Fred Van Lente and Tom Fowler are no strangers to creating engaging comics that not only entertain, but also inform. Together they worked on the Re: Ignition, a tie-in of Nick Dragotta’s Howtoons series that encouraged kids to take part in do-it-yourself science projects. And Van Lente has been working for many years with artist Ryan Dunlavey on Action Philosophers and other non-fiction comics that use the medium in a fun, educational way.
Combine that with Fowler’s background in drawing for tabletop roleplaying games, and you’ve got the perfect team to create Gamemasters: The Comic Book History of Roleplaying Games. Clover Press launched a crowdfunding project for the graphic novel earlier this week, which you can find on Kickstarter.
“Fred and Tom are both hardcore gamers, and it shows in this meticulously researched history of the tabletop RPG,” said Clover Press Publisher Hank Kanalz. “Their passion for gaming comes through in their dramatic and often humorous take on how and why these games work, and why we love them so.”
The project has already blown past its goal like a fireball flying down a dungeon corridor, looking to roast a host of kobolds. But you can still get in on the fun; the crowdfunding project will run through Aug. 22.
I spoke with the two creators about the project, what attracted them to it and their own histories with RPGs.
Fred and Tom, I appreciate your time today. Let’s start with an easy one — how did you first discover comics? And, appropriate for this interview specifically, how did you first discover RPGs … what were some early favorites?
Fred: Like I’m going to guess almost everybody, my first introduction as a kid was D&D — the Basic Set, which my parents got for me. But I have never been a huge fan of the High Fantasy genre. I’ve drifted to more grounded (relatively) milieus like espionage, superheroes, horror. I had a long-running Top Secret campaign with my friends in middle school that, for some reason, was set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where they flew around in a special fighter craft called Chimera. (What was I smoking?) As an adult my monthly RPG group could play Call of Cthulhu until their dice wrists fell off, but I need variety. With them I ran a Jack Kirby Fourth World campaign where everyone was New Gods from New Genesis or Apokalips forced to work together. Ironically, for that system I used TSR’s original Marvel Super Heroes, which might as well be called Jack Kirby: The Roleplaying Game.
Tom: I have a very long answer to the comics question that I trot out in radio and podcast interviews, but the short answer is that my folks weren’t in love with the idea of me reading, and thereby becoming addicted to, American comics. So my early comics experiences were through Bandes Déssinées like Asterix and Tintin, as well as the work of various British cartoonists like Thelwell, Searle and Harry Hargreaves. It wasn’t until they got a stern talking to by a school teacher friend of theirs about the importance of comics to developing readers that they relented (though my mum insisted I not buy anything that ended with the words “to be continued”). Once we got home from summer vacation that year my father hit all the garage sales in town and bought a huge chunk of Marvel Star Wars books and Gold Key funny animal stuff. Along with the stuff their teacher friend had given us, I had a pretty sizable collection (for a seven-year-old). And with my new-found pocket money autonomy I was able to buy up the ends of a lot of great stories!
RPG wise, it was D&D. I first played the night we moved to Ottawa when I was 10 and spent the next few years staring at the Monster Manuals. Later my friends and I played a lot of Top Secret and TMNT.
Fred, you’ve done several non-fiction comics in the past, like Action Philosophers and the Comic Book History of Comics, which are informative but also fun to read. Are you approaching Gamemasters with a similar tone and feel? And what attracted you to this project in particular?
Fred: Yeah, very much so. Those original books were drawn by Ryan Dunlavey, who, fortunately, hates roleplaying games, so he’s not jealous. (Though we might have a Ryan-centric Stretch Goal for the Kickstarter! Stay tuned!) This book was Tom’s idea in the first place, and we had already done a pseudo-non fiction book for Nick Dragotta’s Howtoons at Image (Re: Ignition), so I knew he would crush this. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, a lot of artists fall apart when they don’t have the narrative drive of a story to follow panel-to-panel. But Tom is a great designer who’s always thinking about layouts from a high-level strategically, which is what you really need for the flow of what are basically sequential essays. With jokes. Lots and lots of jokes.
Tom, your art posts are some of my favorites on Tumblr because you have such a unique approach to drawing monsters and creatures and aliens and such. I know you got your start in the RPG world; how did that influence your art style, and what’s been like revisiting that world with this project?
Tom: It’s been fun to revisit some things I didn’t think would ever pop up for me again. For most of the time I was working in gaming, I wasn’t actually playing. I’d stopped at around 13 and didn’t start back up in any real sense until I was in my mid-30s(?). So when I’d get my art briefs they’d often be completely alien to me. I came to really enjoy that, because I felt like it meant I could approach the actual imagery with a fresh eye. In working on Gamemasters I’ve been exposed to so many games, systems and history that I’d previously only vaguely been aware of, if at all, that it’s put me very much back into that frame of mind where everything is new and what’s a fun angle I can bring to it.
Fred, what did your research for this project consist of, and what’s one odd or interesting thing you discovered about RPGs that you didn’t know before?
Fred: As with all my other non-fiction projects, I read a lot. But I also got to play a lot of games! Fortunately I am the member of two gaming groups, a weekly one over Zoom and a monthly one in-person, and my players are game enough to try everything at least once. So I’ve played pretty much every single game mentioned in the text. I guess I could have tried original-flavor, “woodgrain-box” Dungeons & Dragons, but we did do the adventure that Gary Gygax would run at conventions to get people into D&D, Tomb of Horrors, using the 1e Advanced rules. We played Gettysburg, Diplomacy, AD&D, Traveller, Metamorphosis Alpha, the aforementioned Top Secret and MSH, Ghostbusters, Paranoia, and some of the modern games like Tales from the Loop. I know I am forgetting a bunch. We have been working on this OGN for five years.
Hey, it’s a book about games, if you can’t have fun playing them, what are we even doing here?
Tom, what’s it been like working with colorist Bill Crabtree, and what does he bring to the table for this project?
Tom: Bill and I have been working together for a few years now, since Refrigerator Full of Heads. I think we communicate really well. He’s got a really solid color sense and can mix up his style when a scene or panel calls for it. Which is particularly useful in a book like this where we skip through different eras and styles so regularly. He also thinks in terms of how colour can propel a story forward like any other visual tool you’d bring to the table. I think he’s great!
How has it been working with Clover Press on this project? I imagine the focus they put on design and quality would be a draw.
Fred: They’ve been great. They know crowdfunding inside and out and the amount of care and detail put into the physical product is going to produce a hardcover that can sit proudly next to all the other RPGs on your shelf.
Tom: I’ve known and trusted Hank for a big chunk of my comics career. He was Parker’s and my champion and protector on our Wildstorm book Mysterius, and has been a great friend since. When Clover came up in the conversation I jumped as a result. Their books look great and I knew we’d be working with good people.
Finally, what RPGs are you enjoying these days, and are there any you discovered during your research for this project that you’ve tried out or would like to check out?
Fred: The weekly group has played Mothership, which is great spooky fun, and we have a shockingly long-running Vaesen campaign going. I really like Modiphius’s 2d20 system. The monthly group loved Dishonored, and we’re probably going to check out Fallout next.
Tom: During the lockdown I managed to play a little bit of Mothership over Discord and Roll20, and really enjoyed it. But since drawing the chapters featuring Paranoia and Traveller, I’m very keen to give those both a try!