Saturday, November 28, 2009

Original City-State Reproduction for Sale

Bill Owen, one of the founders of Judges Guild, is selling reproductions of the original map of "No Name City," which would go on to become the City-State of the Invincible Overlord. The map sells for $25 and will be limited to 144 copies, signed by Mr Owen and Bob Bledsaw Jr.

Here are a few details from the above page:
This is a full-size (exactly 36.05x43.9") REPRINT of a one-of-a-kind blueprint I made of Bob Bledsaw's artwork for the as-yet unnamed Overlord's "no-name" city made the spring of 1976 before Judges Guild was officially started July 4, 1976. Bob had drawn a spectacularly detailed and large (the original single sheet is 36x44" with margin and the city state maps were later in 4 pieces totalling 34x44" in size). It was my job to find a printer locally that could photograph or render somehow the map without having to redraw it. The problem was that the colored markers Bob had used had variable outcomes in "black & white"*.

We probably made several blueprint copies at different intensities as evidenced by the ballpoint number written in the corner "13" (shown on picture #6)**... but this was the lucky one, the 12+ maps have been lost (probably because this was the best balance of grayscale that we could get and through out the others). The yellow and red markings tended to turn nearly black (see the back alleys which are muddy to black) while the blue and green markings pale or disappeared. I put numerous days into visiting printers, blueprint shops etc. trying to find a process that would

Another proof that the original was the oldest copy made of the original artwork is that there are not yet typeset names anywhere. Those were added after Bob had redrawn all the walls in black ink freehand in one night! The plastic-based artwork which was, again, full-color ended up being cut into 4 pieces so that it could be photographed in a 23x29" camera... and then lost by the printers :( ...so this is the oldest rendition of the city map and largest.
I've grabbed a copy for myself already, but I figured this would make a great Christmas present for a lot of readers of the blog. Get 'em while you can.

4 comments:

  1. Sadly, the postage to the UK is more than the map itself, so I'll have to pass. Ah, well.

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  2. Sadly I am in the same boat. I would love to be able order a copy for myself and a friend, but with those postage costs...

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  3. Thanks for the heads-up; I snagged a copy for my in-the-process-of-being-redecorated-office. It should be perfect next to my laminated Darlene map of Greyhawk.

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  4. Bought mine. I've never owned the original Judges Guild material, and in a way I'm looking more forward to this than I would to a clean copy of the published version. Fitting your own imagined details into a map's background is one of the better things about maps, after all.

    (I find myself doing this with maps published in Fight On!, too: take the map and its exotic provided place-names, completely ignore the accompanying descriptive text, write [bits of] one's own to fit.)

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