06-06-2013, 01:56 PM
Where's Jack Kirby, when you need him?
When I think of play by mail gaming, I can think of no artist whose body of work better conceptualizes the genre than comic book icon Jack Kirby. It's not that Jack Kirby drew art for PBM games, back in the days of PBM Olde. Rather, Jack was just the quintessential example of an artist who could visualize in a way that fit PBM gaming to a tee.
The absolute vast majority of PBM related artwork that I used to encounter, in both PBM magazines and PBM games, meager as it was, never even remotely approached Jack Kirby level of quality. Yet, one area where a lot of it reminds me of Jack Kirby is in the rawness of it. Jack Kirby was artistic singularity in motion. He stood at the apex of comic book art - at the very height of art that was, by its very nature, imaginative.
And it is at that crossroads - the crossroads of the imaginative - that play by mail gaming intersects the handiwork of the late, great Jack Kirby. And it is at that very same crossroads that PBM gaming kidnapped my interest, forever.
Forever is a long time, quite a long time. And who created a group of superheroes called the Forever People? Why, Jack kirby, of course.
And when I tried my hand at an attempt by site user Ramblurr a couple of years ago to resurrect PBM game, Far Horizons, which character did I graviate towards as the inspiration for my space empire's ruler? None other than the infamous Darkseid, of course - another Jack Kirby creation.
In recent years, as various PBM companies and PBM game moderators have attempted to cross the Great Divide from the postal genre to gaming in the mediums of the electronic frontier, PBM's Old Guard continues to pay the price for ignoring what Jack Kirby tried to teach them, as he tried to teach all of us, in his own unique way.
More than just being able to bring a particular piece of artwork to life, a single image, Jack Kirby was a true master artist. He would bring entire worlds - entire universes - to life!
The crossing of the Great Divide helped to ensure that postal gaming's transition to electronic mediums would be a perilous journey fraught with risk, since PBM's Old Guard never seemed fully comfortable with the fact that their greatest success had always been traceable to what resided under the hood. You see, it was imagination that they were packaging and selling to the general public all those years that they were in business, far more than the games, which served primarily as vehicles of delivery for worlds of imagination.
So, while much ado was made with pomp and circumstance by the Grand Poobahs of PBM's Old Guard about increasing efficiency and reaching larger audiences, they gathered up their baskets and wheelbarrows of ideas, and loaded their ships of passage down, heavy with weight - even as they became beggar children of imagination.
Left and right, their ships sank, many on their maiden voyage into the Great Beyond that is the Internet. Here lie sea monsters!
Even still, they launched anew into the frightful waters of progress. The bottom of this Sea of Technology is ripe with the treasures of many such sunken ships of the PBM Line. Welcome to Davy Jones Locker, boys! Ahoy thar, ye scurvy scalliwags of Play-By-Mail gaming!
So, whenever I cast my eyes upon the surviving remnants of the PBM industry, today, forgive me for not placing undue value in instances where a single Frank Frazetta painting is exalted far beyond its value, in a failed bid to get the PBM engine of progress rolling along at full steam on rails made of modern-day Internet steel. Milking a single cow to death will not yield more milk, any more than killing the goose will net you all of the gold eggs, all at once.
Kirby was king for a reason. PBM gaming faltered and suffocated for a reason. For many reasons, perhaps, but none more so than where PBM's Old Guard tripped over its own lack of appreciation for imagination, smashing face-first into the hard concrete of Internet-based reality.
Rather than learn what Jack Kirby tried to teach them for free, instead, they have complained for years on end about concrete being hard. The problem isn't the concrete, people. That concrete of reality serves a very useful purpose.
Lack of imagination, and lack of appreciation for imagination's role in PBM gaming having a Golden Era, at all, have been - and remain - a pox upon all of the houses of PBM gaming.
Jack Kirby's been dead almost twenty years, now. That's a damned shame. How is it that a man born in 1917 better understood PBM gaming at its best, than all of the remaining PBM companies and game moderators that remain, almost a full century later?
