Dungeons & Dragons has helped shape the childhoods of countless kids. The ability to use imagination to build worlds and stories waiting to be explored is magical, and the way people of all kinds flock to it to express themselves and experience exciting concepts otherwise not possible is remarkable. Yet it is the art that helps spark people’s imaginations and sets the tone for what players expect. While these images may have started as simple sketches, the art has become increasingly intricate and exciting over the years, quickly becoming iconic imagery that anyone familiar with fantasy has seen countless times.
This concept helped shape an exhibit celebrating the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons called Gateway to Adventure: 50 Years of D&D Art. This exhibit, held at Lucca Comics & Games 2024, is one of the most extensive exhibitions of D&D art ever put on public display. Featuring pieces from the Koder Collection—the most extensive collection of D&D and fantasy art in the world—the exhibit tells the story of the medium and makes a case for why D&D art deserves recognition alongside other art forms. To discuss this exhibit, I was fortunate to speak with Jon Peterson and Jessica Patterson, the curators of the exhibit, about its impact and why Dungeons & Dragons is a monumental moment in the art world.
That’s amazing! We’re at the 50th anniversary of D&D. Why do you think Dungeons & Dragons has lasted so long, and why do you think so many people are, even now, jumping onto it?
Jon Peterson: Yeah, this is an important question, actually. And when we look at the success of D&D after the release of its fifth edition in 2014, to put it mildly, nobody saw this coming. We lived in a digital era where people were playing Elder Scrolls. People were playing World of Warcraft. What could possibly be the relevance of this analog game where you roll funny dice and you draw stuff with pencil and paper?
And I think it really does come back to the enduring principles of D&D and the culture that it created. Because, of course, none of those things I just mentioned, Elder Scrolls or whatever, would be possible without the technology that is the core of D&D, the technology of concepts like hit points, experience points, going up in level, killing monsters, having bosses at the end of dungeons that you’re going to defeat and things like that. In some sense, D&D had already captured the world.
Just what was so astonishing about what happened after 2014 was that people recognized that that analog experience had actually maybe even more currency in the digital world than it had at the height of its fad in the early 1980s, precisely because we now are so fixed to screens. And moreover, as much as I love AAA video games, like AAA video games, you are playing through somebody else’s story. And what D&D Unlocked was this collaborative storytelling that made it possible for you to play a game. And really, only you and the people sitting around the table with you have to love that, right?
It’s the game you want to be playing. And that flexibility to be able to kind of have it your way is, I think, one of the keys to what unlocked this. But clearly there are many other factors in it, right? I mean, the tremendous success of just fantasy in mainstream culture, The Lord of the Rings films, Game of Thrones, so I kind of normalized the monsters and the heroic quests and so on that D&D has been so good at kind of providing as visceral experiences to us. And moreover, the internet helped in a kind of backhanded way because now there’s actual play.
Now you can watch Critical Role. You can watch Dimension 20. You can watch funny, good-looking, experienced voice actor people play this game. And one of the hardest things for D&D to unlock over the years has been how to get new people to get it, right? Like so many basic sets and introductory sets and so on have been published in these last 50 years, but it wasn’t, I think, until you could go on the internet and just see some people doing it, that you could just get it and be like, “Oh, I’m going to do that with my friends.”
So many factors, but yeah, it was unexpected, and the tremendous popularity of the game now is really what motivates us at the 50-year anniversary to go look back and to do a retrospective like what Lucca [Comics & Games] has been so generous as to provide the space for here to do this amazing retrospective of D&D over a half-century.
Jessica Patterson: I think we can also add that, you know, in the 1980s, when D&D achieved its first height of popularity, the broader culture really looked down on fantasy. Fantasy was seen as children’s fare. But I think that really changed at the beginning of the 21st century, especially with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. And suddenly, people saw that fantasy could have a real dramatic impact.
And these were movies that were not designed for children, like The Hobbit movie or the Lord of the Rings content that was brought to the big screen in the late 70s, which was still very cartoonish. But when Peter Jackson turned this into content that adults could appreciate, I mean, we’ve seen this continue as the centuries progressed with Game of Thrones. There are all kinds of fantasy movies and shows now on the big screen that are really aimed toward adults. And so D&D, being associated with fantasy, that’s no longer really holding it back.
Jon Peterson: We’re very privileged to be able to work with the foremost collection of D&D art, ephemera, and products in existence, which belongs to a gentleman named Matthew Koder. And for the past 2 years, Jessica and I have been working with Matthew to just wrassle this enormous treasury of material. And so what we’ve done here is we’ve culled down from the collection, really just the tiniest sliver of what the holdings are when it comes to the original art of Dungeons & Dragons over the years.
I wanted to touch on the 50th Anniversary Dungeons & Dragons exhibit at Lucca Comics & Games 2024. Could you tell us a bit about it and what people can experience when they do visit it?
