In which I'm rude about art

I spend some of my hard-earned money on game books. Lately, alot of them have been Werewolf the Forsaken books from White Wolf.

In the past, game books that I have bought have, for the most part, been good to me, content-wise. I flip their pages eagerly, my eyes scanning the words. The draw for me has always been the game and the system. I was interested in the new whatever for D&D, or the new edition of Shadowrun. I was interested in the mechanics, and in the suspension of disbelief part - the world they were setting up. The art I usually glimpsed over, enjoyed and moved on. The short fiction bits I skimmed through and thought was excellent flavor. So it is with a heavy heart that I flip through books and, upon seeing a piece of art in the book, rather than either pausing to "oooh" at it for a moment, or even scanning it briefly before moving on to the gritty stuff, I recoil slightly at how fucking terrible it is.

I am certainly no artist. I do not draw. I do not paint. I do not sculpt. I would perhaps argue with anyone that wanted to offer that my contribution here is, in fact, some form of art.

Let me cite some examples, and I am only doing these by title and page and artist name - I would gladly scan and upload the images, but I fear that were someone to accidentally happen upon my page, and I were speaking so unkindly about an artist, and featured his protected material on my page, I'd be placed in an uncomfortable position. And I can't find any of the art that I'm referring to already out there on Google anywhere. So here is my referencing, I'm just sorry that this is lost on most (probably all) of you.

Book: War of the Pure, Page 5, Arist: Jeff Holt. The scene is of a naked woman, facing toward three wolves, with a werewolf-looking person with a knife bearing down on her.
Book: War of the Pure, Page 169, Arist: Brian LeBlanc. A family is ambushed in the jungle by some werewolves. The family appears to all be using "Crest White Strips", judging by the way they are holding their mouths open. And the man looks like he is being raped by one of the werewolves.
Book: War of the Pure, Page 172, Arist: Brian LeBlanc. The scene is a voluptuous naked woman being held (and eaten?) by three snake-men.
Book: Blood of the Wolf, Page 108, Artist: Brian LeBlanc. A screaming werewolf is swinging through an open window, and somewhat resembles the Ultimate Warrior, from wrestling days long past. Lying just inside, sitting up on a bed, is a voluptuous woman, barely clad in some kind of a gown or nightie. The werewolf appears to be naked, or to have forgotten his loincloth.
Book: Rage- Forsaken Player's Guide, Page 100, Artist: Brian Leblanc. A voluptuous woman, clothed in skin-tight capri pants and a bikini top, stands with her back to a door, a huge knife in her hand, facing off again three sorta-werewolf-looking-guys. Her expression is hard to define. Actually it looks like she was cut off in mid-sentence while talking to a girl-friend at the mall. Mild disinterest with a dash of surprise. (This one is my favorite/most-eyerolling)
Book: Rage- Forsaken Player's Guide, Page 127, Arist: Brian Leblanc. A voluptuous woman, wearing some kind of bra or halter-top and some short-shorts that lace up on the sides is pointing a clawed hand, commanding a trio of evil-looking wolves into action.


Put most concisely: I find these pieces to be incredibly juvenile, and somewhat lacking in skill. Some of LeBlanc's stuff is good, from a shading and lines perspective, but is of ridiculous-seeming content. Like, LeBlank draws some very nice looking, voluptuous women, but c'mon people - aren't chainmail bikinis the stuff of Conan and D&D? I don't need the 7th grade porn.

I'm griping because I've spent my money on this stuff, and so, in a way, paid the artist too. I think I have a vote. Some of the art is not just poor, it is distracting. I just can't help but wondering why no one else noticed it. Like the editor, maybe.

And I have to be fair. Even though I'm not zeroing in on them the way I did the awful pieces that I pointed out above, for each piece in the books that is just horrible, there is a piece which is at worst "meh" and at best, pretty good. By the same guys even. And some of the art in the books is really good, I've just made a point to pick out the negative and whirl it around like a dead cat, instead of any of the positive stuff, really.

But, as I sit here and think about it, I think I'm setup for failure. White wolf is hoping that people will buy these books. Plain and simple. And if that means that 14 year olds, and That Guy Who Lives In Mom's Basement are in their target demographic, why not appeal to them?

PS - I'm not advocating against art featuring voluptuous women. I like voluptuous women. I like art. I like naked women. I guess I'm responding this way because I'm surprised. I hadn't expected to see it in these White Wolf books. I thought they were for mature audiences. I guess I forgot that "mature audience" means "be sure to hide this from your grandma".

