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Jolly R. Blackburn
Jolly Randall Blackburn is best known as the creator of the comic strip ''Knights of the Dinner Table''. Biography Jolly Blackburn went to Ball State University. Jolly Blackburn majored in anthropology, history, and classical cultures in college. Blackburn later joined the Army, and launched both the gaming magazine ''Shadis'' and his company Alderac Entertainment Group (named after his ''AD&D'' campaign world) while still in the Army. The original ''Shadis'' was a black-and-white digest featured gaming articles largely written by Blackburn, and each issue featured several pieces of fiction collectively called the "Alderac Anthonology" which detailed Blackburn's world of Alderac (one of Alderac's moons was Shadis, from which the magazine borrowed its name). He conceived of having a comic strip that became ''Knights of the Dinner Table'' (''KoDT'') in 1990 as part of ''Shadis'': "I had been a great fan of J.D. Webster's ''Finieous Fingers'' from the early ''Dragon Magazine'', an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comic Strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, these have been published in newspapers and magazines, with daily horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in newspapers, while Sunday papers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. With the advent of the internet, online comic strips began to appear as webcomics. Strips are written and drawn by a comics artist, known as a cartoonist. As the word "comic" implies, strips are frequently humorous. Examples of these gag-a-day strips are '' Blondie'', ''Bringing Up Father'', ''Marmaduke'', and ''Pearls Before Swine''. In the late 1920s, comic strips expanded from their mirthful origins to feature adventure stories, as seen in ''Popeye'', ''Captain Easy'', ''Buck Rogers'', ''Tarzan'', and ''Terry and the Pira ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knights Of The Dinner Table
''Knights of the Dinner Table'' (''KoDT'') is a comic book/strip created by Jolly R. Blackburn and published by Kenzer & Company. It primarily focuses on a group of role playing gamers and their actions at the gaming table, which often result in unfortunate, but humorous consequences in the game. The name is a parody of King Arthur's Round Table reinforced by the truism that roleplaying aficionados often end up sitting round their host's dinner table as it is the only one large enough to accommodate the party (4 to 8 people typically). The comic The panels are written by Blackburn, and given that he had no formal art training, the characters are drawn in simple caricatures which are scanned onto a computer and are continuously reused. Many of the stories presented in ''KoDT'' are based on actual in-game experiences of the developers or readers, who are encouraged to submit story ideas. Part of the comic's popularity stems from the reader's ability to relate to the characters and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dragon (magazine)
''Dragon'' is one of the two official magazines for source material for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game and associated products, along with ''Dungeon (magazine), Dungeon''. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, ''The Strategic Review''. The final printed issue was #359 in September 2007. Shortly after the last print issue shipped in mid-August 2007, Wizards of the Coast (part of Hasbro, Inc.), the publication's current copyright holder, relaunched ''Dragon'' as an online magazine, continuing on the numbering of the print edition. The last published issue was No. 430 in December 2013. A digital publication called ''Dragon+'', which replaces the ''Dragon'' magazine, launched in 2015. It is created by Dialect in collaboration with Wizards of the Coast, and its numbering system for issues started at No. 1. History TSR In 1975, TSR, Inc. began publishing ''The Strategic Review''. At the time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wizards Of The Coast
Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and List of science fiction themes, science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. It is currently a subsidiary of Hasbro, which acquired the company in 1999. During a February 2021 reorganization at Hasbro, Wizards of the Coast became the lead part of the new "Wizards & Digital" division. Originally a role-playing game publisher, the company originated and popularized the collectible card game genre with ''Magic: The Gathering'' in the mid-1990s. It also acquired the popular ''Dungeons & Dragons'' role-playing game by buying TSR (company), TSR and increased its success by publishing the licensed ''Pokémon Trading Card Game''. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington, Renton, Washington (state), Washington, part of the Seattle metropolitan area. Wizards of the Coast publishes role-pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Renton, Washington
Renton is a city in King County, Washington, and an inner-ring suburb of Seattle. Situated southeast of downtown Seattle, Renton straddles the southeast shore of Lake Washington, at the mouth of the Cedar River. As of the 2020 census, the population of Renton was 106,785, up from 90,927 at the 2010 census. The city is currently the sixth-largest municipality in greater Seattle and the ninth-largest in Washington state. After a long history as an important salmon fishing area for Native Americans, Renton was first settled by people of European descent in the 1860s. Its early economy was based on coal mining, clay production, and timber export. Today, Renton is best known as the final assembly point for the Boeing 737 family of commercial airplanes, but it is also home to a growing number of well-known manufacturing, technology, and healthcare organizations, including Boeing Commercial Airplanes Division, Paccar, Kaiser Permanente, IKEA, Providence Health & Services, UW Me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shadis
