Posted in: Comics, IDW | Tagged: dungeons and dragons, jim zub

When Jim Zub Was Going To Turn Down Writing Dungeons & Dragons

With the new Dungeons & Dragons movie out, Jim Zub has been revisiting how he came to write the comic books at IDW Publishing.

With the new Dungeons & Dragons movie out, Jim Zub has been revisiting how he came to write the comic books at IDW Publishing, which turned around the comic book version of the franchise. He tweeted;

"Back in 2014 I begged IDW to try publishing Dungeons & Dragons comics again and the people in charge were skeptical because, even though they had the license as part of their Hasbro deal, their previous efforts around D&D hadn't really taken off. Ted Adams, head of IDW, really liked the Samurai Jack comic series I was writing and asked what else I was interested in that they had access to. I said "Dungeons & Dragons or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"."

"Kevin Eastman was coming back to TMNT so that wasn't an option and Ted didn't think D&D had legs anymore. They previously tried an ongoing and some mini-series but retailers and readers hadn't jumped in the way they hoped. D&D 4e had strayed too far from key aspects of the game for many fans and Pathfinder had risen up to inherit quite a bit of D&D's thunder at that time. Funny enough, I'd just finished writing a 3 arc run of Pathfinder comics…"

"A new edition of Dungeons & Dragons was in development. Setting up a comic to launch alongside the 5e release was the best shot they had for making it work. We set up a conference call with reps from Wizards of the Coast and it went…honestly? Not great. Tyranny of Dragons was the big adventure launching with D&D 5e and they wanted an adaptation of that story – epic Lord of the Rings-esque adventure with Tiamat's return, armies clashing, and the fate of the world on the line. What I love about D&D is a tight-knit group of found family getting into danger. Scrappy, troublemaking, fun fantasy. A pack of well-meaning fools get in over the heads and have to fight their way out. Tyranny seemed completely at odds with my favorite aspects of the game and a lore-dense epic would be hard to deliver effectively in the format we were looking at – a 5 issue mini-series, 20 pages of story each issue. Everyone was upbeat on the call, but I wasn't feeling it at all."

"I actually told my wife I was going to turn down the gig I'd stirred up in the first place. I wasn't the right fit for what they envisioned and didn't want to deliver a half-hearted D&D book. Since I was going to bow out anyway, I sent a message to IDW and WotC expressing my thoughts/concerns that I was the wrong fit and also sent them PDFs of Skullkickers, my action-comedy sword & sorcery comic series. To WotC's credit, they 100% got what I was saying and pivoted completely. It would be far better if I was on board and enthusiastic than just pumping something out or stepping away. How could we make a fun new reader friendly comic series instead? I clearly enjoyed the action-comedy stuff, so we struck upon the idea of bringing back Minsc and Boo from the video games. I came up with a way to bring Minsc and Boo into the present with wild magic and created a smaller stakes dragon story that ran alongside Tyranny of Dragons"

"D&D: Legends of Baldur's Gate launched in 2014 and I've been writing #DnD comics ever since. The first three Baldur's Gate comic stories are collected in the Days of Endless Adventure omnibus:

Legends of Baldur's Gate
Shadows of the Vampire
Frost Giant's Fury

The next three are still available in trade:

Evil at Baldur's Gate
Infernal Tides
Mindbreaker. Mindbreaker is also a prequel to the Baldur's Gate 3 video game launching later this year."

"Writing the official D&D comics had me regularly in contact with @adamofadventure and he advocated for me to get more involved with other projects in development, including consulting on the book that would eventually be called Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. The time I spent in the office working on Descent Into Avernus generated discussions that turned into the D&D Young Adventurer's Guide series (7 books and counting): And that all led to the ridiculous and incredible chance to attend D&D Live in 2019 and play #DnD on stage with @ChrisPerkinsDnD @matthewmercer @DeborahAnnWoll @MicaBurton @BDaveWalters @AnnaProsser on my birthday: youtube.com D&D Live 2019: The Descent, Part 4 Dungeon Master Chris Perkins leads Anna Prosser, B. Dave Walters, Deborah Ann Woll, Matthew Mercer, and Mica Burton in a preview adventure of Baldur. Rick and Morty VS D&D with @PatrickRothfuss + @meanwhilestudio (two mini-series and a game set), Stranger Things and D&D with @Jody_Houser + @Galindoart, a bunch of other consulting, the upcoming deluxe pop up book. It's honestly quite mind bending when I think about it…"

"Dungeons & Dragons changed my life when I was a kid and #DnD continues to change my life as an adult and creator. So much joy and so many friendships. May the adventure continue ever onward." Time for the Ted talk!

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