The Old Newsstand

With the retreat of printed papers and magazines as a result of the electronic medium, are we losing touch with people and community, face-to-face socializing, and supporting local businesses?  And is the investment of time and effort we put into such latter endeavors creating a richer life experience or merely isolating us in front of the silent images of a computer?

LEAVE THE DUNAWAYS ALONE: True Artists and Their "Critics"

LEAVE THE DUNAWAYS ALONE  


True Artists and Their "Critics"

©2010 Robert J. Kuntz


Creators Create...

In my 40+ years of being involved in the RPG industry, winning or being nominated for various awards, published in 10 languages, and having helped start an industry which persists to this very day, I have yet to see critics, naysayers or others of that ilk win an award, publish anything of merit or do much of anything which promotes or furthers understanding of the creative process which creators involve themselves in and that, in turn, the fans of such enterprise appreciate.  That's not to say that such RPG critics cannot accomplish other than what they seem predestined to do.  Look at film critic Roger Ebert, for instance.  His insights have always been edgy and he actually writes books upon the subject.  His bearing can be at once incisive and scholarly because he has invested his total being in a multi-layered process for many, many years, just as professional creators, like myself, have done.

So what does it mean that "Creators Create?"  That's a very broad question encompassing life in its many extremes.  It's similar to asking how you as an individual reader of this blog maintain your own life and its events.  I am in no way capable of answering that for the 200+ subscribers here, nor would I wish to be so enabled to say for certain how all of you manage that.  I could not even begin to imagine, in fact, how that might be accomplished in any singular case.  Life throws us curves and we handle these as these arrive and on those levels as prescribed and thereafter administered to, all perfectly normal and sequential depending on the individual.

The exposed fact here is that creators are just humans with the same obstacles, pains and pleasures that anyone of you have.  They can be eccentric, their moods as artists can change just as yours can, and their paths seem destined, if they are seriously inclined to their craft, to take many variable courses and at differing speeds depending on their creative inclinations and inspirations.  There is no one formula for understanding what creators do or how they do it; and if there was, the near majority would probably not be very good creators as they would adhere to repetitive and uninspired processes that limit their forms, styles and expressions, reducing the whole to a mocked standardization.  They would in fact be less individualistic individuals.

I read many reviews of films and books and have actually become interested in the way critics approach subject matter, especially on the interview level. I would estimate that less than 1 out of 20 reviews or interviews offer critical insight into the intimate processes that any given artist adheres to while creating the subject matter so inspected.  Poor critics are seen to invariably devalue the corpus of an artist’s worth, often interjecting some aged, or passé, angle that they seek to play off of. Many critics and interviewers, unfortunately and because of this, fall under the umbrella description of "yellow journalists."

Most well intentioned multimedia critics can be excused for not peeling back the onion skin of a subject as they are truly ignorant to begin with of the very personal processes used in bringing art to life.  While studying art-via-artist they oftentimes get immersed in template-like approaches to the extent of not recognizing that art forms are mutable things, nuanced particles that can and will change as much as a true artist’s view can.  These pocket critics and interviewers fail to understand that the basis of their quest is to explore with the artist what that means.  I have found the best interviewers, for instance, accomplish this positive course when they become a person who prods the artist to talk rather than themselves leading with uninformed guesswork. Charlie Rose comes to mind as a master of this latter ability.

However, yellow journalism, which is more prevalent on the internet, is an alienating and mostly egoistic form that expresses itself through a biased lens, wholly separated from the truth. It is seen in both interviews and more often in outright critiques and its shadowy forms even find root in the smallest sections of the net among “informed” commentators at blogs, for instance. So disposed, these critics paint a commentary, a misleading picture, for their own selfish reasons.  The true facts are left out, minimized or distorted. They do not check their sources; they often do not cite anything. Their tools are gross exaggeration, innuendo, suggestive and leading fragmentary information, understatement and the use of select and sampled “evidence,” all used to pervert or obscure whole realms of otherwise unassailable truth.