''Shadis'' is an independent gaming magazine that was published in 1990–1998 by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG). It initially focused on role-playing games. Publication history Shadis was conceived and started by Jolly Blackburn as an independent gaming fanzine in 1990. In 1993, Blackburn formed Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) to publish Shadis as a quality small-press magazine, and brought on John Zinser and David Seay as partners. Printing of the first three issues was paid for by Frank Van Hoose, a friend of Jolly's, who also wrote for the magazine. A year later, in late 1994, the magazine received its biggest success by including a random ''Magic: The Gathering'' card in each issue at a time when booster packs of the new card game were scarce; many players bought multiple copies of each issue hoping to find a rare or out-of-print card. Many readers were also drawn to a small comic strip, ''Knights of the Dinner Table'', which was initially intended to fill a blank spot i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alderac Entertainment Group
Alderac Entertainment Group, or AEG, is a publisher of role-playing game, board game, and collectible card game products. AEG was formed by Jolly Blackburn in 1993 and is based in the city of Ontario, California. Prior to getting into their current markets, AEG was involved in hobby gaming magazines, with their first product the magazine ''Shadis'' (winner of the 1994, 1995, and 1996 Origins Awards for ''Best Professional Gaming Magazine''). Including the three for ''Shadis'' mentioned above, AEG products have garnered eight Origins Awards (see the individual articles noted below for more details). In 2009, AEG entered the board games market with 10 new board game releases. Notable successes include Thunderstone (card game), Thunderstone and Smash Up. Products Collectible card games * ''7th Sea Collectible Card Game'' (Multiple Origins Award winner) * ''City of Heroes Collectible Card Game'' * ''Doomtown Collectible Card Game'' (Multiple Origins Award winner) * ''Hum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dungeons & Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules, Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). It has been published by Wizards of the Coast (now a subsidiary of Hasbro) since 1997. The game was derived from miniature wargaming, miniature wargames, with a variation of the 1971 game Chainmail (game), ''Chainmail'' serving as the initial rule system. ''D&D'' publication is commonly recognized as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry, and also deeply influenced video games, especially the role-playing video game genre. ''D&D'' departs from traditional wargame, wargaming by allowing each player to create their own Player character, character to play instead of a military formation. These characters embark upon adventures within a fantasy setting. A Dungeon Mas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finieous Fingers
Finieous Fingers (often misspelled ''Fineous'' even in Dragon magazine's own FAQ) was among the earliest comics that appeared in ''Dragon'' magazine. Finieous Fingers, the title character and self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Thief", was a good-natured thief who was pestered by halflings (hobbits) and evil magic-users. He was generally found in the company of his two men-at-arms, Fred and Charly. The full-page comic was created by J. D. Webster, who was its sole author and illustrator. The comic's appearances were sporadic due to Webster's commitments as an A-7 pilot in the U.S. Navy. In The Dragon it appeared in issues 3, 4, 6, 7, 9 through 22, 25 through 28, 30, 33, 35, 38 through 41, 43, 45, 49 through 51, 53, and 54 (October 1981). Webster then moved it to ''Adventure Gaming'' magazine, a publication that folded the following year. Finieous was next spotted in '' The Space Gamer'' and its sister publication ''Fantasy Gamer'' in 1984, but again this only lasted about a year ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desert Storm
The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, Iraq were carried out in two key phases: Operation Desert Shield, which marked the military buildup from August 1990 to January 1991; and Operation Desert Storm, which began with the Gulf War air campaign, aerial bombing campaign against Iraq on 17 January 1991 and came to a close with the American-led Liberation of Kuwait campaign, Liberation of Kuwait on 28 February 1991. On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded the neighbouring Kuwait, State of Kuwait and had fully occupied the country within two days. Initially, Iraq ran the occupied territory under a puppet government known as the "Republic of Kuwait" before proceeding with an outright annexation in which Kuwaiti sovereign territory was split, with the "Saddamiyat al-Mitla' District" being car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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