D&D (2024) Comeliness and Representation in Recent DnD Art

[Charlaquin]

Neither Jason nor Justin should have been allowed to have it, and I hope failure to take Jason to court costs WotC the trademark, and Justins apparent bankruptcy costs him the ability to maintain it and someone else can buy it and not be a grandma unfriendly word with it.

Costs WotC what trademark? WotC doesn’t own TSR and never has.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The nuance here is that it actually depends on how many risks you feel like you can take.

If you need mass appeal, you take relatively few risks.

If you don't need mass appeal, you can take more risks.

At a certain level of expected $, you need mass appeal.

Which is how we get Disney live-action remakes.

You're not wrong...

 

[LesserThan]

WotC never owned TSR. TSR (the real TSR, not the new embarrassment that Justin LaNasa created) were the original owners of Dungeons and Dragons. WotC is a completely different company, owned by Hazbro, who bought D&D after the original TSR collapsed. In 1997.

No.

1997 WotC under Pete bought TSR.
1999 Hasbro bought WotC for the Pokemon license.
2001, The Pokemon Company was formed to take the license from WotC, leaving Hasbro screwed over.

 

[LesserThan]

The only exception being The Jungle Book, which is actually pretty good, probably better than the original.

Christopher Walken as King Louie is an Oobey doobey doo NOT!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Costs WotC what trademark? WotC doesn’t own TSR and never has.

They actually did and even briefly used the TSR trademark - then let it drop. But I didn't know that myself until I checked their Wikipedia a few months ago.

TSR, Inc. - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[LesserThan]

Costs WotC what trademark? WotC doesn’t own TSR and never has.

USPTO

Wordmark
TSR

Status
LIVE

Goods & services
IC 028: Fantasy role playing games; science fiction role playing...

Class
028

Serial
97260477

Owners
Wizards of the Coast (LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY; DELAWARE, USA)

 

[Charlaquin]

They actually did and even briefly used the TSR trademark - then let it drop. But I didn't know that myself until I checked their Wikipedia a few months ago.

TSR, Inc. - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

My mistake then, sorry

 

[I'm A Banana]

Indeed. The sheer level of de-risking in some of those (Pinocchio and Dumbo are particularly dire from that perspective) is kind of staggering and shows a truly profound creative bankruptcy.

You're not wrong...

Back when chainmail bikinis were a big thing, you could count on the person buying your fantasy product to, for the most part, be a heterosexual cisgender white tween boy whose parents were working class or wealthier. So big muscles (exactly what your tween wants to be) and scantily clad ladies (exactly what your tween wants to see) get you a sale based on that alone. Anyone who wasn't in that target demo would just have to tolerate the art to get to the content, which wasn't always in line with what the art was promising, anyway. And a lot of people couldn't tolerate the art! But that was OK, for the publishers, since things weren't big enough to care yet. They just wanted to sell a few copies on this weird new thing. Enough tweens in the world for that.

It's a different market today. Bigger, for sure. More diverse in every way. More competing media, more fantasy genre things competing for their attention. And the art doesn't sell the book like it once did (your audience doesn't spend as much time flipping through books in stores as they did in '77).

They could still probably take bigger risks than they do, but it would kind of be an indulgent thing, and not something they really want to do for the core books, I'd bet. Though, personally, I'd love to see a few janky lookin' mofos in the mix.

 

[Umbran]

They actually did and even briefly used the TSR trademark - then let it drop. But I didn't know that myself until I checked their Wikipedia a few months ago.

TSR, Inc. - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

WotC is still selling pdfs under the TSR trademark today. This is in the "subsequent trademark usage" section of the wikipedia page you linked to.

 

[Umbran]

WotC never owned TSR. TSR (the real TSR, not the new embarrassment that Justin LaNasa created) were the original owners of Dungeons and Dragons. WotC is a completely different company, owned by Hazbro, who bought D&D after the original TSR collapsed. In 1997.

WotC bought TSR, and all its assets and IP, not just D&D.