Yeah, I know, not super exciting. But it’s still pretty cool, with Jadwiga running to catch up and all. The other three iconic characters (Regdar, Myalee and Fyren Cloudfloater) are on the front rocking out. We’re still hashing out the specifics of the front cover, but this gives you an idea of the style. Jeff was influenced by the work of German Expressionist Otto Dix a bit:
Grey Ranks: The Back Cover
Cool cover. Will you include a note on polish spelling? I recognize that Jadwiga is the name I hear pronounced Yadviga, but I have no idea what the other names are supposed to sound like. On the page, Regdar, Myalee and (especially) Fyren Cloudfloater just look like fantasy RPG character names.
Hi Dotan,
Thanks! There’s a guide to pronouncing Polish in the book, as well as some handy Polish and German phrases, and lists of names and pseudonyms taken from the actual Grey Ranks. I was joking about the fantasy names! The example characters throughout the book are Jadwiga, Irka, Janek, and “Pelikan”.
Where did you hear about Grey Ranks?
This looks SO cool, Jason – it reminds me a lot of the more serious modern graphic novels such as Jason Lutes’ Berlin or even some of David Mazzuchelli’s later work.
Thanks, Peter – There is something Lutes-like about Jeff Bent’s work. I’ll post his first pass at the front cover now.
Jason –
I first came across you mentioning Grey Ranks in the RPG Talk site. Since then, I think I’ve seen you write about it in the Story Games forum and heard you discuss it in the Durham 3 podcast (also found at rpg talk).
And I found this post specifically thanks to the Ogre Cave story games planet RSS feed.