Friday, April 01, 2011

Shortlist: Killing two birds with one 1D4 stone.

Today's Shortlist pulls double duty, hyping up a book I loved that is actually in trade now! And monsters that absolutely should be figures--proper action figures, not little gaming miniatures: monsters from the AD&D world, and DC Comic, Forgotten Realms! I always forget what gnolls are supposed to be. Back around 1989 or so, TSR and DC partnered up for some comics, some of which were pretty good, especially the twenty-four issues (and an annual) of Forgotten Realms, featuring art by Rags Morales (loooong before he hit big with Identity Crisis) and following the crew of the Realms Master as they quest for dangerous magical artifacts. Of course, I'd love figures of the heroes (including Omen, a wizard with magically inexplicable hair...) but the monsters would be the big draw. Now, there were AD&D figures in 1982 from LJN (and you can check them out here) but they never made a Beholder action figure? Did we lose a war? Come on! I personally thought the Beholder was about the same size as a big beach ball. A big, angry, bitey beach ball. And ideally, you would want your lower-level monsters to come in packs, for ease of army building. I mean, it's not like one gnoll or a lone skeleton ever gave your brave adventurers a challenge, right? IDW Publishing is doing some Dungeons and Dragons comics now, and they recently reprinted the first eight issues of Forgotten Realms in trade. Written by Jeff Grubb, art by Rags Morales and Dave Simons (and maybe a few others) and if you have fond memories of old campaigns, you might enjoy this one.

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