Greetings, Loyal Reader!
Last post, I discussed the direct influence of the Dungeons & Dragons game and related settings and concepts on the creation of Jason Cosmo. To recap, a big part of my motivation for writing the original (handwritten!) Jason Cosmo episodes was the fact that, back in my pre-driving days, I could not easily get together with my friends to play D&D. So instead, I made up my own adventures and passed them around between classes.
But there was an even more direct and specific inspiration for Jason Cosmo and company: a comic strip that ran in the back of Dragon magazine called Finieous Fingers.
Finieous Fingers, World's Greatest Thief
I’ll let Wikipedia describe it:
Finieous Fingers, the title character and self proclaimed “World’s Greatest Thief”, was a good-natured thief who was pestered by halflings (hobbits) and evil magic-users. He was generally found in the company of his two men-at-arms, Fred and Charly. The full-page comic was created by J. D. Webster, who was its sole author and illustrator.
Finieous Fingers was hilarious. Especially to us middle school gamer kids. Natually, I decided to produce my own hilarious D&D-themed comic strip. I completed exactly one episode. What I soon learned was that:
1. I can’t draw very well
2. Never mind that, drawing is slooooooow work. I would have a whole story in my head and be stuck trying to draw a horse. Even a poorly drawn horse takes time.
So I ditched the comic strip and went back to the drawing board ((Literally– I had a drawing board in my bedroom that I used as a desk)) to come up with a new story idea. Not long thereafter, I wrote out the first ever Jason Cosmo story (Jason Cosmo #1: “The Battle of Lower Hicksnittle”) on six pages of notebook paper. I took it to school. My friends enjoyed the story. I went home and started work on episode #2. And that is how Jason Cosmo got started.
Best regards,
Dan McGirt
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Sir,
Is Hero Wanted just a reprint of Jason Cosmo?
By the way love all three books and I like the Boltblaster previews. Oh and I am creating a D&D world based on your book series. I hope you do not mind. If you do care then please tell me and I will scrap it.
Matt: Hi! Thanks for the question and thanks for your kind words about the books. The short answer to your question is no, HERO WANTED is not just a reprint. The long answer is: At first, I was going to simply reprint JASON COSMO with a few small edits and corrections. However, as the editing became more extensive and I added new scenes and chapters I decided that it was not the same book and needed a new title. So while HERO WANTED is the same basic story as JASON COSMO, it is a different book. You might think of it as the director’s cut. I hope that explanation makes sense!