Zub Tales

ARTIFICERS & ALCHEMY, the latest Dungeons & Dragons Young Adventurer’s Guide, launches on April 16th. It’s incredible to me that the original 2-book proposal I developed with Adam Lee at Wizards of the Coast and the team at Ten Speed Press is now up to book eight (and that doesn’t even include reprint volumes like the Creature Compendium), with hopefully many more to come.

Stacy has been doing a lot of heavy lifting on our latest volumes, Andrew Wheeler has been an integral part of our writing process and both of them have upcoming solo-written D&D books of their own that should also be on your radar – Stacy’s DUNGEONS & DRAGONS POCKET EXPERT and Andrew’s PUNCHEONS & FLAGONS books both arrive in August – Pre-order now!

The number of people who have reached out to let us know how helpful the D&D Young Adventurer’s Guides have been in demystifying the way TTRPG narratives work, generating character and adventure ideas, and bringing new people into the hobby has been so, so heartwarming. If you’ve never seen the YAG’s before, I go through how they work in this Frequently Asked Questions post.

Our latest book is all about making magic items and constructs. Here’s the official summary:
Featuring amazing illustrations and expert insights, Artificers & Alchemy explores peculiar phenomena, sentient weapons, guardian gear, and the artificers who create these enchanted objects. If you’re eager to start your own D&D adventures, this guidebook provides the perfect starting point to creating worlds of fantasy and weaving an epic story all your own.

Marvel By The Month – Conan in the 1970’s

On the latest Marvel by the Month podcast episode, Brian and Jamie dig into CONAN THE BARBARIAN comics from the ’70’s and I guest starred to add historical context and trivia to the mix. We cover three classic comics:
#1 The Coming Of Conan
#4 The Tower of the Elephant
#16 The Frost Giant’s Daughter

We also dig into:
• Conan as a character and the Hyborian Age.
• How Marvel first got the Conan license to make the comics.
• The literary and comic book origins of Red Sonya/Red Sonja.
• Working with Gail Simone and Dan Panosian on the Conan-Red Sonja crossover mini-series in 2015.
Give it a listen!

In the Archive – Serpent War

Now on my Patreon – The full script for CONAN: SERPENT WAR #1 from 2019.

Battle of the Black Stone, our upcoming 2024 Conan event, is a different take on a Robert E. Howard character crossover adventure, but it would not have been possible without everything I learned on Serpent War and the hard work of our creative team here under the guidance of Marvel editor Mark Basso.

Learn how comics are made for the price of a fancy coffee. There are now over 300 scripts (plus pitches, Q&A’s and more) in my Patreon archive.

Current + Upcoming Releases

• Dungeons & Dragons: Fortune Finder #5 – released March 20th.
• Conan the Barbarian #9 – released March 27th.
• Dungeons & Dragons: The Thief of Many Things – releases April 10th.
• D&D Young Adventurer’s Guide: Artificers & Alchemy – releases April 16th.
• Conan the Barbarian #10 – releases April 24th.
• Savage Sword of Conan #2 – releases May 1st.

Upcoming Appearances

This week I settled plans to attend San Diego Comic Con again this year and, keeping the D&D 50th anniversary momentum going, I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be at Gen Con in August and Gamehole Con in October.

Links and Other Things

• My friend Miguel Sternberg is getting a limited physical release of his video game Russian Subway Dogs on PS4 thanks to Limited Run! Pre-order now!

• My friend Cecil Castellucci has a new crowdfunding campaign for a comic and performance art piece collaborating with 25 artists on a project called I Am The Comic. Check it out!

• My friend John Barber‘s sci-fi comic series Signa crowdfund campaign is underway and zooming toward its goal.

• My friend Paul Cornell is funding a fun graphic novel on Zoop called Who Killed Nessie? and it’s got a great pitch – “Every year, legendary creatures from all over the world gather for an annual convention. But never has there been a murder.”

• Chaosium is funding an impressive looking Lovecraftian board game based on Horror On The Orient Express and it’s already smashing funding goals.

• I’m enjoying watching episodes of the Anti-Chef Youtube Channel as he goes through Julia Child’s famous cookbooks to learn new techniques. Inspiring and amusing.

Have a great weekend!
Jim