What we want to be able to show people is the evolution of its art from the time when D&D was first released in 1974. This was a game that they made a thousand copies of and they weren’t sure they were going to even sell that. They were paying local teenagers like two or three dollars each to do illustrations for it. But we have those illustrations to be able to show you the cover illustration of one of the original three little brown books that shipped in the 1974 D&D box set. We want people to be able to see then how we got from that to its initial success.
Where artists like Dave Sutherland provided covers like the original Dungeon Masters Guide from 1979, which had become very iconic over the years because just so many people saw them after the game started to become popular right around 1980, up through really its evolution for every decade going forward. We hope that whatever version of D&D you first connected with, you’re going to find the product for it and the art that is on the product for it in the collection.
And this ranges from the second edition art and the multiverses of fantasy that were created around second edition to the very in-world feel of the third edition books up into this digital era, where a lot of art is now made digitally, but still there are some traditional artists who are hanging on to doing this in a painting that can be displayed here. But the brilliance of this, and I’ll let Jessica speak to this more, is we now get to show this in a fine arts context. We get to show this in this wonderful church. And why don’t you kind of go into that a bit.
Jessica Patterson: Yes, I think we’re at really the beginning of a turning point, and just as we saw that the genre of fantasy reached the point where people could take it seriously as a cultural force, I think we’re going to see the same thing happen with this art. This art was really not valued until very recently. And I think we’re seeing some amazing things happen just in terms of how this art is being collected and appreciated in the last ten years.
We’re lucky that Matthew Koder was able to put as much of this collection together as early as he did because now, these things are becoming very, very scarce, very, very hard to find, and very expensive to purchase in the market. But in terms of being works of art, even though these were commercial products, they were published by a corporate entity, the artists were paid basically just working wages. These were not gallery products. But art, the context in which art is appreciated, can evolve over time.
The example I like to bring up is Japanese woodblock prints, which in their own era were similar commercial products. And even though we often think of them as being associated with a particular artist, that artist was usually just the designer. They just came up with the line drawing, and different artists did the colouration, different artists did the carving, and then these were commercially printed.
But none of that really affects the fact that they’re now looked at as a species of fine art. There are lots of scholarship being written about them. There are, you know, no one would laugh at you if you wanted to hold an exhibition of Japanese woodblock prints. So I think through the decades, the same transformation will happen with this kind of Dungeons & Dragons and gaming art.
Jon Peterson: And this is really the first step of that, right? We think the opening of this is the first exhibition of its kind. There has never been an attempt to do a retrospective like this and that the half century does provide a kind of convenient right point for us to do that. But it also again just reflects the tremendous cultural you know capital that D&D and fantasy in general now commands. And we hope this is indeed the beginning of a re-examination of the importance of this art and of course of the fantastic game that inspired it.
Even going to Lucca Comics & Games in 2023, there were plenty of celebrities and people that you might not expect to play D&D or who wanted to be part of D&D. Do you think that is helping elevate what could have been just commercial art that could have been forgotten into something that people crave and want to be part of?
Jon Peterson: I mean, of course, it helps, right? When Variety does a piece about Joe Manganiello’s game or Vince Vaughn and Tom Morello… It’s been my privilege—Joe and I have been working for a couple of years now on a documentary project related to D&D. To play with Joe, to hang out with these guys at conventions and things like that. And the thing that really touches my heart about it is, for all those guys, it’s not cynical. They really love this game. They know it.
This isn’t something where, as we would say, in the US, carpet baggers, right, are coming and saying, “Oh, there’s an opportunity for me to build up on this.” They’re in it for the love. And obviously, they, too, factor into that actual play. You would have seen Joe on Critical Role, for example, playing his famous character, Arkhan the Cruel, and stealing the hand of Vekna at an inconvenient moment for the remainder of the party, if I recall. And, of course, that lends cache to it.
But it’s even more than that, I think, the creators who realize how much D&D inspired them to do the work. John Favreau, who, of course, does shows like The Mandalorian now, and things like that, has characterized running these shows as dungeon mastering. He’s using the same skills that he used when he dungeon mastered as a kid to be able to steer the characters and steer the plots of the stories. And I think that’s the key thing about it really, that the geeks have inherited the earth, people would say at this point, the tech industry and so on has inherited the earth.
But those kids who grew up playing D&D, for them, it unlocked something that has helped them to very, very illustrious careers. And we have to acknowledge that that’s part of D&D‘s power, especially when you get it young, right? You get this idea of how narrative works, of how characterization works, of what makes a compelling story and what kinds of emotional experiences that can unlock. And you can experience all of that around the table just with your friends, if you’re willing to open those D&D books.
Jessica Patterson: To say that you were someone who loved Dungeons & Dragons, you have to think back growing up, that wasn’t something that was cool to admit. Like if you admit it in a setting of non-gamers, they would think it was really uncool. They’re like, “Oh, you live in your mom’s basement.”
