Saturday 27 July 2013

Return of the Troll!



Some of you will recognize the character above as Derek the Troll, who starred in his own comic strip back in the 1980s, first in the pages of fantasy game mag Warlock and then in its sister publication White Dwarf. Now Derek is set to return for a special one-off full page strip later this year!

Written and drawn by me once again, the brand new Derek the Troll strip will appear in You Are the Hero, A History of Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks by the author Jonathan Green. The book was funded via Kickstarter and such was the enthusiasm for Jonathan's project that it easily exceeded the target figure.

Derek the Troll started life in 1984 when I created the diminutive spotty troll for a contest in Warlock magazine. I don't think I won the contest but the editor was impressed enough by the strip to offer me a regular page in the magazine beginning in late 1985. (You can read the full account of Derek's short history on my old blog here:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2007/02/derek-troll.html )

I've been intending to revive Derek the Troll for years but the right opportunity never came along, so I was very pleased when Jonathan contacted me late last year about the possibility of a new strip featuring the troll for his book. The script has been approved and I'll get cracking on the artwork this week. Keep an eye on Jonathan's website http://www.youarethehero.co.uk for developments!   


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

You should update him as Derek The Internet Troll. ( Only joking ).

Lew Stringer said...

Derek's not ugly enough to be an Internet troll. :)

Anonymous said...

Yes and Derek is probably much more intelligent too.

Tiniebras said...

I hear that only spotty herberts who play games pretending to be heroic warriors read Derek the Troll! ;)

zhu bajiee said...

Hurrah! looks like my twitter-trolling you fellas paid off after all!