David A. Trampier

Dave A. Trampier is a former artist and writer who worked on some of the earliest editions of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. He would sign his work with his initials "DAT" or often as "Tramp". He is best known as the creator of the Wormy comic strip that ran in Dragon magazine.

Wormy

From its inception in issue #9, until its abrupt end in issue #132, Trampier's Wormy comic was a popular feature of Dragon. Each issue of Dragon would have anywhere from one to four pages of Wormy. The comic's storylines were cleverly plotted, and its art was carefully drawn and colored.

Wormy featured a title character in the form of a cigar-chomping, pool hustling, wargaming dragon, and a colorful cast of monsters who were his neighbors and friends; the stories were told unwaveringly from the point of view of the antagonists of the Dungeons & Dragons game, and the types of characters that players would be expected to portray, such as wizards and warriors, were presented as unwelcome intruders. Life between Wormy's neighbors was never peaceful, either, and while many confrontational scenes were played for laughs, Trampier was also skillful in presenting stark violence in a darkly dramatic light.

Other works

Outside of Wormy, Trampier's most enduring visual legacy is the cover of the American first edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook. The image has been parodied numerous times in gaming culture, including by John Kovalic parodied in 2000 on the cover of the first volume of his Dork Tower collection, Dork Covenant.

Trampier also provided much of the black and white interior art in many of the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventure modules and manuals, such as the original Monster Manual and Deities & Demigods. His 1979 cover art for the original monochromatic version of the module The Village of Hommlet is widely recognized among fans of earlier D&D materials, and has become a collectors item.

Trampier painted the cover, and provided some of the interior illustrations, for the first edition of TSR's Gamma World roleplaying game, published in 1978.

He is credited as co-designer, along with Jason McAllister, of the Titan board game self-published by Trampier and McAllister's Gorgonstar Company and later by Avalon Hill in 1982.

Sudden departure from career

"Wormy" suddenly stopped appearing in Dragon after the April 1988 issue (#132), in the middle of a storyline. In issue #136, in response to a reader letter, the Dragon editors wrote: "We regret to announce that 'Wormy' will no longer be appearing in DRAGON Magazine. We are looking into the possibility of adding another graphic series in the future."

David Trampier, the artist and writer, effectively vanished at that point, and his public has not reliably heard from him since.

Rumors circulate

In the absence of all public contact, rumors as to his fate began to circulate in gaming circles, and ultimately online, from the late 1980s on.

Kim Mohan, then editor of Dragon, told Phil Foglio that payments sent to Trampier for Wormy were returned unopened. Foglio explained that "When an artist's checks are returned uncashed, he is presumed dead. Inquiries by TSR at his residence showed that he had moved with no forwarding address.

Rumors that he had died have been denied by Tom Wham, Trampier's brother-in-law. Wham stated as recently as 2004 that he believed Trampier "still exists somewhere in Illinois".

New career as taximan?

A February 15 2002 article in the online edition of the Daily Egyptian, the student newspaper of Southern Illinois University, featured a taxi driver named David Trampier working in Carbondale, and included a photograph. The article made no mention of a former career in art or gaming.

Gary Gygax and other TSR staff of the time confirm it is the same David Trampier who drew "Wormy".

Wizards of the Coast in 2003 acknowledged the confusion and consternation on behalf of fans, and simply confirmed that Trampier is "alive and well" but "not currently working in gaming or comics".

According to Jolly R. Blackburn, Vice President of KenzerCo (Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine, Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier), in 2005, "I did have a phone conversation with David Trampier about a Wormy compilation a few summers ago. He politely asked me not to call him again and to lose his number. Apparently a LOT of people tracked him down through the same article [about his taxi driving career] and he was fed up with all the phone calls. Seemed like a nice guy. He just wants nothing to do with the strip or the gaming industry.

Influence

Rich Burlew (creator of The Order of the Stick) has voiced great respect for the place Wormy held as an early D&D comic strip, indicating in an interview that he felt awed at his comic being published on Dragon's back page, where Wormy once ran, adding that he felt he was "not worthy to shine Wormy's feet. In the last issue of Dragon magazine (#359, September 2007), Burlew included in his OOTS comic a number of references to comics that had appeared in the magazine over its long run, including a Wormy-like dragon (complete with hat and cigar) fleeing, before Wizards of the Coast turned the dungeon electronic.

Notes

References

External links

• List Roleplaying Game Credits at Pen & Paper