On this fine Monday I’m going to take a look at FASA’s Shadowrun Adventure, Bottled Demon. Produced for Shadowrun 1st Edition in 1990, this module was written by James D. Long and art directed by Dana Knutson.
I was always taken with the cover by artist John Zeleznik. To me, it looked much like the woman was the demon, but after many years with the image I would now determine her to be some kind of African-Indian shaman who has unleashed the power of a nefarious idol. The texturing of the image, and the nakedness covered only by the turn of an arm and the twist of a massive feathered headdress adds to the weight of the composition and I think it was one of the better pieces FASA every hired out on for their Shadowrun module work.
This leads me to another story. Last week, artist Joel Biske informed me that both Tim Bradstreet and Rick Harris were not ‘in house’ artists at FASA. To this point in my life and career I’d always figured they had to be since they did so much work for the company and Jeff Laubenstein was even the best man at Tim’s wedding. But alas, it seems I was mistaken, and the only true ‘employee’ artist who worked on this supplement was the aforementioned Biske.
Anyway, the interiors are all black & white work, the bulk of the story pieces handled by Rick Harris, and none of them I really enjoy, while the NPC character pieces are taken on by Bradstreet. Street does his usual fantastic job and really holds the water of the adventure. He must have at least ten incredible figures in there, and I’ve included four in this review for reference.
Joel Biske also gets into the action with a fun piece filled with standard FASA graffiti which all FASA folks seemed to get a great kick out of.
As a final take, Bottled Demon is an above average adventure for the Shadowrun system, and the artwork is also above the norm as well.
Artistic Rating: 3.5 [out of 5]
Such a dynamic cover!