JS: whether you like the picture or not, you can't say it fails to match up with pulp art from the pulp era. It actually is pulp art from that era that TLG bought rights to, and it's from one of the major pulp artists. Certainly that doesn't mean one has to like it, but it can't be accused of missing the pulp mark except insofar as it misses the "blood and thunder" side of S&S pulp, which it certainly does miss. But it's pulp art of an amazingly high quality of rendition, composition, and for hitting the feel it aims for. Yet, as DCS points out, it might not have been the best match for GH (oops, I mean Yggsburgh).

You're saying that this:



...is pulp art?

I know you're an artist and all that, but to call that "pulp art" in comparison to some of the great stuff that graced the covers of scifi/fantasy/horror fiction during the pulp era, or the "old school" art that graced the covers of the early (and best) art of the new-born gaming era (70's to the early 80's), is silly.

Its washed out, bland, blah. I have no problem with a knight gracing the cover of a gaming product (since I don't think the idea of a questing knight is necessarily out of the bounds for the sword and sorcery genre), but the Yggsburgh cover is completely lifeless. It has none of the vim and vigor of the pulp era.

Its not that it shouldn't be on the cover of the first installment of Castle Greyhawk, or any other gaming product. Its that its more appropriate for some kind of lame, medieval, historical romance novel. Its about as boring as it gets, and frankly I don't see how anyone would consider that cover to be "old school" anywhere near the level of great stuff that Otus, Sutherland, and company were putting out that left an indelible mark on gaming art.

The Yggsburgh cover is about as "pulpy" as C&C is "old school."

Maybe looking at the image in isolation, without the cropping and Peter Bradley's hideous layout, might help?

Because honestly I don't see how you could look at that picture and describe it the way you did (washed-out/bland/blah/lifeless/boring). To me this picture is full of movement, energy, vibrancy, menace, and adventure and represents all the good things about the pulp fantasy art of the 60s-70s.

Wow. I've never seen that image off of the CZ cover. Huge difference! It's simply amazing how much detail got washed out or cropped out.

T. Foster wrote:Maybe looking at the image in isolation, without the cropping and Peter Bradley's hideous layout, might help?

Because honestly I don't see how you could look at that picture and describe it the way you did (washed-out/bland/blah/lifeless/boring). To me this picture is full of movement, energy, vibrancy, menace, and adventure and represents all the good things about the pulp fantasy art of the 60s-70s.

Nah. Still looks quite bland, washed out, blah, lifeless, and boring to me. The colors are so drab it makes me feel sleepy just looking at it. In fact, its surprises me that anyone from this crowd thinks that picture is in any way "old school" or "pulpy." Can anyone really say that picture would fit on any of the old modules or rulebooks, staning next to an Otus or Sutherland cover on the hobby shop rack? Or on the bargain rack next to a Conan book or a Weird tales magazine? Truly, it surprises me that the Yggsburgh is talked about in the same breath here, given the usual tastes in art that get expressed.

John Stark wrote:Or on the bargain rack next to a Conan book or a Weird tales magazine?

Something like, say, this

I don't remember it from the novel, but whatever that Thing is that's emerging from the clouds behind the castle … it's creepy and awfully BIG.

T. Foster wrote:

John Stark wrote:Or on the bargain rack next to a Conan book or a Weird tales magazine?

Something like, say, this

That cover looks so much more different to me though. The colors are alot nicer. As I said before, I don't mind the knight on the cover of Yggsburgh (see my statement above); its the craptastic, drab everything else. That Zelazney cover is much, much more alive in the background, and even the knight is brighter and more vibrant.

Leave it to Bradley to take something half-way decent (what we see on that Zelazney cover, which still doesn't really rev my motor, but is passable anyways) and scrub all the life out of it.