Title Volume 1 Author Jeff Grubb Illustrator Rags Morales Publisher IDW Publishing - 2011 First Printing 1989 - 1991
	Title Volume 2 Author Jeff Grubb Illustrator Rags Morales, Dave Simons Publisher IDW Publishing - 2011 First Printing 1989 - 1991
	Title Volume 3 Author Jeff Grubb Illustrator --- Publisher IDW Publishing - 2012 First Printing 1989 - 1991
	Title Volume 4 Author Jeff Grubb Illustrator --- Publisher IDW Publishing - 2012 First Printing 1989 - 1991
	Category Graphic Novels/Comic Books Warnings Really skimpy clothing Main Characters Dwalimor Omen, Minder, Priam Agrivar, Ishi Barasume, Vartan Hai Sylvar, Foxilon Cardluck Main Elements Wizards, elves, paladins, halflings, dragons, and host of other creatures Website ---

Volume 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

Volume 4

Lately I've been doing themes for my reading year and this year I picked elves and fairies, and pretty much any other human like creature that isn't human. And of course in Dungeons & Dragons these beings abound. Until know I thought Dungeons & Dragons was a different thing from Dragonlance which was a different thing from Forgotten Realms, and in a way they are, however while the worlds don't intersect, they do exist in the same universe, can think of them being different planets, in fact in one of these volumes there are the Spelljammers that actually travel between the worlds using a kind of magical space ship. But while in Dragonlance you have Kenders and in Forgottem Realms you have Halflings overall the idea seems to be about the same, even the rules of how dragon colours define which are good and evil are the same.

Now the artwork is more a comic book vibe than a modern graphic novel, with simplistic and bright colours (and people changing colours randomly at times). There are also...well a lot of nearly naked women. To be fair, there's a surprising amount of nearly naked men. *cough* Los *cough*, his half-leggings have far more material than his, err, thong (or whatever, it definitely doesn't have enough coverage to be a loincloth)...our protagonist Agrivar also seems to take any opportunity he can find to ditch his shirt.

The plots are pretty well quest based, Omen is running around collecting dangerous artifacts and tossing the worst ones out into a kind of alternate dimension void, at least when they aren't trying to get the crew out of some mess they managed to get themselves into, like when a mad god decides to possess his priest and use his body to try to take down other gods, or when they are captured by cannibal cat people (are they cannibals if they are cat people and not humans? Maybe if the cat-shifting is magic and not inherent to their species, wasn't clear). So while the stories can get really ridiculous and weird at times, they are also fun and there's a fair amount of humour tossed in. I mean its a comic book, not English Lit so take it for what it is.

Anyway brought back memories of watching the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon in the 80's as a kid, and sneaking the first Dragonlance series from my high school library. I say sneaking because, well, it was a book for "boys" wasn't it? But it was the moment when I really got into fantasy and not just the occasional unicorn (I was into horse books before that). I still really love that trilogy and have re-read it a few times. Maybe now something like 30+ years later, it's time to learn more about this RPG realm. I'll probably never play the game, seems so complicated, but wow are there a lot of books, both novels and comic, to enjoy!