I'm torn. I understand and can put myself (despite my intro to rpgs full-force already existing within the period wherein 'pro' artists gave their vision to D&D, etc.) in this brain-space. I first saw D&D AS D&D when a friend loaned me a coverless copy of Holmes. The first copies of actual D&D I had in my possession were battered 'old' copies of B/X (full well within the "Mentzer era") and the Easley cover of the 1E AD&D PHB. As far as, by then, 13-year-old-me was concerned, all that I saw WAS pro art. It was only in the late 80s and early 90s that I began to so see 'other' in rpgs (since what I spied within Palladium Role Playing Game and WFRP were of the same type....perhaps not of the same atmosphere of course)... Oddly, I imagine mid-to-late-80s D&D within my own mind as: "Dragon-Magazine-Dungeons-&-Dragons" and a good portion of that is due to the art of Dragon Mag from around about '84-'89-ish.... I can only look back now, not in a space of nostalgia but something somewhat objective, and see the differences of "70s" rpg art and the art that was standard in contemporary of rpgs on the time I was introduces (mid 80s). I, like a kid who loves old movies with old FX (as I actually was and am), saw them as equally awesome as the 'new' stuff... So, it's actually oddly hard for me to judge, even given the context that Olde House Rules grants.
I'm torn. I understand and can put myself (despite my intro to rpgs full-force already existing within the period wherein 'pro' artists gave their vision to D&D, etc.) in this brain-space. I first saw D&D AS D&D when a friend loaned me a coverless copy of Holmes. The first copies of actual D&D I had in my possession were battered 'old' copies of B/X (full well within the "Mentzer era") and the Easley cover of the 1E AD&D PHB. As far as, by then, 13-year-old-me was concerned, all that I saw WAS pro art. It was only in the late 80s and early 90s that I began to so see 'other' in rpgs (since what I spied within Palladium Role Playing Game and WFRP were of the same type....perhaps not of the same atmosphere of course)... Oddly, I imagine mid-to-late-80s D&D within my own mind as: "Dragon-Magazine-Dungeons-&-Dragons" and a good portion of that is due to the art of Dragon Mag from around about '84-'89-ish.... I can only look back now, not in a space of nostalgia but something somewhat objective, and see the differences of "70s" rpg art and the art that was standard in contemporary of rpgs on the time I was introduces (mid 80s). I, like a kid who loves old movies with old FX (as I actually was and am), saw them as equally awesome as the 'new' stuff... So, it's actually oddly hard for me to judge, even given the context that Olde House Rules grants.
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