Russ Nicholson RIP
From Fighting Fantasy and D&D to Doctor Who and Burning Wheel
Today is a very sad day for me. I’ve written before of my first REAL role playing game experience, an event quite distinct from my actual first experience with the medium. I discussed how much fun I had reading and playing Citadel of Chaos by Steve Jackson (the British one) and how it was what made me a life long gaming hobbyist. I also mused a bit about how much I enjoyed the game play and Steve Jackson’s writing. What I didn’t mention at the time, because I thought I’d always have more time, was how important the art of Russ Nicholson was in guiding how I visualized the fantasy world contained within the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. Russ Nicholson’s line art was unique, beautiful, and frightening.
The early days of the role playing game hobby were blessed by an abundance of talented black and white line artists. Bill Willingham, Dave Trampier, Jeff Dee, Jennell Jaquays, and others filled the pages of early game books with evocative and entertaining art, but Russ Nicholson towered above them. They were all skilled artists but, like Russ Heath’s work in the comic books, Nicholson’s work in role playing games, game books, fanzines, and short fiction demonstrated strongly how commercial art and high art are often synonymous. Nicholson wasn’t just a great commercial illustrator, he was a great illustrator. He’s an artist who has works worthy of museum exhibits. Every piece? No, but enough to fill quite a large space.
What is most remarkable to me about Nicholson as an illustrator is just how prolific an illustrator he was and how ubiquitous his art is in my favorite games. He illustrated most of the early Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, a ton of Games Workshop Warhammer and Warhammer 40k material, many of the best entries in the Dungeons & Dragons Fiend Folio, but his work can also be found in other corners of my collection as well. He’s the main illustrator in Dicing with Dragons, a book by Ian Livingstone meant to introduce novices to the gaming hobby. A book intended for mainstream audiences seeking to guide them to the greater hobby.
An examination of the tokens in my Doctor Who: The Game of Time and Space board game. Yes, it’s a Games Workshop product produced during an era when he was illustrating for them, but the illustrations are a far cry in tone from the dark and decaying walking dead of many of his Fiend Folio entries.
I always intended to invite him for an interview on either my podcast or lately my YouTube channel. I would have loved the opportunity to talk with him, to thank him for the joy and comfort he gave a young man. We all have struggles in our lives and when I face many of mine, they seemed smaller because they were less terrifying than the worlds illustrated by Russ Nicholson and I knew that if I could fight or think my way through the monsters he illustrated in a Fighting Fantasy gamebook, I could get through anything.
Tempus fugit. Memento Mori. I never had that opportunity, but I want to share how amazing he was today in memory and to acknowledge one of the rare times I am glad that the internet is forever, or at least that the internet doesn’t easily forget. Take a look at the art in this post, but more importantly click on the links and see the abundance of art he shared on his blog in the 2010s. It’s really amazing stuff.
Sad times