Hail to the king! Long live Jack Kirby! Long live PBM gaming!
When I think of play by mail gaming, I can think of no artist whose body of work better conceptualizes the genre than comic book icon Jack Kirby. It's not that Jack Kirby drew art for PBM games, back in the days of PBM Olde. Rather, Jack was just the quintessential example of an artist who could visualize in a way that fit PBM gaming to a tee.
The absolute vast majority of PBM related artwork that I used to encounter, in both PBM magazines and PBM games, meager as it was, never even remotely approached Jack Kirby level of quality. Yet, one area where a lot of it reminds me of Jack Kirby is in the rawness of it. Jack Kirby was artistic singularity in motion. He stood at the apex of comic book art - at the very height of art that was, by its very nature, imaginative.
And it is at that crossroads - the crossroads of the imaginative - that play by mail gaming intersects the handiwork of the late, great Jack Kirby. And it is at that very same crossroads that PBM gaming kidnapped my interest, forever.
Forever is a long time, quite a long time. And who created a group of superheroes called the Forever People? Why, Jack kirby, of course.
And when I tried my hand at an attempt by site user Ramblurr a couple of years ago to resurrect PBM game, Far Horizons, which character did I graviate towards as the inspiration for my space empire's ruler? None other than the infamous Darkseid, of course - another Jack Kirby creation.
In recent years, as various PBM companies and PBM game moderators have attempted to cross the Great Divide from the postal genre to gaming in the mediums of the electronic frontier, PBM's Old Guard continues to pay the price for ignoring what Jack Kirby tried to teach them, as he tried to teach all of us, in his own unique way.
More than just being able to bring a particular piece of artwork to life, a single image, Jack Kirby was a true master artist. He would bring entire worlds - entire universes - to life!
The crossing of the Great Divide helped to ensure that postal gaming's transition to electronic mediums would be a perilous journey fraught with risk, since PBM's Old Guard never seemed fully comfortable with the fact that their greatest success had always been traceable to what resided under the hood. You see, it was imagination that they were packaging and selling to the general public all those years that they were in business, far more than the games, which served primarily as vehicles of delivery for worlds of imagination.
So, while much ado was made with pomp and circumstance by the Grand Poobahs of PBM's Old Guard about increasing efficiency and reaching larger audiences, they gathered up their baskets and wheelbarrows of ideas, and loaded their ships of passage down, heavy with weight - even as they became beggar children of imagination.
Left and right, their ships sank, many on their maiden voyage into the Great Beyond that is the Internet. Here lie sea monsters!
Even still, they launched anew into the frightful waters of progress. The bottom of this Sea of Technology is ripe with the treasures of many such sunken ships of the PBM Line. Welcome to Davy Jones Locker, boys! Ahoy thar, ye scurvy scalliwags of Play-By-Mail gaming!
So, whenever I cast my eyes upon the surviving remnants of the PBM industry, today, forgive me for not placing undue value in instances where a single Frank Frazetta painting is exalted far beyond its value, in a failed bid to get the PBM engine of progress rolling along at full steam on rails made of modern-day Internet steel. Milking a single cow to death will not yield more milk, any more than killing the goose will net you all of the gold eggs, all at once.
Kirby was king for a reason. PBM gaming faltered and suffocated for a reason. For many reasons, perhaps, but none more so than where PBM's Old Guard tripped over its own lack of appreciation for imagination, smashing face-first into the hard concrete of Internet-based reality.
Rather than learn what Jack Kirby tried to teach them for free, instead, they have complained for years on end about concrete being hard. The problem isn't the concrete, people. That concrete of reality serves a very useful purpose.
Lack of imagination, and lack of appreciation for imagination's role in PBM gaming having a Golden Era, at all, have been - and remain - a pox upon all of the houses of PBM gaming.
Jack Kirby's been dead almost twenty years, now. That's a damned shame. How is it that a man born in 1917 better understood PBM gaming at its best, than all of the remaining PBM companies and game moderators that remain, almost a full century later?
Hail to the king! Long live Jack Kirby! Long live PBM gaming!