Comments on: Product Review: AD&D First Edition Reprints

By: LS

LS — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 16:10:09 +0000

That’s very possible. I think Darlene Pekul has mentioned something in a similar vein, about how much of her original art was lost.

None the less, some of the art would have been better if they’d just scanned it out of an original copy, and digitally inserted it into the reprints.

By: Dave Mueller

Dave Mueller — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 16:02:39 +0000

I saw your post and the edit about the art. I recently saw a Kickstarter project for the artist who did the ‘Expedition to Barrier Peaks’ module to recreate his old artwork for the module because the originals had been thrown out. So I’m wondering if they didn’t really archive their art very well at TSR. Chances are a lot of the original art may be missing-which could explain the discrepancy between the look of the original and the reprints.

By: Joe Cooper

Joe Cooper — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 00:21:44 +0000

Thanks for doing this dude. I wanted to know if they kept the same print/layout, and here it is. I’d like to see future books printed so…primitive, and bound so fine. It’s the perfect aesthetic for table-top rpgs.

-Joe

By: ArianDynas

ArianDynas — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 08:46:50 +0000

*Sigh*

Why did I have to read this? I was perfectly content with the belief that Wizards was just trading on Gary’s name to cash in again.

Damn it. Now you’ve made me want to go out and buy a set.

By: LS

LS — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 04:30:18 +0000

All I really knew about was the alternate cover. I was surprised to discover there were other differences as well.

And I concur: the city of brass is stunning. So much of early RPG artwork is very simple in its style, but manages to evoke profound feelings of excitement and adventure. I have a lot of respect for those artists. Darlene Pekul in particular. I always enjoy her pieces.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 02:23:55 +0000

Yes, it has Appendix O and Appendix P, then the glossary, index, and the four pages of tables (which, despite the label, don’t appear to actually be perforated in any way).

My copy does also have the same cover with the efreet on the front and the City of Brass on the back. (The City of Brass is still one of my favorite illustrations from that era of the game.)

It’d be interesting to get one of those 1980′s reprints — with the alternate cover and the orange spine — to see if the text in it was still the 1979 “revised edition” text.

This has been fascinating — I didn’t even realize that there had been multiple editions.

By: LS

LS — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 01:48:27 +0000

It doesn’t look as though my copy of the original printing has an perforated pages torn from it. I didn’t even notice the difference in the artist’s name, good catch!

Small stuff like that doesn’t surprise me too much. Than can change from printing-to-printing. But adding two indexes is a pretty huge change, and I was unaware it had been done. Does your copy have those?

Thanks for commenting!

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 20:08:02 +0000

I’ve been looking at my own (exceedingly battered) copy, and I _think_ that the reprint is from the the one I have, the “Revised Edition — December, 1979″ (ISBN 0-935696-02-4). The pagination matches what I can see in the photos, and the artist list on the copyright page also matches (listing Erol Otus instead of Todd Oleck). My copy has the Gen Con splash ad at the bottom of the last page of the index (p. 235), the next page (236) is an ad for other TSR products (Players Handbook, World of Greyhawk, modules, etc.), and then there are four pages of tables that are “perforated for easy removal and reference” — is it possible that your copy originally had some pull-out pages at the end as well?

By: LS

LS — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 19:11:33 +0000

Thanks for the correction! Post has been edited.

By: Brendan

Brendan — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 17:48:06 +0000

I got myself a set also, though I probably don’t need them. I now have almost three sets of the AD&D core books, and I don’t even like AD&D as a comprehensive system. As inspiration they are great though.

The bindings on the reprints are section sewn, which is probably about the highest quality book binding available (though it depends how the sections are attached to the spine, and I can’t see that). If you flip to the center of the sections, you can see the stitches. The new books probably have better bindings than the first original printings, despite how well the originals have held up.