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{humor} WTF!?!, Traveller art

Started by Ed Anger, November 26, 2009, 08:57:41 PM

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Ed Anger

Something Awful explores the golden age of shitty art in GDW's Traveller RPG:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/dungeons-and-dragons/traveller-artwork-steve.php?page=1

Don't forget the entire WTF, D&D section.   
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Barrister

Posts here are my own private opinions.  I do not speak for my employer.

Ed Anger

Quote from: Barrister on November 27, 2009, 12:51:10 AM
Traveller. :wub:

Especially High Guard, Mercenary and the Imperium wargame.

But that art. Yeesh.
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grumbler

The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

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Caliga

 :lol: I remember alot of those drawings, but don't think I thought they were so bad at the time.

I guess White Wolf really upped the ante re: gamebook art.
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Syt

That link tickles my funny bone.

Of course, as no one around me was nerdy enough to do any p&p RPG, I was resigned to gaming books, mostly Lone wolf series. I still play some of those now and then over at Project AON.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

The Brain

Everything was better in the 70s and 80s. Young people suck.
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

Josquius

Even Rogue Trader had some pretty bad art IIRC. People truly couldn't draw in the 70s and 80s.
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Razgovory

#8
GDW's art was always bad.  The cover art was always painfully 80's and the inside art looked like crude cartoons.  The worst was Traveler 2300.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

grumbler

Quote from: Razgovory on November 27, 2009, 06:45:02 PM
GDW's art was always bad.  The cover art was always painfully 80's and the inside art looked like crude cartoons.  The worst was Traveler 2300.
Actually, their early stuff (Torgau, Chaco, DNO) had decent cover art, because MacGowan could do them.  As the pace picked up, he didn't have tie to do cover art and illustrations, and GDW moved to what you rightly call the "painfully '80s" look. 

I cannot remember the name of the 70s or early 80s RPG that took place on a multigenerational starship, but I recall that it had the worst concentration of artwork I have seen in a single volume.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

Barrister

Metamorphosis Alpha I believe grumbles.

I actually quite liked the cover art for the earliest Traveller stuff in that it didn't have any - black background with different coloured text.  Elegant in it's simplicity.
Posts here are my own private opinions.  I do not speak for my employer.

Ed Anger

QuoteMacGowan

I've always found some of his box art to be totally cringeworthy. The Flying Colors guy who looks like he is pinching a loaf while standing up makes me giggle when I pull it down off the shelf.
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Iormlund

QuoteIn case you were wondering if both lower and upper decks were carpeted, here's your answer.

:lmfao:

Razgovory

Quote from: Barrister on November 29, 2009, 04:39:44 PM
Metamorphosis Alpha I believe grumbles.

I actually quite liked the cover art for the earliest Traveller stuff in that it didn't have any - black background with different coloured text.  Elegant in it's simplicity.

I believe that was the first Sci-Fi RPG.  Never played it, before my time.  Don't get me wrong about GDW.  They did a lot of  great stuff.  Alot of it just looks bad, but looking at the contemporary stuff it seems par for the course.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017

grumbler

The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!