News — Clyde Caldwell

To be honest, I’m not completely ‘taken’ with Dragon Magazine #147.  Sure, it provides one of artist Clyde Caldwell’s trademark half-naked women, and she’s as lovely as can be expected, but somewhere along the way the issue tends to get lost and never recovers. Brought out in July 1989, I’m initially caught by the fact that for me the advertising seems ‘off’.  Now granted, my memory of the events of 1989 are a tad foggy by this point, but to feature an advertisement on the inside cover for the ‘All new 2nd Edition DMG’ that is available in June confuses...

In the mid to late 1980s TSR tried to build on the success of their Basic D&D boxed set series by adapting a world dedicated to these supplements.  The result, Gazetteers, an impressive series of campaign setting books detailing the Known World as broken up into various countries. There were really no huge surprises or inspirations here as the design staff simply took real world empires throughout time and placed them haphazardly into the setting while sprinkling in nations dedicated to Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, and Orcs.  Still, the art from these books are excellent. Today, I look at GAZ 11...