Faye Dunaway--An Artist with a Mission

I am a fervent fan of the actress and director, Faye Dunaway.  I have seen the majority of her films, have read the best of her interviews and have followed her career for some time.  In doing so I formed what I call a professional opinion about her as an individual artist.  Her autobiography, "Looking for Gatsby," is a seminal work exposing the inner workings and thoughts of an artist totally driven to excellence and committed to her craft.  The more I studied her, the less I saw an icon of cinema and the more was exposed about Dunaway the true artist.

But her being an icon is not what interested me; it was in understanding how she became one.  She did not take ICON 101, for instance, so there must have been underlying reasons why she is what she became, and vice versa.

The one thing I noted as I studied her history is that she has been at the butt of criticism on many levels.  At first I thought, "wow," how could this be?  Her works, her acting ranges, her creativity, and her individualism are all enormous.  She’s won many awards; she's been in the film and theater industries for over 50 years.  Then I started reading what her critics were saying.  They were on the main good interviews and criticisms; however, it seems that the bad or indifferent ones were the most talked about. In due course I found that these very things were being forwarded as truths about her and thereafter believed and regurgitated over and over by uninformed people.  Yellow journalism was hard at work with its dirty deed. That her legendary corpus of work had no bearing whatsoever upon these sensation seekers’ participation in this travesty quickly exposed the truth of the matter to me.

I can only assume that many of her critics dislike her for what is her truly admirable "do it my way" stance that she nurtures by way of an inflexible adherence to her art.  At one point, after she had acquired the rights for the play "Master Class," critics assailed her for not bringing the film adaptation of it to market fast enough as she had at first proposed doing.  As an ending point to this latter development the film has been in production (shooting in Michigan) since 2009.  Now that it is in production, only faint notes are posted on it and no interviews are forthcoming for her. The yellow journalists have no sensational matter to work with anymore, you see, but are instead sharpening their dull wits while awaiting its release whereupon they can again parade forth to assail us with their "insights".

The whole point being, we see all too clearly the dehumanization of the artist here.  We are instead fed the artist as an image, the artist as a product, the artist as a predefined and limited source, but rarely do the majority of critics see an artist as an artist or an artist as a human.

By comparison I am very happy to say as a person with a strongly defined individuality reminiscent of Ms. Dunaway's that I have also had my share of critics over the years.  Some of the stuff, to my amusement, never ends, such as things that happened ten years ago, or twenty.  I hear such diatribes as, "He didn’t do this when he said he would," "He backed out of that deal," "He said this and is wrong, I say, wrong!" and similar "profound" insights.  When I answer such criticisms, lo and behold, there is no response forthcoming from these critics, like, "Oh that was the reason?" or "Ah, I understand."  They retreat from the truth, you see, nursing a time when they can once again come forth with their valued insights to reintroduce their informed positions and so enlighten the truly ignorant who will not then fail to "understand" them.

Critics and the "Art" of YACK

Take for instance the following.  A well known blogger recently assailed my creative work habits, and in so doing categorized me as "whimsical" in the way that I publish matter, in due course indicating that he was dissatisfied with the manner in which I publish, though not with the material itself, this being held at many times in this parson’s estimation as highly regarded.

I could only assume by such a strident notion that this person has no idea what it takes just to publish one thing, let alone understand what it takes to do so when one such as myself holds writing and design to be the highest form of my expression, a reflection that I aim to constantly honor as an artist.  This is how I responded:

"First I'd like to address the point of my whimsical nature, or as it appears to be on the surface, that is. This may or may not be the truest assessment--but I do know this: I have upwards of 6 projects going at any given moment; my designs further themselves through a process of sustained creative output equal to each as a whole. For instance, if I reach a dead-end at any point with one, I suspend the design to let the next avenue percolate, and during such times turn to the next, where I go as far with that in the same manner, etc. During that creative immersion I may or may not get the hook back into the first one; and if I do I will then pick that up and go with it. For an example of this gift and curse, I will elucidate upon the design work I did for my adventure, Dark Druids.

