New Dawn of the Planet of the Apes poster...

...is making me feel a little nostalgic!

Akira by....Kirby and Lee?

This recent entry by to The Line Is Drawn (a weekly online happening celebrating mashed-up comic book themes) imagines Akira being created Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. It's got all the hallmarks of a Bronze Age Kirby. This week's theme was Japanese anime and manga cast in a style of more American/western artists. The Akira/Kirby piece is by the fantastically talented Marco D'Alfonso.

Throw in a little of Kirby's own Kamandi and you've got the makings of a really interesting Gamma-style campaign!

Via io9.com

Casting Call: Alien Overlords #2

So a long while back I was hemming and hawing over what to use as a base template for alien overlords. I wanted something gonzo, but not too wacky. They had to be intimidating and sufficiently weird. Here's our next crop of candidates:

Kelly Freas cover

Ovion from BSG

Here's an ovion concept by Ralph McQuarrie. Man, 4-LOM from Star Wars WISHES he had four-arms. 

Speaking of Star Wars, I always found the Quarren race particularly creepy (though I think I'd make mine indigo-skinned to up the "weirdness" aspect).

Skitters from Falling Skies

Selenites from First Men on the Moon

I guess I'm vacillating between squid and insects these days. Man that Freas cover is great though--grotesque, menacing as soldiers but also strange enough to look highly intelligent. Might just have a winner there.

Seven Gamma-related Odds and Ends for Inspiration

I've been working on some more GWW ideas, but they're not quite ready for posting. In the mean time, here's a few post-apocalyptic items to feed your gaming ideas:

1. Nerd-haven blog io9.com has a great post debunking (ha!) purported security of on underground bunkers. There's a few thoughts to take away from it, including this little nugget:

And then there would be the threat of other survivors — once all the local Wal-Mart, Target, and sporting goods stories have long since been picked clean, the roaming scavengers would regard any remaining shelters as a major jackpot.

Anyone searching through rural areas of Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Utah, and Texas (areas with a high proportion of these bunkers) could simply canvass the area with a metal detector, since these bunkers include EMP shielding, which requires a metal lattice. Construction contractors that worked on the bunkers, regardless of the confidentiality standards held during the building process, will also know the specific location of bunkers in the area. So the people inside the bunkers could easily become sitting ducks, waiting for a series of assaults from other survivors.

This seems like good fodder for a raiding party adventure. In Gamma World War it would likely be the mutants turning the tables on the valids (who typically prey on the mutated hordes for experiments). So this gave me some ideas for a variety of mission types, including rescues, reprisals, and yes, the ever-essential supply raids. Maybe even a few pure-strain-on-pure-strain attacks (drill-tank attacks between subterranean fortresses!).

Anyway, be sure to check it out as the article is, in fact, filled with similar ideas for other scenarios.

2. Also, if you're looking for some images of ruined or foreboding environments (GM screen art?) for your campaign, I added a new tag "background" over at the Gamma World War tumblr. This includes older images from the blog too.

3. Remember that Mars Attacks comic is coming out next Wednesday! Looks like fantastic war-of-the-wrecked-worlds mayhem:

4. Speaking of unwelcome visitors, the apocalyptic alien invasion show Falling Skies returns tonight. Rumor mill says the aliens are now 100% focused on exterminating the humans!


If you were looking for material to fill out your campaign, there's a Falling Skies wiki and comic to pull from. Between 'Mars and 'Skies, I've found a good mix of inspiration for GWW's own alien invaders.

5. Fantasy Flight Games (based here in my home town!) is currently producing a line of pre-painted plastic minis for their Arkham Horror game, including this great series of monsters that are waiting to terrorize your PCs. Or maybe they ARE the PCs:

6. While we're on the subject of monsters and mutants, check out this REAL tarantula infected with some sort of fungus that gives it antlers:

Stat this guy up (and enlarge by a factor of at LEAST x5 for your next game! I call him "Tarantlera". (P.S. click to enlarge, I made it smaller 'cause it's kinda' icky. P.P.S. By the time your players figure out how to pronounce "Tarantlera" their PCs will already be dead.)

