Saturday, July 12, 2008

The Mummy Returns vs Monstrous Compendium

So every time I see THIS, in the preview for the Mummy Returns,


I always think of THIS, from the Monstrous Compendium. 


The Monstrous Compendium, for those lucky/unlucky enough not to know, is an essential volume for playing Dungeons and Dragons. It's--I can't believe I'm explaining this. First let me say I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS BUT THE KID NEXT DOOR HAD ONE. 

It is a modular, expandable loose-leaf style binder containing one-page entries for each of hundreds of imaginary species, separated by beautifully illustrated dividers like the one by Daniel Horne above. 

(Another of Horne's snow scenes, below, was I'd say a good 10% responsible for any concept of beauty I possessed pre-adolescence.)


There's another mummy/monstrous compendium convergence, but it's a little harder to see from still images.  When this dragon 

blows the screen full of fire, the effect is very similar to the illustration below. 
 

(Unfortunately uncredited because I can't decipher the artist's signature.




-EMILY

2 comments:

  1. Well I have to agree with you about the second Horne illustration. By the way, Daniel Horne has a slightly higher resolution version of that very same picture of the hopeless situation of the girl against the skeleton on his website.

    http://web.mac.com/danielhorne/Daniel_R._Horne/Galleries/Pages/Gallery_Paintings.html#4

    The image had a pretty big impact on me when I was young as well.

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  2. Dragon #122's cover has the fire-breathing dragon. Credited to Denis Beauvais.

    (and issue #126 has Horne's "Saving the best for last" )

    http://archive.org/stream/DragonMagazine122/Accessory%20-%20Dragon%20Magazine%20122#page/n3/mode/1up

    http://archive.org/stream/DragonMagazine126/Accessory%20-%20Dragon%20Magazine%20126#page/n3/mode/1up

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