I know that well, believe me.
Jessica Patterson: But I think the fact that celebrities are playing these games, loving these games, and talking about them makes it more socially acceptable—even cool—to like this now. And so, I think that really does help people feel like they don’t have to hide it like a shameful secret, as might have been the case in the ’80s or ’90s.
People are coming to Lucca Comics & Games, and they’re going to see this exhibit, Gateway to Adventure: 50 Years of D&D Art. What are things they should look for? What are things that really stand out?
Jon Peterson: Well, we’ll say a couple of things about that. The exhibition is dedicated in part to the memory of a fellow by the name of Keith Parkinson, one of the key artists whose most prominent works we’ve tried to highlight.
Parkinson has a remarkably diverse style. If you put a whole set of his paintings next to each other, you might never guess they were done by the same person, which, I think, is almost in tension with the kind of house styles that TSR and Wizards of the Coast attempted to enforce on D&D. I definitely urge people to pay special attention to that as they go through.
But like I said, our hope is that, whatever your D&D was, you’re going to find it here. If you came in during the early 2000s, playing third edition, you’ll be able to see the original sculptures made by Henry Higginbotham, which were then photographed to create the covers for third edition. These pieces, as far as I know, have never been exhibited before and actually required significant conservation to restore them to the state that matches the works used for those covers.
But really, the main takeaway—and this is the theme of Lucca this year—is the butterfly effect. It’s about how something that started so small grew into this cultural juggernaut. As you walk through our progression of eras, I think that theme will come through most clearly to those who see the exhibition. But Jessica, I’m sure you have some thoughts as well.
Jessica Patterson: Yes, another thing people might find interesting is seeing all the different campaign settings. We have a very large section—one whole side of the nave—dedicated to the various campaign settings and the different worlds and realms that TSR developed. I’ve seen questionnaires from TSR in the 90s, really gauging how aware people were of their different campaign settings.
It’s surprising how many people, even back then, weren’t fully aware of the sheer variety of worlds and campaigns TSR was producing. When I first worked on this project a couple of years ago, I hadn’t heard of, for instance, the Birthright campaign setting. Most people have probably heard of Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms, and probably Ravenloft, but we also have some of the more obscure campaign settings, like Hollow World, Birthright, and Dark Sun.
Spelljammer, of course, was once obscure, but now it’s being revived by Wizards, so people might see it as something new, even though it has very old roots. I think that whatever your D&D is, you’ll find something to represent it in this exhibition, but you might also discover something new to explore.
CGMagazine: For people who might not be into D&D, why should they look in D&D? And if you are at Lucca, why should they visit the Gateway to Adventure?
Jon Peterson: To answer the first question, one of the first mainstream writers who wrote about Dungeons & Dragons was a fellow named John Freeman, who reviewed it for some mainstream magazines. He said that if you haven’t tried it, you may discover it’s one of the most exciting discoveries of your life.
So, all I can say is, you can watch some actual play to get a sense of what it’s like, but you really need to put yourself in the chair and experience that moment when the dungeon master asks you, ‘What do you do?’ and it’s time for you to decide. You’ve got to try it to understand it. I urge everyone to give it a try.
As for the second question, we believe the works of art we’re showing in Lucca truly are just that—works of art. D&D has always been a feast for the eyes, and that’s been true since the beginning. You’ll see amazing artists like Scott Burdix and others. The quality of the material will surprise you. We’re very fortunate, for example, to have Gerald Brom as part of the exhibition.
He’ll be there as a guest of honour at Lucca this year. And we have a representative sample of his works. Again, if you haven’t seen them, you may be surprised at the quality, the imagination, the range, and so on, of the art that D&D has brought about in the last 50 years.
Jessica Patterson: Absolutely, and seeing it in the context of this extraordinary historical church is remarkable. I mean, if you’re in Lucca, I’d recommend visiting this church, even without an exhibition. It’s an architectural marvel filled with historical art.
One thing that could be really intriguing is comparing the historical paintings in the church—most from the 17th and 18th centuries—with the art of D&D. You might actually notice certain things in common: a focus on figures, on drama, bright colours to capture the eye. There’s a surprising overlap in technical styles between late Renaissance Baroque art in Italy and some of what artists are doing in D&D. That’s something I think deserves a deeper look in an academic paper.
Is there anything else you might want to add for people who are excited about Dungeons & Dragons or might not know anything about this and are going to Lucca Comics & Games 2024?
Jon Peterson: Please come! I know we’re going to be doing a whole bunch of little tours and events and things like that around it. If you see us there, feel free to ask us about things. I’m sure we’ll talk your ear off if you find us there.
Jessica Patterson: Yeah, and this exhibition is just one aspect of an enormous conference that is in an extraordinary place, and it’s going to be so full of like-minded people and things to do.
CGMagazine: Thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed talking to you.
Jon Peterson: Thanks so much for having us.