7. Finally, this is just a fun article about illustrator Ken Kelly who did some of extraordinary work for the Micronauts toy line packaging back in the 80s. Apparently one of his best-loved pieces, Antron, was lost for ages. His work inspired the new evolutionaries for GWW. These guys have GAMMA written all over them:

UPDATE: Gah! How could I forget that Pitford: Gateway to the Ruins for Mutant Epoch is now out. Better make that EIGHT Odds and Ends then!

New Tumblr Image Blog!

Just a quick note to say I started an image diary on Tumblr. I'll still do art posts on this site of course when I feel the need. But if you're jonesing for some gamma-inspired images updated regularly (semi-daily) then check out:

gammaworldwar.tumblr.com

Four "Gamma" Heroes from Tom Scioli

I'm enjoying the HELL out of Tom Scioli's American Barbarian. Lately he's been churning out some superb one-off art too, which might as well be inspiration for your next Gamma adventuring party.

PYRO "ROCKETMAN" KING

RAGNAR

ROBOT DRACULA

THREED

 Find more great stuff and the weekly web comic at American Barbarian website.

American Barbarian gets a publisher!

You may recall me shouting from the rooftops back in May about my love for Tom Scioli's awesome web comic American Barbarian. It turns out my earlier wish will come true: alternative comics publisher AdHouse Books just announced today that it will release the series as a 6"x9" hardcover early next year.

This is great news for Barbaric Americans and anyone with red-white-and-blue hair. Pre-order page is up, but the link isn't quite active yet. I'm ecstatic to see the wonderful work of creators like Scioli and Joe Casey get the real world treatment. Congrats to them and kudos to AdHouse for making it happen.

You better believe I'm getting my mutated mitts on this one!

Gamma Inspiration: Original Kirby Sketches

Here's some original artwork by the King of Comics himself posted over at Bleeding Cool. The top image is an unused cover that Kirby illustrated for Black Magic. Thought this would be a fitting tribute with yesterday being "Kirby Day" (his birthday).

Very cool!

Aftermath Illustrations

Boing Boing has a recent post about some illustrations from an old Pageant magazine from the 50s. The artwork is great, even if the articles in the magazine are schlocky. Some of the other illios--which can be found on SF Weekly's website--are slightly disturbing, but the crazy piles of junk might provide inspiration for rubble in a campaign setting.

Check out SF Weekly for more images and their write-up about a truly goofy issue of Pageant.

Casting Call: Alien Overlords

This has been bugging me for a while. I want to be able to visualize what these buggers look like so I can flesh out their stats and give them a proper backstory. I have some ideas for both look and how they should play, but I'm not so wedded to them that I couldn't update it if I was inspired by something really interesting. My only rule is no greys. They're just boring. Yes, they may have seeded our civilization with ancient knowledge about how to construct the pyramids. They're also bland. But that' doesn't mean all cliches are out. So let's start with the obvious--big, headed aliens.

SCREEN TEST: BIG HEADED ALIENS, TAKE ONE:

I threw M.O.D.O.K. in there because, well, what the hay--he's freaky lookin'. Beholders are aliens. We all know it. And you've got to pay tribute to the martians. They're the ones who started it all!

Secret Japanese Pyramid Base!

Click to embiggen

Everyone needs one. From Shōnen Magazine, circa 1967 for a Japanese TV program called The King Kong Show.

via Pink Tentacle.

Thundarr Presto Magix

If I had a time machine it would be set for 1981 and I would buy CASES of them. What are Presto Magix? They're like Colorforms where you'd use a pen to transfer the characters onto a battlefield--but full color and permanent. Plus you could "forget" to transfer a leg or a wheel and inflict cool battle damage. I had mostly Star Wars. Maybe a Transformers one, I can't remember. Here's the awesome background.

Thundarr looks awesome. I love that horned whale. What sets did you have?

Props to Branded in the 80s.

Gamma Gallery: Whacked-out Inspiration

This last one is by Rustam F. Hasanov, an incredibly talented illustrator you should be following. :)