When TLG contacted me I said I had the bones of a 1975 Greyhawk outdoor/dungeon addie judged BitD. It was two color maps and apprx. 10 pages of notes and text. Of course TLG pressed me for an approximate page count (something rather absurd in my opinion, but I have thought that since day one while creating, so it is not a personal slight, just an artist's POV; kind of like asking a fine artist when his or her next masterpiece will be finished, and of course the answer is: when it's finished. But publishers will be publishers and true artists remain artists, and somehow in the chaos of pulling and pushing they work together for a shared goal, but not in the same manner over and over as one would assume). In any case, to satisfy the publisher request I stated 32 pages printed (or an "average" sized addie in print).

It ended up, btw, much larger. Why? Because my creative juices would not stop flowing. And so here is a distinction in reverse; if you respect the source, you run with it. By comparison, if the source flees for a moment, I will not force the design to its end and I instead switch out until it returns; and it always returns because of this adopted mode. Therein lies an example for all so inspired, for truly inspired works withstand the test of time, or at least have a better chance of doing so. In any case, I respect the source and in return it respects me. As such inspiration is the only thing relevant in good or better design work, IMO, I will not publish something just to say, "DONE". This will disappoint some who feel that there is some "need" based on other comparisons, but I will say that TLG in Dark Druid's case was overwhelmed and very pleased that I took longer to produce what they considered a true gem."

As to the person's response--well, there was none.  Zero.  I had presumed that there might be at least an open and honest attempt to commiserate, to attempt to understand and to use actual facts as a basis for lucid communication.  But there wasn’t any.

Why do people do this to artists?  For that matter, why do people do that to anyone, to actually take tiny bits of their observations about people and attempt to whole-heartedly sell them to their readers, or to those who will listen to them, as exploded truths?  I for one have no firm answer for this anomaly.  It defies rational discourse as otherwise sane and functioning individuals are used to participating in.  But I'll take a stab at its interpretation through surmise:  Perhaps It paints what that accusing person wants to believe, in fact, and along the way they "exaggerate" their positioned view of things as well as "sensationalize" the particles as a factual story for their readers, this because there supposedly exists some "dirt" and these self-appointed prophets want to prophesy that they have exposed the dirt with their trusty shovel for all to see, for all to gain the same opinion that they have worked so long and hard to uncover.

This form of disinformation is otherwise well known as:

Yellow journalism: journalism that is based upon sensationalism and crude exaggeration.

For it is certainly crude exaggeration to take my over 1,000,000 + words I have written, the over 5,000 typed pages I have produced, the 10 foreign languages I have been published in, the 12 companies world wide I have worked with, the two awards I have won, the over 300+ hand drawn maps I have created, and the hundreds of unpublished projects, manuscripts, short stories and screenplays that I have produced amounting to 2-3 times my published output and reduce them, while summarizing my entire being and history, to the mere abstraction of a "whimsical nature" and this as generated over my 42 years of participation in this industry.

But yet, that is what happened.  Sad isn’t it?  And I don’t mean that it is sad for me in this situation, or for true legends like Faye Dunaway, who I sense is far and away from such tasteless matter.  Instead it is sad from a humanistic point of view.  The injustice of it all is apparent at many levels in our society today, not just in the arts.  Artists are just bigger targets for it.

In Summary

Let creators create and let the fans appreciate what they do when they do it.  Leave them be.  They already have it hard enough just meeting the impossibilities of their creative values and natures day in and day out, wanting to do their best and at the same time trying to raise the stakes to outdo their past performances. True fans of creators know this.  They also know that you leave the Dunaways alone.

Proud Member of ARTISTS UNITE

Black Blade Publishing Press Release--Repost

BLACK BLADE TO PUBLISH ROB KUNTZ’S LAKE GENEVA CASTLE & CAMPAIGN™ PRODUCT LINE

8 OCTOBER 2010
WICHITA, KANSAS


Black Blade Publishing is proud to announce an agreement with Robert J. Kuntz to publish his Lake Geneva Castle & Campaign™ (LGCC) dungeon levels.  Jon Hershberger, President of Black Blade, said, “It is a privilege to publish these Lake Geneva Castle and Campaign dungeon levels in partnership with Rob Kuntz. Their historical value dating back to the origins of the RPG hobby is significant. Rob's distinctive adventure modules are very creative and serve as both challenging settings for veteran gamers and as inspiration for future game designers.”

