Debuting in the gaming magazine Shadis (which Blackburn founded), KoDT came to DRAGON Magazine with issue #226 and rapidly became the most gaming strip in the short history of the hobby. "'Over the years I've often wondered just what it is about KoDT that causes all the fuss," says Blackburn. "'I'm the first to look at the typical strip and say, 'It's not all that!' It's poorly drawn. The punchlines aren't always funny. I think it goes back to all those letters about the hidden camera."
One phrase recurs with spooky frequency in KoDT fan letters: "'Jolly must have a hidden camera in my gameroom." A creepy notion, given that the Knights can spend eight hours randomly killing a towns stray animals, slaughter every citizen in Desert Gorge while trying to rob its bank, and negotiate ""equitable experience points" contracts with the gamemaster. Better than ever before, KoDT may show us the true state of gaming-brrr!
Blackburn, now 54, conceived his strip in 1990 as part of his larger creation, Shadis. (Which he launched along with his company Alderac Entertainment Group while still a seargenat in the Army. He had been a great fan of J.D. Webster's Fineous Fingers from the early DRAGON Magazine, and wanted something similar in his magazine. "Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone willing to do a strip." he explains, "Finally I sat down and drew out a very crude cartoon showing a gamemaster and a player sitting around a table arguing over a rules call. Who knew?"
With an anthropologist's eye, Blackburn based the KoDT characters on friends and fellow players-and, in one case, on himself. "'B.A. Felton, the gamemaster, is one of those guys who just lives to GM. He likes the power that comes with the screen, and he likes to tell a story. The problem is that he feels the players are the enemy, constantly ruining his 'finely crafted' adventures."
As for the rest: "'Bob Herzog is a hack-n-slasher through and through. He just wants to kill things. One of his favorite sayings is, 'Yeah, yeah, enough flavor text. How many experience points did I get?'
"'Dave Bozwell is a hack-n-slasher too, but he's also a follower. He usually goes along with whatever Bob wants to do. He's famous for his HackMaster +12 and likes having the baddest weapon' in the book.
"Sara Felton was added to the group after so many fans wrote in to ask, 'Where's the female gamer?' She turned out to be a key figure. Every comedy act needs a straight man (er ... woman).
"Brian VanHoose is the ultimate ruleslawyer. He has to have the last word on everything. He's every GM's worst nightmare. Make a bad call, and Brian is going to call you on it."
Alderac published three issues of a KoDT comic (1994-95) before Blackburn sold his interest in the company and moved on. "I wasn't having fun and that was the reason I got in this business. I was aware of the potential for KODT by this time and took the property with me. My plan was to do it as a monthly magazine but first I needed to find the right partners. I had made friends with the folks at Kenzer & Company while I was at Shadis. We discovered we had so much in common, I decided to come aboard and throw my intellectual properties in the kitty. I became a major shareholder in the companyand I can honestly say that I'm home. This feels so right and I'm glad things panned out the way they did. Our current distribuiton level is 20,000 issues per month and doesn't even include the tradebooks and related products. We're all prettymuch stunned by what the strip is doing."
Though anthropologists frown on collaborating with their subjects, Blackburn gets many KoDT ideas from his fans. "'Almost every idea submitted has something in it I can lift and use. Every idea gets printed out and shoved in a huge binder. I'll periodically pull it down and flip through it.
"In my cultural anthropology classes they taught us to "shut up and observe.' Whenever I go to a convention and find myself around fellow gamers, I love to listen. I've gotten to the point where I can't go anywhere if I don't have a pen and notepad, because I'm afraid I'll hear something I can use."
Jolly was inducted into the Game Manufacturer Association's (GAMA) Hall of Fame in 2006. Knights of the Dinner table is the longest running gamer comic in history and is also a contender for the longest runing comic written and drawn by the same hand. He also helped write HackMaster the role-playng game (Game of the Year: 2001), Aces and Eights and numerous gaming products and books along with his partners at KenzerCo.
"I feel blessed.", Jolly recently wrote in an editorial. "I got stumbled into this business and along the way have managed to make a lot of friends and experience many wonderful adventures. You really can't ask for moree.
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