Dungeons, dragons, ogres and adventure fantasy was a passion of mine in my teens. Not just drawing the stuff, but reading about it and everything to do with it. It was the eighties and my favourite  magazine was  called Dragon.  If you were in to role-playing games back then, such as Dungeons and Dragons, then you would remember that Dragon was the only magazine worth reading, in fact I think it still exists today in an online form. The magazine was a must for me each month, and I would set out to the gaming store to purchase my copy. I would then spend hours reading up on the latest spells and characters, however, there was one article that I loved the most - it was a comic strip called Wormy. Even after my interest in Dungeons and Dragons waned, I still bought the magazine just to read Wormy.

Wormy was written and drawn by Dave Trampier. To this day I have never seen anything like it. The comic strip was pure genius. David’s drawings of ogres and trolls were brilliant and the characters each had plenty of personality. His colouring was earthy and realistic and his elaborate rune drawings were mesmerizing. The one scene that stands out in my mind was the tavern scene were trolls and all sorts of creatures were drinking and playing poker. Take note of the woody rustic hues that David used. His colouring was extraordinary considering that it was done by hand in time before computer aided graphics were available.

There has been much hearsay about David and what he is up to now-a-days. I hope at some stage David’s Wormy cartoon is published as a hardcover book. Below is an example of his brilliant rune art.

I sure wish I had kept many of those Dragon magazines, purely for the artwork sake.

Paul J Duffield.