The agreement includes the publication and distribution of:

• Six original Lake Geneva Castle dungeon levels, including The Machine Level, The Boreal Level, and four additional levels that feature such famous and infamous encounters as the Giants Pool Hall, the prototypical set-piece encounter for The Garden of the Plantmaster, and connections to several other planes of existence for off-world adventuring.  Each dungeon level will be published upon completion by Mr. Kuntz, beginning this winter with “The Machine Level,” which will be 32 to 36 pages in length.
  

• .PDF editions of Kuntz’s out-of-print adventure modules CAS1 Cairn of the Skeleton King and CAS2 Tower of Blood, with additional titles to follow as their print runs sell through (including RJK1 Bottle City).  

• The .pdf edition of the adventure module Ice Grave (originally published in Troll Magazine #1 in 1997), the proceeds from which Kuntz will use as a special fund to be awarded on a recurring basis to excellent up-and-coming RPG game designers.

Future publications will release the full scope of Kuntz’s massive original manuscript collection that spans the history of the development of the first fantasy role-playing game, as played in the Lake Geneva campaigns.  These publications will primarily be issued in .pdf format, with select titles also targeted for in-print releases.

Robert J. Kuntz said, “Black Blade was my first choice as a publishing partner due to their commitment to producing high-quality, printed books.  I can trust them to reproduce my manuscripts with the respect, fidelity and attention to detail that reflects their historical value and context.”  Allan Grohe, co-founder and editor for Black Blade, will manage the Lake Geneva Castle & Campaign™ product line.  Grohe said, “Rob Kuntz’s designs stand out across the history of RPG publishing for their originality in design and challenge to player skill.  It’s a pleasure to continue my long-standing publishing relationship with Rob under the auspices of Black Blade.”


About Robert J. Kuntz

One of the founding fathers of the RPG industry, Robert J. Kuntz helped to design, playtest, and expand the original Dungeons & Dragons game with Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson from 1972 to 1975. Mr. Kuntz co-authored Greyhawk: Supplement I, created Kalibruhn—the third RPG campaign setting, and one of the first RPG worlds created from the top down—and co-DM'd the famous Greyhawk campaign with Gary Gygax for many years. He also co-wrote the classic Gods, Demigods & Heroes with Jim Ward, which was later revised and expanded as Deities & Demigods in 1980. His game designs have been published through 12 companies world wide, including TSR, Paizo Publishing and Hobby Japan. His articles, interviews and fiction have appeared in 10 magazines, including Dragon and Dungeon.


Mr. Kuntz founded Creations Unlimited in 1986 to publish the "Maze of Zayene" series and Garden of the Plantmaster. Mr. Kuntz has republished and updated his classic Creations Unlimited adventures, and has also designed several board games, including King of the Table Top, Magus, and Kings & Things (which won the Charles Roberts Award for Best Fantasy/Science Fiction Game of 1986; and re-released 2010 through Z-Man Games). Mr. Kuntz was honored with the 2005 Gold ENnie Award for his design of the super-adventure "Maure Castle" (published in Dungeon Magazine's 30th Anniversary Celebration issue #112 by Paizo Publishing).  In 2006 he founded Pied Piper Publishing which has to date printed 10 titles, including his recently released novella, “Black Festival”. His creative interests extend to writing novels, short stories, screenplays, non-fiction essays and his personal memoirs about the founding of the RPG industry.


About Black Blade Publishing

Black Blade Publishing is the publisher of the Swords & Wizardry game line, under license from Mythmere Games, including the ENnie-Award-winning Swords & Wizardry Core Rules and Knockspell Magazine; Robert J. Kuntz’s Lake Geneva Castle & Campaign dungeon levels.  Black Blade also publishes First Edition Dungeon Crawls,  conversions of Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure modules, under license from Goodman Games.  For additional information, please visit www.black-blade-publishing.com.

Black Blade Publishing and the Black Blade sword logo are trademarks of Black Blade Publishing, LLC. All other trademarks, service marks, registered trademarks, or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners.

Original Press Release is here.

CREATIVITY QUOTES

Here's a selection of great quotes on creativity.  The ones I am particularly fond of are near the end.


