Ostensible Cat

My interview is up for the Lamentations of the Flame Princess Great Campaign .  Being as this is my first opportunity for you to get to hear me vocalize about why you should care, the interview is not just about Strange and Sinister Shores, but about Delve! and about me.  I know that I'm not a household name like some of the other folks on the list, so I felt getting folks to understand where I'm coming from, who I am and what I do would get folks to care more about why the should support Strange and Sinister Shores . So, having said that, why should you care?  Well, much like Delve! and the artwork for which I'm primarily known, I am putting myself and my love of gaming, horror, sci-fi, history, comics, movies, and all of my various influences to bear for this.  It's difficult for me to be eloquent when talking about me and my projects.  It's not something that I'm comfortable about doing.  But I DO LOVE THIS STUFF.  I hope that comes across.  I hope that

It's almost time for the campaign to kick off.  I'm pretty excited and hope that folks will check out the adventures.  There's quite a lineup.  James Raggi has just posted the adventure summaries and they all look pretty darned cool.  Here's the link .  More to follow on this one for sure!

And it's a good thing!  I've started editing the Delve! Zine manuscript this morning, getting by with a little help from my friends.  Thanks for the great work to my stalwart proofreaders!  So it looks like everything is coming together nicely.  I'm thinking the final release will be in July.  I still have the interior artwork to do and finish the edits.  I'm also working on ideas for Delve! issue 2 in which I'll probably expound on some things in the first issue.  Not to mention, I'll be participating in a crowd funded Lamentations of the Flame Princess adventure.  James Raggi has put together a very cool lineup of folks for a series of Weird Fantasy adventures (check out more here ).  I'm going to be one busy dude as I am going to be doing the art, maps and writing for this adventure.  Not a lot to say other than what I'm working on has some elements of the Tunguska Event, the Sir John Franklin's disastrous expedition to find the Northwest Passa

A lot going on with Team Bingham as we have friends in town from Seattle and I've got to go to a conference in Germany next week so my posting will be sparse. I'm almost done with my latest batch of commissions and am thinking about some of my side projects. I'm getting pretty psyched about recieving my copies of Vornheim and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Grindhouse Edition in the mail. I did one illustration for the grind house for the malefic eye which you can see below:

OK, so it didn't happen exactly like that, but, well, um, yeah. At any rate, James Raggi has opened the preorders for the Grindhouse Edition of Lamentations of the Flame Princess , Zak Smith's Vornheim, the Pembrooktonshire Gardening Society memberships (I'm member 17 for all you hosebags late to the game - which makes me one of the original 31;), and T-shirts. Why am I mentioning this? Because I have artwork in the new edition. OK, so I only have one piece of artwork in the new edition (but it is acompanying my writeup for a magic item I created for the game - the Maelific Eye of Putrescence - also known as the stink eye). But seriously, I really think Mr. Raggi has an innovative and interesting product here. The game itself is provocative and evocative, the artwork is top notch (I'm actually the bottom feeder of the bunch - Amos Sterns just rocks), and well, it's different. This is not a game for everyone (which is awesome - people shouldn't be affraid

I’m pretty pleased at the direction and sheer creativeness that the OSR seems to be taking. It would have been a simple matter to just rehash stuff from the old days or doing pastiche work. Indeed, in the early days of the OSR, it seemed that was where things were headed. However, several clever souls have been spending their free time crafting up some pretty inventive stuff. James Raggi of Lamentations of the Flame Princess (LotFP) fame has been one of those who are taking the OSR in wildly divergent directions (I'll do a review as soon as I'm done reading through and reviewing Carcosa by Geoffrey McKinney - that should be up this weekend). Of course this is not without controversy, but hey, most people don’t take change and new ideas without grumbling. At any rate, I just received my official Pembrooktonshire Gardening Society membership kit in the mail (member 017 since October 2010). There is a certificate of achievement; a membership card and a very nice print of th

The Old School Renaissance (hereafter OSR) has spawned quite a bit of hobbyist gamers into becoming RPG designers, pundits, publishers, etc. This is nothing new. The hobby has pretty much had folks that have created their own additions, house rules, divergent systems, etc since the inception of the hobby. And even with the seemingly cyclical “sky is falling” doomspeakers that always seem to predict the end of the hobby, it is precisely because of the very inherent grass roots nature of the hobby that no one will ever to be able to effectively kill it. As the hobby has grown over the years, the flagship title or the game that stated it all created by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, has gone through several iterations; morphed beyond the original concept; become an industry success and a darling in the public eye as well as almost disappearing totally due to financial mismanagement and being reviled by many as a gateway to all kinds of alleged aberrant behavior. But quietly, the origin

What a lovely boxed game. I'll hand it to Mr. Raggi, this is one nice boxed set that is filled to the gills. I haven't had much time to do anything other than give a cursory look through of the contents. I will read through it and give my impressions here. I have to say that I really like many of his ideas so I'm really excited to dig into this one. My only realy dissappointment was that I didn't get to contribute any art to this set. Mr. Raggi did contact me about rates but I never heard back (heh, I even indicated I'd do it pro bono just because I liked his ideas). Ah well, that's OK too I suppose. I'll dig in and report back later with more.

James Raggi’s “Death Frost Doom” adventure sold out at Noble Night Games. I’m not sure how many copies they had on hand, but it is a very encouraging sign for the OSR. Luckily, I ordered a copy from Noble Night Games yesterday and it shipped last night, so it looks Like I’ve come in under the wire. I am quite pleased with Mr. Raggi’s “Green Devil Face” offerings and am looking forward to this latest offering. He has definitely been keeping up the Old School hobbyist ethic that I find so appealing. I’d suggest you go check out his blog at: http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2009/07/death-frost-doom-sold-out-at-noble.html . You can order all of his offerings through that site. Also, check out Grognardia’s review of “Death Frost Doom” here: http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/07/review-death-frost-doom.html.