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Art of Dungeons & Dragons documentary on Amazon Prime.
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28 posts in this topic

I watched this a week or so ago as well. I found that I kept mentally "comparing" the trajectory of the company with 2 other documentaries I've seen.
The first was about Atari. The second was the documentary about the creation of Vampire: The Masquerade (and subsequent releases by that same company.)

Sort of similar tales, in that they kind of exploded onto the scene, each gave rise to a new variety of fandom, and each seemed to have run its course and lost out to the constant drive forward by technology. I'm sure that is the story arc for MANY businesses throughout history. Just that they all had a similar kind of wild west vibe in their early days, and the success breeds growth that makes for institutions that are the exact opposite of their anything-goes early days. And soon the young upstarts are the big guys to be taken down by the next generation And so it goes...

 

 

Edited by ESeffinga
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Very cool documentary. I never played D&D but do remember alot of the artwork used on covers for rulebooks. It featured alot of artists from the big names from Elmore and Brom to lesser known artists. Heavy concentration on the artwork. Alot I didn't know. Of course like comic book and animation come of the original art was not always given back to the artist and at one point some of it was thrown away. I highly recommend checking this out even if you are not into D&D. Art collectors will love this.

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30 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

Do we know what pieces were definitely thrown out?  Has the Erol Otus basic set cover ever surfaced??  That's like a top 5 pop culture image from my youth. 

Does anyone here know the art collector they interviewed in the documentary? 

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30 minutes ago, delekkerste said:

Do we know what pieces were definitely thrown out?  Has the Erol Otus basic set cover ever surfaced??  That's like a top 5 pop culture image from my youth. 

I noticed some of the artwork was done by comic book artists, as well, like Jeff Dee, Tim Truman and Bill Willingham.

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33 minutes ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

I noticed some of the artwork was done by comic book artists, as well, like Jeff Dee, Tim Truman and Bill Willingham.

Bill Willingham was listed at the end of the doc as part of the TSR staff. In one clip, from one of the reference books they listed Graham Nolan.

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11 minutes ago, Brian Peck said:

Bill Willingham was listed at the end of the doc as part of the TSR staff. In one clip, from one of the reference books they listed Graham Nolan.

Yeah. I was a bit shocked when I saw Tim Truman's name among the TSR artists. Must have been a free lance job. 

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2 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Do we know what pieces were definitely thrown out?  Has the Erol Otus basic set cover ever surfaced??  That's like a top 5 pop culture image from my youth. 

I know S.F.A about D&D and I don't have my copy of the Arcana book handy but I remembering noting this existed so I grabbed it from google,

D-And-D-typical-page.jpg

 

and I think this.   This lower one might be the one you mean?  Not sure.

7ab2d6a0edcc7a3a565d06f13a9458ea.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Bronty
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@delekkerste you would enjoy the book.   That first piece along with a couple other key pieces were found relatively recently.    IIRC the story is something along the lines of... the art was found in a warehouse when ownership of the company changed

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20 minutes ago, Bronty said:

@delekkerste you would enjoy the book.   That first piece along with a couple other key pieces were found relatively recently.    IIRC the story is something along the lines of... the art was found in a warehouse when ownership of the company changed

I have the book; it's just been sitting shrinkwrapped on my shelf for almost a year. :frown: #toomuchcontent #notenoughtime

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5 hours ago, PhilipB2k17 said:

Does anyone here know the art collector they interviewed in the documentary? 

Wondering if it's the guy who has bought every publicly available piece over the last decade plus. 

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10 hours ago, BCarter27 said:

Thanks so much for posting this. It was a really fun rec.

Part of me hopes the Lucas Museum won't be so high brow that they don't have a significant fantasy art wing/hall/presence. Until then, docs like this really pick up the slack.

I wonder about that.   Seems like the museum is going to be run by the art history types which on the one hand I understand given that it’s a museum but on the other hand my perception is that Masters of Fine Art curator types will know hot diddly about the illustration the museum will house.   

But I can also see why they will need people with formal art education.   Hopefully there’s a mix of both types on staff

Edited by Bronty
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4 hours ago, comix4fun said:

Wondering if it's the guy who has bought every publicly available piece over the last decade plus. 

Not that guy, who is very private. Not sure which collector the original poster is referring to. For those that don't follow the market, one collector has basically cornered this market, the deepest of pockets. People who own good old art either have no intentions of ever selling or have promised the piece to this collector once they do decide to sell. One might luck into a prelim on eBay here and there but I have given up trying. I have a better chance of buying a real dragon than a key piece of Dragonlance art.

Great book and documentary.

The DnD world is an interesting case in nostalgia collecting. I aged out of toys and got into role playing and lead minis when I was probably 10 or so. This matured into tabletop wargaming for me. I am now much more interested in collecting material from that period of my life (10-20 or so) than earlier.  

Chris

Edited by cstojano
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