“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.” --Charles Mingus
    
“Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.” -- Pablo Picasso

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” --Steve Jobs

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”  -- Albert Einstein

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”-- George Bernard Shaw
    
“Sometimes you've got to let everything go - purge yourself. If you are unhappy with anything . . . whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you'll find that when you're free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.” -- Tina Turner
      
“No great thing is created suddenly.” -- Epictetus
    
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”  -- Scott Adams
    
“It is better to create than to be learned, creating is the true essence of life”  -- Barthold Georg Niebuhr

“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” -- Edward de Bono

“Genius means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.” — William James

“The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things-ancient history, nineteenth century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later, or six months, or six years. But he has faith that it will happen.” — Carl Ally

 “Listen to anyone with an original idea, no matter how absurd it may sound at first. If you put fences around people, you get sheep. Give people the room they need.” — William McKnight

“You write your first draft with your heart and you re-write with your head. The first key to writing is to write, not to think.” — Sean Connery

“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“I shall become a master in this art only after a great deal of practice.” — Erich Fromm

“Because of their courage, their lack of fear, they (creative people) are willing to make silly mistakes. The truly creative person is one who can think crazy; such a person knows full well that many of his great ideas will prove to be worthless. The creative person is flexible; he is able to change as the situation changes, to break habits, to face indecision and changes in conditions without undue stress. He is not threatened by the unexpected as rigid, inflexible people are.” — Frank Goble

“The creative person is willing to live with ambiguity. He doesn’t need problems solved immediately and can afford to wait for the right ideas.” — Abe Tannenbaum

There is no use trying,” said Alice. “One can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” — Lewis Carroll

THOSE I CALL MY NINE "FAVORITES"

1. “The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done - men who are creative, inventive and discoverers”  -- Jean Piaget

2. “There's room for everybody on the planet to be creative and conscious if you are your own person. If you're trying to be like somebody else, then there isn't.” -- Tori Amos

3. “The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” — Alan Alda

4. “Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.” -- Ray Bradbury

5. “The imagination imitates. It is the critical spirit that creates.” -- Oscar Wilde

6. “To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” –- Osho

7. “Truly creative people care a little about what they have done, and a lot about what they are doing. Their driving focus is the life force that surges in them now.” — Alan Cohen

8. “The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.” — John Maynard Keynes

9. “Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” — Walt Disney

Shakespeare's "The Tempest," Movie Trailer: Link @ Apple

THE TEMPEST

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

I want to thank The Kid in the Front Row who recommended this video.  It relates so well to, and indeed punctuates, the many posts over the last year that I have made on creativity, play, game theory and education.  Enjoy.

Kings & Things to be Released in October

Here's the news LINK.

Noble Knight Games (PPP Super Assortment Pack)

Some news on our products still in print (and out of print).

First, Aaron at Noble Knight Games is selling a "Super Assortment" pack of our products wherein you save almost $30.00 over the total retail price for these 6 titles (see image below).  Here's the LINK.  Just click on the Lake Geneva Castle & Campaign link once there, it's the 1st product offered in the list.

Second, BOTTLE CITY is out of print.  Bottle City and Cairn of the Skeleton King are slated to be produced as PDFs in the near future, so hold tight.

I'll have more RPG updates very soon, specifically about the finalization of the contract and product release news through the publisher I am now in the final negotiation phase with.  -- RJK

Three Castles Award™ UPDATE

There is an update expanding on the Three Castles Award™ at this North Texas RPGCon LINK.

The 3CA Judges Guidelines are finished.  These are not public but are made available to judges and 3CA folks only.  The update (second paragraph) notes in general what categories each entry will be judged for.

Luthercon 2010--Chicago

From John Bobek:

LINK

Neil Young's 2006 Interview with Charlie Rose

A lot of interesting matter here.

Mobility 2088

Dimension X

Link to MP3s

Radio SF of the '50s

The Middle Finger Project

Walk don't run...  http://www.themiddlefingerproject.org/

Robots Everywhere! THE ROBOT HUT MUSEUM

http://www.robothut.robotnut.com/

Check out the Gallery and Links sections