DriveThru Christmas in July.

Click on Image for Savings!

DriveThruRPG is having their annual Christmas in July sale. Click on the image above to save 25% on a huge selection of products. HO HO HO! It's off to gaming we go.

Some of our favorite titles on sale include:

50 Fathoms - Review
Deadlands Reloaded: Marshals Handbook - Review
Deadlands Reloaded: Players Guide - Review
Deadlands Reloaded: The Flood - Review
Deadlands Reloaded: The Last Sons - Review
Hell on Earth Reloaded Player's Guide - Review
Savage Worlds Deluxe - Review
Savage Worlds Horror Companion - Review
Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion
Slipstream
Solomon Kane: The Savage World of Solomon Kane
Space 1889: Red Sands - Review

Dreamers

I call this photo 'A Salute to Dreamers.' One can imagine a mouse looking up to see the fluffy whiteness of dandelion and wondering if it was the stuff of clouds. The dream leads to action which lead to success as the mouse touched the sky.

Some days I wonder why I do all this. By 'this' I mean writing. It takes up a great deal of time and there is no real compensation other than the act of creation itself. Often times I feel as though I'm grasping at clouds.

I've wanted to be a writer most of my adult life but a childhood spent in rural Texas, where proper grammar and spelling are considered uppity made that dream difficult. Still, I had stories to tell. Gaming gave me an outlet and I exploited it to my great joy. To this day some of my best stories have been co-authored by my fellow RPGers.  But still that wasn't enough. I wrote short stories and even novels that I shared with friends. They commented how much they enjoyed them so I wrote more. Eventually I hit upon one that many said should be published and so I did. It was much more difficult than I imagined and I feel very much like a mouse on a dandelion; both scared and in awe of what will happen next.


Thanks to all of you for joining me on this journey. Thank you for supporting this blog and purchasing my book. It's been a wonderful climb.

So here's to the dreamers. God bless us one and all.

In other news: a link for those who like going into diabetic shock. The 50 Cutest Things That Ever Happened.

ENnie Awards Voting

You can now drop by and cast your ballot in the ENnies. Please remember our friend, Jonathan Roberts. His work's been nominated in the category of Best Cartography for The Shadowlands Conversion Guide. Other votes we encourage is for the Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition from Pinnacle Entertainment Group for Best Game and Agents of Oblivion by Reality Blurs for Best Supplement. Of course we also encourage voting for Pinnacle, Triple Ace Games, GRAmel, Reality Blurs, and Arc Dream Publishing in the Fan's Favorite Publisher category.

A word about voting: you're able to vote for first, second, third, etc. Don't vote for a product if you don't like or know it. No vote is better than a low vote, if you catch my meaning. Remember, vote early and vote often. Well, strike the last one but do encourage your friends to vote.


Regarding the vote in November, consider this write-in candidate

Ace of Aces Kickstarter

I loved Ace of Aces when I was a kid. It was a great picture game of WWI biplane action and has been out of print for over twenty years. Please consider supporting the kickstarter to have it reprinted. It's a great game to play with your kids in the car or on an airplane.

From the Kickstarter

32 years ago, a phenomenon hit the adventure game convention circuit. Alfred Leonardi had invented a game about World War I planes dogfighting, a subject that should have had limited appeal. But it used a unique (and patented) system - each player had a book of pictures of his plane and his opponent, in various combat positions, and the game was played by calling out numbers representing various air combat moves. It was like a two-player computer game, without a computer. It became hugely popular and spawned several follow-up games using other aircraft. In 1993 it was added to the Origins Awards Hall of Fame. www.gama.org You can play this game anywhere with just the two books - no dice (or batteries) required. But eventually the novelty wore off, the publishing company closed up shop, and Alfred retired from the game business.

But now Flying Buffalo games has gotten permission to do a reprint. At the time of this posting they only have $250 more to go before they fund. Please help us kick this thing over the edge!

Review: Last Sons - Deadlands Plot Point Campaign

Product: Last Sons - Deadlands Reloaded Plot Point Campaign
Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
People: Shane Lacey Hensley, Matthew Cutter
Price: $34.99

Pinnacle continues their release of Deadlands’ plot point campaigns with Last Sons, adventures in War’s domain. The story picks up with The Flood left off taking your posse into the Disputed Territories of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and the Sioux Nation.


For those those of you not up to speed on the Deadlands setting, below is a little alternate history.

Mono: Prospero Rising. The 1939 hero lives again with new art by Gary Gianni. And more Cthulhu!

Mono, the gentlemanly ape-man, spy and adventurer, first appeared in his own self-titled pulpagazine between Jan 1939 and Mar 1941, published by Struth and Shaw Pub. NY. Originally written by the elusive and enigmatic Englishman, Anthony Brock, with later novellas from 1968 to 1974.  Mono was created to cash in on the success of Doc Savage, The Shadow, and The Avenger but he never achieved the same popularity despite the superior prose and enigmatic protagonist. [ Adapted from the Introduction by Liam Sharp  ]

The Troll and I really like pulp adventures. We've been playing a Savage Worlds Pulp adventure for years and its always fun to discover a new (to me) pulp property.  I was stunned to discover that this isn't a new but actually quite a vintage find.

At the Spotlight on Gary Gianni panel in room 4 on Saturday at noon, Gary shared his new projects. His recent departure from the Prince Valiant strip freed him to explore new projects. His discovery of MadeFire and their partnership brought us Mono, Prospero Rising. The original words by Anthony Brock have been published with new Gianni art, previewed here below. Of note, MadeFire is working on a web comic app for iPhone / iPad that really expands upon the capabilities of comics on these devices. Some motion is involved in the demo we saw but its more like the iPhone or iPad screens were windows that you can move around in and see more for an immersive feel.

Gianni's remarkable pen and ink's have a classic look and feel that first drew me to his work on Solomon Kane. If you haven't seen his Solomon Kane work, take a moment as it inspired my Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane adventure one sheet I wrote. ( I'll link it up soon!)

In the past year he illustrated a short story by Ray Bradbury called the Nefertiti-Tut Express that is also visually stunning. I won't give the story away but maybe you shouldn't use old mummies for burning in your steam locomotive.






The panel also shared Gianni's next project: The Illustrated Call of Cthulhu. Here are some sketches in progress:

Until next time!

Step Dancing Zombies at J. Michael Straczynski's New Studio JMS Announcement

Step Dancing Zombies at J. Michael Straczynski's New Studio JMS Announcement! Only at Comic-Con.    Saturday, July 14th, 2012

With much anticipation, J. Michael Straczynski (of Thor, Babylon 5, etc..fame) announced his new studio's launch! Studio JMS is his baby and he's excited to have full control over all his properties. One of the new properties is Living Dead: The Musical.  I am not kidding. He teased us with footage of Riverdance, while  under cover of darkness, a Zombie Step Dancing company shambled in and lined up on the wooden floor in front of the stage.

We knew something was us as a crew came in and frantically quickly put a wooden floor down before the panel began.  I began wondering if the Robot from Lost in Space that was in the Sails Pavilion all week was going to run in on the new floor.




Here is the video I took and put up on YouTube:

Crazy fun at Comic-Con!!!