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Summary
Summary
An illustrated guide to the history and evolution of the beloved role-playing game told through the paintings, sketches, illustrations, and visual ephemera behind its creation, growth, and continued popularity.
FINALIST FOR THE HUGO AWARD . FINALIST FOR THE LOCUS AWARD . NOMINATED FOR THE DIANA JONES AWARD
From one of the most iconic game brands in the world, this official DUNGEONS & DRAGONS illustrated history provides an unprecedented look at the visual evolution of the brand, showing its continued influence on the worlds of pop culture and fantasy. Inside the book, you'll find more than seven hundred pieces of artwork-from each edition of the core role-playing books, supplements, and adventures; as well as Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novels; decades of Dragon and Dungeon magazines; and classic advertisements and merchandise; plus never-before-seen sketches, large-format canvases, rare photographs, one-of-a-kind drafts, and more from the now-famous designers and artists associated with DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. The superstar author team gained unparalleled access to the archives of Wizards of the Coast and the personal collections of top collectors, as well as the designers and illustrators who created the distinctive characters, concepts, and visuals that have defined fantasy art and gameplay for generations. This is the most comprehensive collection of D&D imagery ever assembled, making this the ultimate collectible for the game's millions of fans around the world.
Author Notes
Michael Witwer is a bestselling author known for his work on the Hugo-nominated Dungeons & Dragons- Art & Arcana , the critically acclaimed Empire of Imagination- Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons , and Heroes' Feast- The Official Dungeons & Dragons Cookbook . Widely considered an expert on D&D history, Michael has spoken on the topic at a variety of venues such as Google, Pixar, Lucasfilm, top gaming conventions and book festivals, and on NPR's All Things Considered . His books have won many honors, including being selected as a Hugo Award finalist, an Amazon "Best Book of the Month," a Diana Jones Award nominee, a Locus Award finalist, and a GeekDad "Best Book of the Year."
Kyle Newman is a writer/director whose directorial work includes Fanboys written by Ernie Cline, starring Kristen Bell and Seth Rogen; Barely Lethal ,starringSamuel L. Jackson,HaileeSteinfeld, andJessica Alba; and music videos for artists includingLana Del Rey andTaylor Swift.Newman alsoproducedthe critically acclaimed documentary Raiders- The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made .Hisclients include Microsoft,InterscopeRecords, Starz, Coca Cola, Entertainment Weekly , andLucasfilm.
Jon Peterson is a widely recognized authority on the history of games. His book Playing at the World was called "the first serious history of the development of Dungeons & Dragons " by The Village Voice . He has contributed to academic anthologies on games including Zones of Control and the forthcoming Role-playing Game Studies- Transmedia Foundations . Jon also writes for gaming and geek culture websites including BoingBoing, the Escapist, and GamaSutra, as well as his popular RPG history blog, playingattheworld.blogspot.com.
Sam Witwer is an actor whose work includes leading roles in the SyFy series Being Human , for which he was nominated for a Gemini Award, and the Star Wars Saga , where he brings various characters to life in video games, film, and television-including an Emmy-nominated performance as the voice of Darth Maul. He has also been featured on Once Upon a Time , Smallville , Battlestar Galactica , Stephen King's The Mist , and Dexter . He has been an avid Dungeons & Dragons player since age 11.
Reviews (1)
New York Review of Books Review
"D&D IS A GAME OF STORIES,"write Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson and Sam Witwer early in "Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History," before noting it also comprises other things, like characters and ideas. But for anyone who's sampled the iconic role-playing game, D&D is also an exuberant dive into imagination, world-building, teamwork and identity - especially when played in its original format on a table cluttered with rule books, maps, monster manuals, character worksheets and colorful polyhedral dice nestled among pizza boxes, Funyuns bags and halfempty Mountain Dew cans. Once in the game, you could forget about the dreary annoyances of school as you slipped into your handcrafted persona of a thieving elf with high Strength and Intelligence scores and went offto battle the Demogorgon or a giant toothy Purple Worm with your fellow treasure-seeking friends. And if you were the designated Dungeon Master, narrating the story and directing the plot you mostly made up, that was even better. Just watch the first five minutes of the Netflix series "Stranger Things" to see the joyful camaraderie. "Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana" is an officially licensed (and promotional) history of the medieval combat-and-quest game originally concocted in 1974 by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. With more than 700 images of guidebook illustrations, game packaging, advertising and ephemera crammed between its covers, it feels as if you're exploring a document dump of the company archives in convenient coffee-tablebook form. The game's creators apparently never threw anything away. While the amateurish black-and-white sketches and badly typed rule book drafts reveal humble beginnings in the first chapter, the artwork soon becomes much more elaborate as D&D caught on. Cartoonish drawings give way to books and handsome box sets decorated with lavish color paintings and computer-generated graphics as Dungeons & Dragons morphed into a global mass-market transmedia property with its own novels, magazines, video games, television series and other products. While the book is dominated by images of clanking chainmail-clad warriors, columns of text detailing the game's historical development also snake through its pages. The tone is largely upbeat and earnest, but the authors don't sidestep the ups and downs of the franchise, like an early cease-and-desist order from J. R. R. Tolkien's estate for unauthorized use of hobbits and ents. Typical business woes of overexpansion, the travails of a marketplace shifting to digital entertainment and corporate acquisition are also covered. However, it's the discussion of the game's social impact in the late 1970s and early 1980s that is far more intriguing, as the authors recount the persistent parental fear that D&D's luridly illustrated manuals were practically inspiring innocent youngsters to construct cardboard altars to Beelzebub in the basement: "To an audience who had no understanding of the mechanics of a role-playing game, and especially those inclined toward religious fundamentalism, this was all scary stuff." D&D survived the bad press and went on to influence a whole generation of creative professionals. The authors Sherman Alexie, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Junot Díaz, Sharyn McCrumb and (naturally) George R. R. Martin are among those who have discussed the game's impact on their own storytelling skills, as have countless actors and computer programmers. As the author and technologist David S. Bennahum observed in the late 1990s, Dungeons & Dragons was "an example of how a subculture built by kids would work its way upward into the cultural mainstream." "Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana" will mostly appeal to those who have similarly fond memories or who want a nostalgic blast from the past - even if the past was last night. But player or not, it's hard to deny the degree to which D&D has infiltrated the culture, especially in a world where "Stranger Things" and HBO's "Game of Thrones" grabbed multiple Emmy nominations this year. J.D. BIERSDORFER is the production editor at the Book Review.