The Art of Allansia

One of the things I used to love about writing Fighting Fantasy gamebooks was working with the artists. I would slave away over the manuscript for a couple of months, and during the process write an art brief for all the wonderful illustrations that would appear in the book. And there were just so many! Between 25 and 30 usually (and not including the filler pictures or cover)!

Well I'm at that stage with YOU ARE THE HERO - A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks now, negotiating with artists about which of their pictures I can reproduce in the book. So far Martin McKenna's cover art is in (and it's awesome), as are Iain McCaig's updates for Zanbar Bone and the Bloodbeast (they are also awesome), and Russ Nicholson has produced a brand new portrait of Zagor the Warlock for the book. (Guess what - it's awesome!)

YOU ARE THE HERO will also definitely feature art by Rodney Matthews, Pete Knifton, Malcolm Barter, Kev Crossley, Greg Staples, David Gallagher, John Blanche, Alan Craddock, Tony Hough, Nicholas Halliday, Stephen Player, Gary Ward and Edward Crosby, and cartographer Leo Hartas. And those are just the ones I can tell you about at the moment!

So exciting times indeed. Now, if you'll excuse me I just need to phone Chris Achellios.

Until next time...

Nightgaunts, Night Demons and Ice Ghosts

It feels like every new day brings an exciting new development to the YOU ARE THE HERO project at the moment. Today's exciting new development came in the post courtesy of Tower of Destruction and Siege of Sardath artist Pete Knifton.

Pete Knifton, you truly are a hero!

The Final Chapter

Two weeks ago today I met up with Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone at Games Day UK. Steve and Ian were running late - over an hour late in fact.

When they eventually made it to Games Day I discovered that the reason for the delay was because they had witnessed a serious car crash, right in front of them. A car travelling at 120mph swerved across the motorway in front of them, hit another car before veering back across the road and bouncing off the central reservation. From what I understand, it's a miracle that their car wasn't involved too and that they were able to come away from the experience wholly unscathed.

As I remarked later, that was one chapter I really didn't want to have to write for YOU ARE THE HERO...

Défis Fan­tas­tiques!

An intriguing package arrived from our Gallic cousins yesterday, courtesy of Florent Haro and Scriptarium - French editions of Graham Bottley's updated Fighting Fantasy RPG a.k.a. Défis Fan­tas­tiques (en France).

To find out more about Scriptarium's FF (or should that be DF) revival follow this link. To find out more about the English language edition of AFF 2nd edition, follow this link.

JONATHAN GREEN TALKS FIGHTING FANTASY AND GAMEBOOK ADVENTURES

On Mookychick.co.uk, for anyone who might have missed it the first time round.

The Way of the Tiger Kickstarter

Mark Smith and Jamie Thomson, who have both been interviewed for my upcoming history of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks YOU ARE THE HERO, have recently launched their own Kickstarter project, along with Megara Entertainment, to bring back another '80s gamebook classic, The Way of the Tiger.

The series' original publishers Hodder and Stoughton originally signed a seven book deal with Smith and Thomson, which they cancelled before the last book could be written, re-writing the ending of Book #6 Inferno, in order to bring the series to an end. (If you want to know why, you'll just have to read YOU ARE THE HERO.)

But now, riding the wave of nostalgia that is powering the current gamebook revival, Megara Entertainment are bringing the books back in a new, full-colour, harback collector's edition. Not only that but two new books will be added to the current six - a prequel, Book #0, entitled Ninja, and the long anticipated Book #7 Redeemer!

To find out more about this project, this classic series, and to fund this new gamebook project, follow this link.