Knights & Knaves Alehouse

ThirstyStirge wrote:With all possible respect to the other TSR artists, DAT is my all-time fave, along with EO.

My opinion as well.

joe b.

AxeMental wrote:Anyone know what year TSR passed on his game? And what year did he leave (and was that from a full time gig or just occasional work)?

Titan was self-published in 1980 and by AH in 1982, so TSR's rejection of it would have been during that timeframe. He was still drawing Wormy until 1988, but I don't know if he was formally with TSR at that point. I can't find any credits for him after about 1981 or so that are new, as opposed to reprints of his illustrations from earlier works.

James Maliszewski wrote:

AxeMental wrote:Anyone know what year TSR passed on his game? And what year did he leave (and was that from a full time gig or just occasional work)?

Titan was self-published in 1980 and by AH in 1982, so TSR's rejection of it would have been during that timeframe. He was still drawing Wormy until 1988, but I don't know if he was formally with TSR at that point. I can't find any credits for him after about 1981 or so that are new, as opposed to reprints of his illustrations from earlier works.

My recollection (have no idea where I read/heard this, alas, but the source seemed credible at the time) is that for the last few years of its run, TSR would just receive new Wormy strips in the mail and send back checks, and that eventually they 1) stopped receiving new strips, and then 2) started receiving back checks marked "undeliverable" or some such. They continued to run all the strips they had, but when they ran out of new ones that was the end of Wormy's run. I strongly suspect none of the folks at TSR in the post-Gygax era (and possibly for a couple years before that) ever actually spoke to him directly.

Yes, now that you mention it, I recall hearing this as well. I do remember that the staff of Dragon only knew of Tramp's presumed departure through the fact that his paychecks were going uncashed and, eventually, sent back to them "addressee unknown." Phil Foglio remarked something to the effect of "If an artist isn't cashing his checks, he can be presumed dead."

Am I the only one here who's seeing this scenario:

Tramp moves house, alerts TSR.
Notice gets lost in post/TSR's filing system.
Tramp keeps sending art for a while.
Payment goes to old house.
Tramp picks up Dragon, sees work that's "not been paid for".
Tramp thinks "Screw this; these people are ripping me off in public."
Tramp, already unhappy about other things in TSR, turns his back on the whole damn thing and becomes a cabbie, thinking to this very day that those bastards never paid for his last bunch of Wormy strips.

Nagora wrote:Am I the only one here who's seeing this scenario:

Tramp moves house, alerts TSR.
Notice gets lost in post/TSR's filing system.
Tramp keeps sending art for a while.
Payment goes to old house.
Tramp picks up Dragon, sees work that's "not been paid for".
Tramp thinks "Screw this; these people are ripping me off in public."
Tramp, already unhappy about other things in TSR, turns his back on the whole damn thing and becomes a cabbie, thinking to this very day that those bastards never paid for his last bunch of Wormy strips.

It's more likely that they never sent the checks to begin with.
As a freelancer I've had that problem before.

Well, from what I have gathered, based solely on the comments of others, Tramp was sent his payments for Wormy, but, after a while, they were sent back to TSR, because he had moved away and left no forwarding address with anyone, not even guys like Tom Wham (who is his brother-in-law).

Nagora wrote:Am I the only one here who's seeing this scenario:

Tramp moves house, alerts TSR.
Notice gets lost in post/TSR's filing system.
Tramp keeps sending art for a while.
Payment goes to old house.
Tramp picks up Dragon, sees work that's "not been paid for".
Tramp thinks "Screw this; these people are ripping me off in public."
Tramp, already unhappy about other things in TSR, turns his back on the whole damn thing and becomes a cabbie, thinking to this very day that those bastards never paid for his last bunch of Wormy strips.

Could you imagine? Trampier leaving FRPG art behind, and all because the post office screwed-up the forwarding?

