Original D&D art by Kevin Siembieda at auction now
Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2023 3:38 pm
Six Dungeons & Dragons original works of art by Kevin Siembieda are featured in the April 2nd Heritage Auction. D&D art of any kind is super-rare. Much of it lost over the decades or purchased by a small handful of savvy art collectors. Here is your chance to own a piece of Dungeons & Dragons® (and Kevin Siembieda/Palladium Books) history. Six of Dungeons & Dragons illustrations by Kevin Siembieda are premiered in Heritage Auction’s March 30-April 2 Signature Comics & Comic Art Auction. The art goes up at the very beginning of the Sunday Auction, April 2. Each piece is signed by Kevin.
Heritage Auctions is a prestigious auction company renowned as the premier specialists in the field of comic book artwork and collectibles. They are starting to branch out into game artwork and tell us they can never get enough D&D artwork, so they were happy to get a few of Kevin Siembieda’s D&D illustrations done for Judges Guild back in 1979 and 1980.
Here’s the link to the specific D&D art: https://comics.ha.com/c/search-results. ... ive-notice
Kevin thought most of his D&D art had been stolen or lost decades ago, but he recently discovered an envelope containing some of his D&D artwork. If they do well at auction, he says he will offer more in the future.
A bit of history for those interested:
Though few realize it, Kevin Siembieda created 400+ Dungeons & Dragons® illustrations for Judges Guild in 1979 and 1980 as a freelance artist; his first professional venture in the RPG industry. This makes the illustrations some of the earliest D&D artwork in existence! He would go on to do artwork for Steven Jackson Games, FASA, Tops Bubble Gum Cards, Noble Comics, Marvel Comics (ghost work on The Defenders), and launch his own RPG company, Palladium Books to create and publish such well known and beloved RPGs as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles®, Robotech® and Rifts®, among many others.
TSR, the publishers of D&D, had released the Advanced D&D Player’s Guide in summer 1978 and the Advanced D&D Game Master Guide in 1979, but had no plans to publish source material. Sourcebooks were a new concept for the new RPG genre given birth by D&D. Bob Bledsaw, owner of Judges Guild, snapped up the license for Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks and magazines and became an overnight sensation. As the leading publisher of Dungeons & Dragons® source material in the late 1970s and 1980s, their books offered D&D settings, cities, maps, and adventures. They also published Dungeoneer and Pegasus magazines and some sourcebooks for RuneQuest, Traveller, and a handful of other popular games of the day. Kevin’s art mostly appeared in D&D books and Dungeoneer magazine dedicated to D&D. Even the hugely popular sourcebooks were magazine format.
Kevin met Bob Bledsaw at a convention and pitched him the Palladium Fantasy RPG in the spring or summer of 1979. Kevin turned down Bledsaw’s lowball offer for is his Fantasy RPG (the game that would launch Palladium Books), but he agreed to do artwork for J.G.. A lot of artwork. Moreover, Judges Guild reused his popular artwork many times in countless different Judges Guild publications for the next decade, helping to earn Kevin name recognition in the RPG community. Now you can own some of that historic artwork if you are fortunate enough to win the bid for one of the six illustrations being offered in Heritage Auction’s March 30-April 2 Signature Comics & Comic Art Auction. The art goes up at the very beginning of the Sunday Auction, April 2. Each piece is signed by Kevin.
Here’s the link to the specific D&D art: https://comics.ha.com/c/search-results. ... ive-notice
Heritage Auctions is a prestigious auction company renowned as the premier specialists in the field of comic book artwork and collectibles. They are starting to branch out into game artwork and tell us they can never get enough D&D artwork, so they were happy to get a few of Kevin Siembieda’s D&D illustrations done for Judges Guild back in 1979 and 1980.
Here’s the link to the specific D&D art: https://comics.ha.com/c/search-results. ... ive-notice
Kevin thought most of his D&D art had been stolen or lost decades ago, but he recently discovered an envelope containing some of his D&D artwork. If they do well at auction, he says he will offer more in the future.
A bit of history for those interested:
Though few realize it, Kevin Siembieda created 400+ Dungeons & Dragons® illustrations for Judges Guild in 1979 and 1980 as a freelance artist; his first professional venture in the RPG industry. This makes the illustrations some of the earliest D&D artwork in existence! He would go on to do artwork for Steven Jackson Games, FASA, Tops Bubble Gum Cards, Noble Comics, Marvel Comics (ghost work on The Defenders), and launch his own RPG company, Palladium Books to create and publish such well known and beloved RPGs as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles®, Robotech® and Rifts®, among many others.
TSR, the publishers of D&D, had released the Advanced D&D Player’s Guide in summer 1978 and the Advanced D&D Game Master Guide in 1979, but had no plans to publish source material. Sourcebooks were a new concept for the new RPG genre given birth by D&D. Bob Bledsaw, owner of Judges Guild, snapped up the license for Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks and magazines and became an overnight sensation. As the leading publisher of Dungeons & Dragons® source material in the late 1970s and 1980s, their books offered D&D settings, cities, maps, and adventures. They also published Dungeoneer and Pegasus magazines and some sourcebooks for RuneQuest, Traveller, and a handful of other popular games of the day. Kevin’s art mostly appeared in D&D books and Dungeoneer magazine dedicated to D&D. Even the hugely popular sourcebooks were magazine format.
Kevin met Bob Bledsaw at a convention and pitched him the Palladium Fantasy RPG in the spring or summer of 1979. Kevin turned down Bledsaw’s lowball offer for is his Fantasy RPG (the game that would launch Palladium Books), but he agreed to do artwork for J.G.. A lot of artwork. Moreover, Judges Guild reused his popular artwork many times in countless different Judges Guild publications for the next decade, helping to earn Kevin name recognition in the RPG community. Now you can own some of that historic artwork if you are fortunate enough to win the bid for one of the six illustrations being offered in Heritage Auction’s March 30-April 2 Signature Comics & Comic Art Auction. The art goes up at the very beginning of the Sunday Auction, April 2. Each piece is signed by Kevin.
Here’s the link to the specific D&D art: https://comics.ha.com/c/search-results. ... ive-notice