Wiki at work

Believe it or not, I did some work today. I also spent time on the following:

World War I

Higgs Boson

Holy Roman Empire

Battle of Alesia

Siege

Skirmisher

Spring Offensive

Espionage Act of 1917

History of Germany

Palmer Raids

Peninsula War

Gallic Wars

Sarmatian

Heavy Metal Baghdad

Found this, quite by accident this morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TK9ZkW0HabQ&mode=related&search=

It is part 1 of 5, of "Heavy Metal Baghdad", in which a couple of guys from a small, independent media outlet try to get together with "the only heavy metal band in Iraq". But what is fascinating to me is to actually see Baghdad. Their cameras are rolling as they move around in the city, and it is shocking, terrifying, and fascinating.

News that we see from Iraq is all quick still shots, or short bits of video, or interviews with people. I've seen more of Iraq in the last 10 minutes, watching these videos, than I have in.. three or four years of watching television and reading on mainstream web news outlets.

Check it out.

Treasure Tables is a great little site.

Yeah, just like the title says.

http://www.treasuretables.org


Today what's caught my interest is the most recent article, regarding Metagaming.

http://www.treasuretables.org/2007/04/constructive-metagaming-in-rpgs

quickie

Quick notes:

House broken into this week: Nothing stolen.

Related item: New door jam and locks

Another related item: I love my black lab, Yazhi, who scares off burglars (and sometimes runs with me, when I'm not a fat slob)

"Huey's" eateries in and around Memphis: rock, and have always rocked.

The movie, Grindhouse: fucking awesome. Spend your money on it. Be entertained.

Shadow of Midnight game: Happening.

Tired: Sleep.

Making a game happen.

I am supremely tired. I have not gotten to bed before midnight any night this week.

However, I am also determined to make a Shadow of Midnight game work.

Here's the headspace part: I'm running a successful Werewolf game. I'm very pleased with it, and intend to continue running it. I've also been going on and on about how much I want to do a Shadow of Yesterday game. Heck - we're a third of the way through the year, and I've yet to run a SINGLE TSoY game! I've been somewhat holding myself back from attempting to start a Shadow game for awhile now, and for a few reasons. One is that I don't want to sabotage my Werewolf game. I'm flightly, nothing new to that admission. So I've held myself in check, not wanting to start a Shadow game, only to drop it a week later. Also I don't want to abandon my werewolf game in favor of a Shadow game. But.. I've been biding my time. I'm pretty satisfied that I am in fact interested in and capable of running both the Werewolf game, and a Shadow game. The other reason that I've been hesitant, is because of my (former) gaming group - our Tuesday/Wednesday "Strutting Cock" group (named for an Inn that was part of the story). It felt, to me anyway, as though we had ended our weekly meetings on a somewhat sour note. And I've brought up gaming to that crowd a few times, and its been met with (in my opinion) apathy, or outright "no - not interested". I can't begrudge people not being interested - I guess. But I always throw all of my emotion into it, so it feels more like rejection and less like "nah". And it feels a little like a downward spiral to me. Maybe I should take the hint and quit asking people. But each time I manage to well up enough courage to ask - and when its met with "no", I'm a little less likely to ask again in another 6 weeks.

But I'd really love to run some TSoY. I love the system. I love the Midnight campaign world, and have been wanting to play/run it since I got it, um, years ago. I'd love to play with some of the old crowd. John and Jason both rate really high on my list of people that I'd love to bring back to the gaming table. John has been less than interested in gaming for the last half-a-year or so, and does have some weeknight commitments. Jason has also been less than interested in gaming since the end of our previous TSoY game, and uh, he's kinda got some new time commitments as well. But I'd love to get them to the table. I'd love to game with them, but in addition, I think that TSoY is an excellent game to play with them. Obviously, I'm extremely biased, but I think that I can use it to create an exciting game. Heck, even Mike might have a difficult time fucking up TSoY - a game system that does not easily lend itself to munchkinism.

Anyway. I've emailed John to ask if he's interested, and Jason reads this, so consider this an invitation.

This post, and my mindset feels a little emotional. And it is. I get super wild-eyed and excited about gaming stuff. And I'm super tired. I'll attribute it to that.

If I had all the time in the world

I'd be running a ton more games.

I'm running a werewolf game that is very successful thusfar, and I'm very much enjoying. And MAN I'm itching for some Shadow of Yesterday... or Shadow of Midnight, or Shadow of Wuxia, or Shadow of the Mob, or Shadow of Demon Hunters..... Anyway.

I've set my mind to trying to remain focused on the werewolf game. To the exclusion of other stuff. I don't want my players or myself to get distracted. I love to imagine that I have the time and energy to run two different games parallel.. But I don't think I'd be able to keep it going for any time.

MMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

But be warned! When I have the chance, I'm running some Shadow of Yesterday stuff!!!! Oh yeah.