My dain bramage must be worse than I thought, because I thought Wormy went bye-bye long before Gygax's departure from TSR. It just doesn't seem possible that it lasted until Issue 132/1988. Maybe I just stopped reading it before then. I do recall that for the last few years of my subscription, which lasted into the 160s (IIRC), Dragons went straight from the mailbox to the magazine holder, often still in the shrink wrap.

TheRedPriest wrote:I do recall that for the last few years of my subscription, which lasted into the 160s (IIRC), Dragons went straight from the mailbox to the magazine holder, often still in the shrink wrap.

Same here -- for a couple years I was still at least tearing open the bag and flipping through them to see if there was anything worth reading (which there rarely ever was), but eventually stopped even doing that. When I realized I had a dozen+ issues I hadn't even bothered to take out of their mailing wrapper is when I finally got around to cancelling my subscription.

Nagora wrote:Am I the only one here who's seeing this scenario:

Tramp moves house, alerts TSR.
Notice gets lost in post/TSR's filing system.
Tramp keeps sending art for a while.
Payment goes to old house.
Tramp picks up Dragon, sees work that's "not been paid for".
Tramp thinks "Screw this; these people are ripping me off in public."
Tramp, already unhappy about other things in TSR, turns his back on the whole damn thing and becomes a cabbie, thinking to this very day that those bastards never paid for his last bunch of Wormy strips.

I'll chime in with what little I know/was told. While I was at TSR (1984-1989) I never once met Dave. During my time there I did hear things about him being somewhat erratic and hard to deal with, but second-hand info and opinions at that. I heard from Roger Moore (Dragon editor at that time) that they were discontinuing Wormy (which was my favorite strip) because DAT had started requesting unreasonable amounts of money for the strip. Again, no direct dealing with Dave but just what I heard from someone I trusted who did have direct dealings with him.

I never heard of checks being returned unsigned but that could have happened.

Zotster wrote:I'll chime in with what little I know/was told. While I was at TSR (1984-1989) I never once met Dave. During my time there I did hear things about him being somewhat erratic and hard to deal with, but second-hand info and opinions at that. I heard from Roger Moore (Dragon editor at that time) that they were discontinuing Wormy (which was my favorite strip) because DAT had started requesting unreasonable amounts of money for the strip. Again, no direct dealing with Dave but just what I heard from someone I trusted who did have direct dealings with him.

I never heard of checks being returned unsigned but that could have happened.

Or it could have been a manufactured cover-story that you just inadvertently blew...

T. Foster wrote:

Zotster wrote:I never heard of checks being returned unsigned but that could have happened.

Or it could have been a manufactured cover-story that you just inadvertently blew...

Certainly possible. The story is one I've only ever heard third hand and it's usually attributed to Phil Foglio, who in turn claimed to have heard it from Kim Mohan. Kim wasn't editor-in-chief of Dragon in 1988, when Wormy ended, but I believe he was still on staff of the magazine (or at least at TSR) at the time, so it's not necessarily unbelievable.

If DAT wanted more money for Wormy, then it makes absolutely no sense that he would fail, or refuse, to give TSR a valid mailing address for the money he was already supposed to be receiving.

I'm pretty sure Kim Mohan was on staff with New Infinites in 1988.

I don't think it's just the case of a simple disagreement with TSR. I think whatever happened to DAT is a lot deeper, especially as he's refused to associate with anybody asking about him. The thing about guys like Tom Wham not ever seeing him makes it more mysterious.

At best, it could be a case similar to Roger Moore, where a person just wants to leave his or her old life behind and want nothing to do with his past--sometimes it just saddens them or they stay away from it for personal happiness reasons. That is what I hope is the case anyway.

The worst case scenario would be some past or present mental problem. While he obviously has a job as a cab driver, and is not some homeless dude wandering the streets, I still wonder about that. I know that sometimes artists (or writers, musicians, or other right-brain creative types) who get stricken with something like schizophrenia or manic-depression give up their creative abilities due to side effects from medications or the like. While I hope this isn't the case it could explain the reclusiveness and his "dropping of the face of the earth".