Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, dungeons and dragons, entertainment, idw, jib zub

IDW To Announce New Dungeons & Dragons Comic By Jim Zub

Peter S. Svensson writes for Bleeding Cool:

Dungeons & Dragons. The game where people roll dice, and pretend to kill things and take their stuff. The fifth edition of the game is coming later this month, with new rules and new books and an attempt to get a generation of geeks who primarily play World of Warcraft or Candy Crush Saga to try out tabletop roleplaying. Hasbro (owners of Wizards of the Coast, who produce D&D as well as the card-based fantasy game Magic: the Gathering) has a good working relationship with IDW, who have produced D&D Comics in the past.

Most notably, a fantastic series written by John Rogers (Leverage, Blue Beetle) with art by Andrea Di Vito which died too soon. I may have been a bit vocal towards IDW editorial about my desire to see that series back…. Okay. I am definitely vocal towards IDW editorial about my desire to see that series back. But hang on a bit.

Jim Zub writes a lot of fantasy comics. Skullkickers, published at Image is a hilarious comedy about a dwarf, a guy with a gun, snarky narrators and silly sound effects. He writes Pathfinder for Dynamite, based off the tabletop game which is currently Dungeons and Dragon's top competitor in the "Fantasy heroes explore and get into fights" genre. He's writing Samurai Jack for IDW, which is vaguely a fantasy adventure. He's written an Exalted comic one-shot, based on the anime-themed Fantasy RPG game by White Wolf for contributors to their recent Kickstarter.

He also just wrote that Figment series for Marvel which no one ordered enough of and is getting second printings and seriously folks, it's good times.

But he writes a lot of fantasy comics. And recently, he posted this on his Facebook.

Hilariously, when I told myself I'd shun sword & sorcery material to avoid being typecast, two incredible fantasy projects hunted me down. In the face of such sword-slinging awesomeness, my resolve was weak. Typecasting be damned.

Well, the only larger profile sword and sorcery material available is Conan and Dungeons and Dragons, and while we can't rule out Conan as a later SDCC announcement, Jim Zub has pretty much given up the game on him doing D&D, first by sharing unboxing photos of the fifth edition products, sent to him before they hit retailers or even folks working on the D&D-based MMORPG Neverwinter Nights from Cryptic Studios.

Meanwhile, Dirk Wood, PR guy for IDW, who hosts their section of Previews every month as an adorable caricature (seriously, as a retailer, IDW's segment of Previews is fun to read!) announced that the next edition of Previews would announce a new Dungeons and Dragons comic. Which meant all we needed to know were the creative team…

Today, Jim Zub was apparently allowed to just say it, and posted this on his website.

So, the real question here is whether he'll be continuing the stories of Fell's Five, the adventurers created by John Rogers for the previous IDW comic run, or creating new adventurers entirely. See, Rogers wrote a D&D comic that embodied the ethos and style of the 4th edition, using character concepts and setting that was taken from the game that he actually wrote some elements of. Wizards of the Coast has to distance themselves from that edition in order to make a new one stand out. Marketing. So the odds are slim that Jim Zub will be continuing the saga of the characters John Rogers created. Which is a mixed blessing I suppose, as while Jim is a fantastic and way underrated writer (with a secret project at Marvel besides Figment we've yet to discover), unless Rogers decided to co-write or hand the baton off, it'd be weird right?

So, we're assuming a full announcement of art team and why there's a hamster (or guinea pig, I never could tell the difference) on the promo art at San Diego. My personal bet is that it's some wizard's familiar, but we'll see.

[Rich adds: That would be Boo from Baldur's Gate from the Forgotten Realms campaign setting…]

On an unrelated note, I will be participating once again at the Pro/Fan Trivia Contest on Sunday at Comic Con International San Diego. This year, as a fan! Please show up and see me being incredibly geeky and trying desperately to act like I know way more about Comic Trivia than I probably do.

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