This video, put together by Editor Jacob T. Swinney, is very impressive. It chronicles the history of cinema, starting with the 1915 film Birth of a Nation, by highlighting iconic shots from 100 films of the past 100 years.
Very impressive indeed. Enjoy this bit of history.
(h/t to the a.v. club)
Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and the man most closely associated with the boom in popularity of roleplaying games, would have been 75 today. When he died in 2008, I wrote two pieces about his death and my personal connection and experiences with him.
You can read my piece for ComicMix right here. I’m including the one from this site below. He would have been 75 today.
Sad news today. E. Gary Gygax, the man widely considered the “Father of Role-Playing-Games,” has died. He was 69 years old. I already wrote a piece about Gygax and his death over at ComicMix. What I didn’t mention in that piece was that, like ComicMix’s Glen Hauman, I also had a personal connection to the man.
I was fortunate to meet Gary Gygax after some friends of mine and I decided to have a D&D marathon at my house one Summer weekend in the late ’70s. We decided to invite Mr. Gygax to join us by writing him a personal letter. We even enclosed an article from the local paper (the Coast Dispatch in case you’re curious) featuring our upcoming marathon in order to try and entice his participation a bit more.
Sadly, he wasn’t able to attend, but he did write me a personal letter with his regrets and also graciously included several D&D adventure modules, as yet unpublished, for us to use during the game. We used them and had a great time, all the while praising Gygax for being cool enough to not only respond to us, but for caring enough to send us stuff to help make our marathon D&D session a success.
Several years later, I was able to actually meet Gygax in person at GenCon after I had convinced my parents it was a good idea to drive me across country so I could play D&D with a bunch of other kids in Wisconsin. My parents were cool like that and did it not only once, but twice.
When I met him the first time at GenCon we spoke for several minutes and he even remembered me from when I had invited him to our game. He was a great guy to talk to. Over the years I would run into him again at various events and each time he would, somehow, remember me and we would have another very nice conversation. At each and every meeting he was gracious and generous with his time.
The magnitude of Gygax’s influence on gaming and pop culture, both directly and indirectly, isn’t something that can easily be measured. He was extremely popular among those who played his games, of course, but his creations, particularly D&D, also had a profound effect on kids of my and later generations.
D&D helped us learn to think logically, to solve problems, to work as a team and, more importantly, to use our imaginations. As someone who has the privilege of using his imagination on a daily basis and gets paid for it, I , for one, have a debt to Gary Gygax that can never be repaid.
I feel confident there are others out there working away creating the current and next generations of games, comic books, movies and TV shows that feel the same way I do.
Thanks for the help and inspiration Gary. We need more people around like you. You will be missed.
Okay, this is kinda cool. D&D fans, take note. The fine and generous folks at Wizards of the Coast, in conjunction with DriveThruRPG, have launched Dungeons & Dragons Classics.
What is this, you ask? Well, it’s an “online PDF store that features classic content from every issue of D&D, including fan-favorite supplement materials and iconic adventures.” Awesome, right?
As a true D&D geek, I still have all of my old rulebooks, modules, etc. Yes, I’m the guy who never gets rid of anything. But for the rest of you, or those of you who want new copies as PDF’s to put on the iPad (for example,) this is a great resource.
No, they’re not free. However, the prices are quite reasonable and if you really want the classic books in a much more manageable format, worth it. Check out all the fun over at the D&D Classics Website.
(H/T to ADD for the 411)
The holidays are upon us in earnest and Christmas is coming this Sunday. I’m also having a birthday this week too. In fact, it’s tomorrow (Thursday).
Before you feel too bad for me and express sympathies that my birthday must get forgotten due to its proximity to Christmas, I will make you feel better by telling you that in all the time I’ve been alive, I’ve never felt bad about having a birthday three days before Christmas.
There’s one reason for that (well, two). Harold and Dorothy. My parents.
My parents came into my life sorta late in theirs. They tried for several years to have a kid the old fashioned way, but in the end, for whatever reason, they were unsucessful. So, like countless others who wanted a child, but just couldn’t make it happen, they turned to adoption.
That’s where I came into the picture. My parents adopted me, sealed the deal in late November, I was born on December 22 and they brought me home to live with them on Christmas day.
Since that time, my parents, being the intelligent and thoughtful people they are, went to great effort to distinguish my birthday from Christmas. It was always considered a seperate day and talk of Christmas was put aside until it was over.
Sure, the house usually already had Christmas lights and decorations up (my father was like that), but that was not allowed to detract from my birthday. If my party was at the house, we celebrated in a room away from the tree and as much of the rest of the Christmas-centric decor as we could manage.
They were also really great at making sure I had separate birthday and Christmas gifts each year. My mom still does that to this day.
I have no doubt that when I see her this weekend she will make me open my birthday presents first and then make me wait for the Christmas presents until a respectable amount of time has passed. Somewhat of a traditionalist is Dorothy. If my dad were still alive, I’m sure he’d insist on the same thing.
The purpose of this missive is to say that I’ve been very fortunate to have these two people in my life. Whatever happened, they always put me first and made sure I never needed or wanted for anything.
I could not have asked for better people to show me the whys and wherefores of life. I just hope, if I ever have children of my own, I can do half as good a job as they did.
It’s a tough act to follow.
The story I never knew as a child can now be told. It’s the Sherman and Mr. Peabody backstory. Also known as: How a dog found his boy. Enjoy.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YunO4Wc8E28&w=425&h=344]