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E Gary Gygax: Two brief memorials
Mar. 5th, 2008 07:39 amRich Berlew, creator of the D&D-based comic strip Order of the Stick, has two great tributes, one in prose and one in comics.
Gygax was one of the most contradictory figures in the field. His personal devotion to his zany new game--his energy, his dedication, his evangelism--took D&D from a self-published fanzine-with-delusions-of-grandeur he sold from the back of his station wagon into an international phenomenon that became a touchstone of nerdiness for an entire generation. I met Gygax at my first Gencon in 1980, and he went out of his way to be kind to a fellow nerd whom he had never met, buying me breakfast for basically no reason and regaling me with tales of the early days of the game and the industry.
Contrawise, his business practices were reprehensible; the number of people he shafted on the way up is just barely justification for how badly he was shafted in return on the way down. (I have been lead to believe that later in life he and Dave Arneson were on good terms again, which amazes me in much the same way that Jack Kirby's eventual reconciliation with Stan Lee does.)
Mainly, though: How many people get to create an entire art-form? Gygax did, for better and worse, and today he's gone and the world is poorer for that.
updated to add: The two best one-off comments I've seen so far are "The memorial service will be held in 1d4+2 days" and "So, did his doctors rifle through his pockets to find gems and magic items?". The memorial suggest in the link given by lavendertook in the comments is brill, too.
Gygax was one of the most contradictory figures in the field. His personal devotion to his zany new game--his energy, his dedication, his evangelism--took D&D from a self-published fanzine-with-delusions-of-grandeur he sold from the back of his station wagon into an international phenomenon that became a touchstone of nerdiness for an entire generation. I met Gygax at my first Gencon in 1980, and he went out of his way to be kind to a fellow nerd whom he had never met, buying me breakfast for basically no reason and regaling me with tales of the early days of the game and the industry.
Contrawise, his business practices were reprehensible; the number of people he shafted on the way up is just barely justification for how badly he was shafted in return on the way down. (I have been lead to believe that later in life he and Dave Arneson were on good terms again, which amazes me in much the same way that Jack Kirby's eventual reconciliation with Stan Lee does.)
Mainly, though: How many people get to create an entire art-form? Gygax did, for better and worse, and today he's gone and the world is poorer for that.
updated to add: The two best one-off comments I've seen so far are "The memorial service will be held in 1d4+2 days" and "So, did his doctors rifle through his pockets to find gems and magic items?". The memorial suggest in the link given by lavendertook in the comments is brill, too.
