Steve Jackson Bio
Shaenon: Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games was kind enough to write the introduction to Skin Horse Volume 6. Here’s my illustration for his bio in the book.
Speaking of, the Skin Horse 6 Kickstarter is in its final week. Don’t miss it!
Channing: As a boy nerd growing up in the ’80s and early ’90s my life was profoundly shaped by games like Car Wars and Killer. The fact that the same Steve Jackson who ushered those (and many more!) into existence is a person who’s read something I wrote is a mind-boggling honor that has not completely sunk in yet. Thanks for doing this, Mr. Jackson.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that we’ve finally got a rebloggable version of the strip up on Tumblr (many thanks to the capable and knowledgeable Josh L. for fixing yet another thing). I know I personally have been exposed to many cool things by reading people’s reblogs, so if you’ve got a Tumblr, and think we’re worth reblogging, visit skinhorsecomic.tumblr.com and do that clicky thing you do. The universe will love you for it, or at least that part of the universe that is me.
In the 80s, I was continually confused about Steve Jackson until I realized that there were two separate RPG writers/publishers with the same name, one American and one British. (Fighting Fantasy, the Sorcery! books, and so forth are the latter.)
Ever since, I’ve wanted there to be a Sherlock Holmes story titled _The Adventure of the Two Steve Jacksons_.
Just to confuse things further, the Fighting Fantasy books Scorpion Swamp, Demons of the Deep, and Robot Commando were actually written by the American Steve Jackson.
Which one wrote “Firetop Mountain”? Forget the full title, but that was one of the first fantasy adventure game books we had (still have it somewhere)
We were friends with neighbours down the road, one of their kids was Steven (or Stephen) Jackson 😀
Steve Jackson was directly responsible for all my (eventual) RPG adventures. O.G.R.E. was my first wargame and eventually led me to many wonderful worlds of adventure…
I helped playtest that with him running the game in the 80’s at the LA gaming convention. Its my proudest geek moment.
Also…Agent Redacted My next RockBand band…
Closing number could be a cover of Johnny Rivers’ Secret Agent Man:
Redacted Agent Man!
Redacted Agent Man!
They’ve taken away your name, and taken away your number!
Back in the early ’80s I worked for Flying Buffalo, a game company (I have credits in several Grimtooth and Traps products) and was picking up a friend for game night, probably Morrow Project or Champions, and he hands me a cassette tape. Pop it in, and the familiar Secret Agent Man rift starts up — then it switches to the lyrics in Spanish. That was pretty cool.
There’s a man, to some of us, a stranger!
With RPGs fantastic on the brain-ger!
With every game he makes,
Another mind he breaks,
To us non-gamers, it seems too bizarro!
‘dacted Agent Man!
‘dacted Agent Man!
It leaves me feeling dumber, but people know your name!
—and I know absolutely nothing about gaming.
Awesome, Robert!
I have done work for Steve and known him for about 25 years now. He’s a good guy and was the one who I first heard about several webcomics from, including Narbonic.
Am I the only one who sees the Skin Horse logo as a disgruntled one-eyed clown?
Well not now you aren’t! “Disgruntled one-eyed clown” is such a poetic turn of phrase, too. Or a great band name. Or the sadly unproduced script that John Cassavetes, in his Italian neo-realist phase, wrote for Peter Falk.
Which begs for the song ‘Tear Of A Clown’ about a clown who got half his face torn off by the Jersey Devil or a chupacabra. If only Edd were filking again.
maybe an ICP fan?
If the logo was in a circle or summat I think more people would have seen it prior to you pointing it out.
I am very excited about the $20,000 stretch goal. So very excited.
As are we, Jacob!
Draw him into the strip! Take your revenge!
I really wish you had a level for PDF editions of the current and previous books. I’m doing my best not to add to my book sprawl and am buying a lot more ebooks.
I’ll talk with Shaenon! Maybe we can make it happen. We have to look at the ramifications. So many ramifications.
Done! Check out “Virtual Citizen,” and thanks for the suggestion!
OT: Shannon, I just saw you in “Stripped” the other day. Decent documentary.
Ugh, I meant “Shaenon,” but I can’t edit my post.
TED VERRES
I CALL TED VERRES
I was in the same residential college at Rice that he was in (20 years later), and I know some of the people who helped him playtest his original stuff. I’m now done with the nerd name dropping.