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Toy Origin of Various D&D Monsters

MRY

Wormwood Studios
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This article may be old news to you guys, but I was unaware of it and found it amusing: https://diterlizzi.com/essay/owlbears-rust-monsters-and-bulettes-oh-my/ It explains how various of the iconic early D&D monsters were just ink drawings of dime-store junky rubber toys from Asia that Gygax wanted to canonize so that he could use the toys as miniatures:

Bulette.jpg
 

agris

Arcane
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That's hilarious! And also makes me feel a bit less creatively bankrupt. To look at those old drawings and envision an artist creating them out of whole cloth really makes ones own creative efforts look pale in comparison.

While great artists surely can and do such work (Darrow, Segrelles, Moebius encapsulate it nicely for the world of pulp), I sheepishly admit a bit of satisfaction knowing the great art in the old MM was more still life than creative vision. The vision and creativity was really in the systems and framing text.
 
Joined
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50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Bulette is in the first edition of DRAGON magazine, I remember reading about it for my thread on the magazine earlier this year.
LeFuBBC.png
 

Dr Skeleton

Arcane
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
811
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I had an identical green/brown "dinosaur" toy when I was a kid :D
Haven't made the connection with Bulette until now.
 

sgm

Educated
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Feb 17, 2013
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79
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cá nada
Pronounced "Boo-lay" according to Tim Kask; who created it. Obviously a Frenchman that was exposed to FEV.

Bulette is in the first edition of DRAGON magazine, I remember reading about it for my thread on the magazine earlier this year.
LeFuBBC.png
 

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