A Dungeons & Dragons Adventure

"A Dungeons & Dragons Adventure" was an eight-part (yet unfinished) comic strip ad series that ran in various Marvel comic books between May 1981 to June 1982. The artwork was primarily by Bill Willingham.

Link to an image that collects all eight pages in order.

Some interesting tidbits:

*The names of Valerius the fighter and Grimslade the Magic-User make reference to the Erol Otus and Harold Johnson characters in the original Rogues Gallery (although their appearance is quite different). Saren the Cleric is possibly derived from Serten the Cleric.

*The characters start in "Zenopus castle" on page #1 - a clear reference to the wizard Zenopus from the Sample Dungeon in the Holmes Basic rulebook

*Pages 3-8 are by Willingham; page 2 might be by Jeff Dee; page 1 is by ?

*Lots of small continuity 'errors', but what can you expect from an advertisement? The elf wins the prize for changing appearance the most. He starts as a "Keebler Elf" but gets taller and taller as the series goes on, his hair goes from blond to brown to blond to brown again, and he wears at least three different hats.

*Here are all of the proper names, extracted for use in your campaign:

Valerius the Fighter

Grimslade the Magic-User

Indel the Elf

the ruins of Zenopus Castle

Saren the Cleric (or Healer)

the Great Sword Naril (reference to Tolkien's Narsil?)

Gavin's Inn

Grindal (mentor of Grimslade)

the Fabulous Heart of Mekron (magic amulet?)

Oakthorn (magic-user or werebird?)

the Black Swamp of Lobella

the Mountains of Ash

James Mishler wrote an article for Comic Buyer's Guide in 2006 about these strips.

Mishler says that Stephen Sullivan wrote at least the 2nd-4th pages of the series.

Sullivan was involved in many other TSR products of the time (art and editing).

Thanks to kevinmayle for posting the jpg of the series on the Acaeum.

This review was originally posted on Dragonsfoot.