This painting by Daniel R. Horne premiered as the cover of Dragon Magazine issue 126, which arrived in my mailbox in October of 1987. Thereafter, it would reappear in several other TSR products and advertisements. My thirteen-year-old reaction? “Wow!” Back in the day, Dragon had a excellent track record for Halloween (and April’s Fools) themed... Continue Reading →
The Sword And The Sorcerer is b-grade film-making at its finest. It scared the heck out of me as a little kid when my brother rented it on LaserDisc or Betamax around 1983 or so. But the sheer coolness of a THREE BLADED SWORD THAT CAN SHOOT TWO OF ITS BLADES enchanted my nine-year old brain.... Continue Reading →
Time for a new weekly writer’s roundup of my works-in-progress and those ready to read! Cretaceous Queen –my epic tale of magical girls, superheroes, dinosaurs and giant alien robots– is just shy of six thousand words as of today. I hadn’t expected the short story to get this long, figuring that it’d top-out at around... Continue Reading →
The Gate gets a one line nod (like a lot of geeky 80s stuff) in my novel Vivian's Last Cigarette, which is set in 1989. I had to explain the reference to friend and author Lauren L. Garcia when she encountered it during critique... Kids today, what are you watching on VHS? ;-) Sigh. At... Continue Reading →
I’ve mentioned that I’m a fan of the film Aliens before, and that it was a major cornerstone of my late childhood. Even to this day, it’s a go-to and common ground movie between myself and many peers. So it shouldn’t be surprising that it gets a couple nods in my novel Vivian’s Last Cigarette,... Continue Reading →
The late Keith Parkinson (1958 – 2005) is a well known name among the many talented fantasy and sci-fi artists of the 1980s and 90s. He did work for Dungeons & Dragons products and many other role-playing games in addition to a prestigious career as a book cover illustrator. This gem was used as the... Continue Reading →
This fantastic piece by Daniel R. Horne graced the cover of Dragon Magazine 133, released in May of 1988. I’ve loved the classic sword and sorcery feel of Horne’s work here since retrieving that issue from my old mailbox and removing the brown paper wrapper it was shipped in. I became a fan of Conan... Continue Reading →
Noriyoshi Ohrai (1935-2015) was a Japanese illustrator best known for his popular movie posters crafted for films such as The Goonies and The Empire Strikes Back. Among the posters he created, he crafted all of the Japanese theatrical posters for the seven Godzilla films collectively known as the Heisei period. Released between 1984 and 1995,... Continue Reading →
(Video clips have NSFW language) We lost actor Bill Paxton to a stroke this February. He was 61, and is gone far too soon. Paxton had many memorable performances, but it was his role as Private Hudson in Aliens (1986) that introduced him to a worldwide audience. Many of his lines in that film were... Continue Reading →
The Shadowrun role-playing game introduced a generation of gamers to urban fantasy and cyberpunk and has remained very popular ever since its release 1989. As a property and franchise, it has survived the death of several of its publishers and expanded into novels, video games and much more. And who was the artist chosen to... Continue Reading →
Although kids (and animation loving adults like myself) nowadays can find and watch cartoons just about whenever they want, having to wait until Saturday mornings to see them in bygone decades had its charm. As a child perceives time so much slower, that week in-between a solid morning of cartoons could feel like forever! But... Continue Reading →
This gem by Canadian artist Den Beauvais graced the cover of Dragon Magazine #143 (March, 1989). Featuring the cockpit of an "F-18, as accurate as we’re allowed to show" (as touted by the magazine), this one caught my imagination and stuck. Den's use of cool, dark colors contrasted with the central heat and shock of... Continue Reading →
This fantastic piece from Larry Elmore graced the opening pages of the Second Edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook in 1989. The second edition of AD&D met with a mixed reception, and has left a uneven legacy. But it came out when I hit my mid-teens and therefore was the D&D I knew very well... Continue Reading →
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