News — Larry Elmore

Now, I think each of you know that Dragon Magazine had certain ‘ages’, meaning that there are plateaus of greatness involved in the magazine.  First and foremost, you had the inception issues, the first two dozen that helped define a budding RPG industry, and afterward, from issue 25-100, you had what could arguably be considered the Golden Age of Dragon, where the magazine was nearing the pinnacle of everything it could be and TSR ruled over the RPG universe. Today’s issue hits within the wheelhouse of the Golden Age, as Dragon #89 is an absolute masterwork.  I mean, if you...

I feel like, as I do a Dragon Magazine review each week, I’m getting too late in the magazine’s run for the bulk of my readers to remember them, as though, sometime around 1990, everyone stopped reading Dragon.  In truth, that is probably very true, but nonetheless, I’ll keep reviewing whatever random issue I pull out of my collection each week. This week brings Dragon #173 from September 1991.  It is a Dark Sun dedicated issue and therefore is chocked full of both Brom and Tom Baxa artwork.  Edited by Roger E. Moore, the top articles in this particular volume...

In 1986 TSR came out with the 3rd Edition of Gamma World as they tried to drive sales of their new ACT [Action Table] combat system.   The effect, while dramatic in the box itself, falls incredibly flat when compared to say, The Red Box that helped revolutionize gaming just three years before. I have to wonder what happened during this period, as I can only assume TSR was at its absolute height here, and yet both this product, and Marvel Super Heroes, don’t really add anything artistically to the genre other than rehashing Marvel’s artwork or in the case of...