Bad habits.
ME: You know, I rather think the whole Photoshopping thing is getting a bit predictable these days.
MYSELF: I was thinking that myself. I mean, it’s almost getting to be a schtick, isn’t it?
ME: And you’ve got to figure there’s more interesting things to Photoshop than just grabbing a selection of some element of pop-culture nostalgia…
MYSELF: Like Pele bicycle-kicking a buffalo in the nuts.
ME: Whoa. How did I think of that?
MYSELF: My creative process is something of a mystery. Even to me.
ME: That is true.
MYSELF: So I’m settled then. No more pastiches of Photoshoppery. From this point forth, my next Photoshop project is Pele bicycle-kicking a buffalo in the nuts.
ME: Or possibly an elephant.
MYSELF: Or the late Generalissimo Franco.
Enter FLAPJACKS.
FLAPJACKS: Hey, dude, look what I just scored: a whole whack of those old Fighting Fantasy gamebooks!
ME: …God dammit.
June 23rd, 2008 la 9:10 am
I have the whole set of these beauties. Long did I battle the farting sluggoth.
June 23rd, 2008 la 9:28 am
That poor manticore. It just needs a hug.
June 23rd, 2008 la 9:28 am
Never seen any of these before. But the ’shopping is exactly what I needed to see this morning. When your day — maybe even week — is ruined before 7:30, it’s pick-me-ups like this that make survival possible. Danke.
June 23rd, 2008 la 9:47 am
Thanks. I’d seen the news of the previous entry elsewhere, which was a hard hit for a Monday morning. This had me laughing.
June 23rd, 2008 la 9:50 am
Lizard-Man Robin Hood … somehow, I think that could work …
June 23rd, 2008 la 9:50 am
Man, I used to have most if not all of those.
June 23rd, 2008 la 10:03 am
Adrian: That was the original concept for Green Arrow - he wasn’t “green” because of his costume. True story.
June 23rd, 2008 la 10:03 am
The guy riding the tigers in “Attack of the Impractical Horde” looks absolutely terrified. Which, I guess, is probably only natural considering the situation.
June 23rd, 2008 la 10:26 am
Shit, I used to have that Seahawks one. What was the real title?
June 23rd, 2008 la 10:43 am
“What the Fuck: The Penis of a Vengeful God vs The Monster that was a Vagina.” With an introduction by the Farting Sluggoth.
June 23rd, 2008 la 10:44 am
“Penis of a Vengeful God” got me to bust a gut laughing. Bravo, MGK, bravo!
June 23rd, 2008 la 11:30 am
What’s odd is I kept reading the “an adventure YOU…” blurbs on each and every one of those books.
June 23rd, 2008 la 11:39 am
Superb!
June 23rd, 2008 la 12:01 pm
On “Triumph” is that a sword with an unusually wide hand-guard or is that the world’s most impractical shield?
June 23rd, 2008 la 12:08 pm
Next on the list: Choose your own adventure books.
If you serve the giant ogre waffles, turn to page 13
If you take the pencil and jam it into your coratid artery because you are bored to tears, turn to page 47
If you put down the book and go watch porn instead, turn to page 83
June 23rd, 2008 la 12:19 pm
Great as usual, poor Manticore.
Please, can you do the photomanip with Franco being kicked by Pele. I beg you.
June 23rd, 2008 la 12:25 pm
If ‘Me’ and ‘Myself’ were having a debate, where was ‘I’? Self-centred git…
June 23rd, 2008 la 12:28 pm
ALSO: Strangely enough, I have a copy of “Robot Commando” and it was actually the best thing Jackson & Livingstone ever wrote…going beyond the old genres and working in creative ideas for robot types along with actual Dinosaur species - a gratifying addition to a die-hard Dinosaur nerd like myself.
June 23rd, 2008 la 12:45 pm
I can do you one better: I think I STILL HAVE all of those. The “Seahawks” one was called “Starship Traveller”, and I believe it was their first SF book. The trouble with the SF ones is that they didn’t fit in a consistant universe like the fantasy ones (well, if you consider that a flaw).
As I recall, the “What The Fuck” had something to do with being a dream-shaman who could move back an forth between the real world and the dream world. Damn, that was a pretty imaginative series. And those are pretty awesome covers, with a couple of exceptions.
June 23rd, 2008 la 1:17 pm
@ karellan
I suppose that perhaps HE’S TERRIFIED OF HIS OWN CODPIECE! OMGANGRYCATCROTCHWTF?!
June 23rd, 2008 la 1:19 pm
Thanks for the info. I remember that now. Bloody insane it was.
June 23rd, 2008 la 1:19 pm
Robot Commando (aka Best Gamebook of All Time) is one of maybe half a dozen of those I never read (there were more than 50 by the time I stopped reading, before the ignorant start wondering). Although I have no idea what the fuck the Loneliest Manticore was originally.
And you have to admit - if you can pull it off, riding two tigers into battle trumps Bear Cavalry any day of the week.
What The Fuck was - I can’t remember the title, but you played an elf warrior-shaman who had to hunt down this goat-headed demon prince. There was dream combat and a lot of weird shit, but I only read it once and cheated the fuck out of it (who didn’t?), so I can’t really give a review.
Some of these were awesome, though. At least when I was 11.
June 23rd, 2008 la 2:00 pm
Some of these were awesome, though. At least when I was 11.
Heck, yes. Deathtrap Dungeon (aka Pit of the Farting Sluggoth) in particular was made of awesome. It lead to lots of enormous tree diagrams amongst my friends in elementary school.
(It was a lot like the old Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Infocom game, in that you could play for ages, then discover that you’d actually lost because you neglected to do something several hours earlier. These days most RPGs have given up on the “You didn’t collect the mail before the earth was destroyed, so you’ve been playing a lost game for 18 hours and need to start over” trope.)
June 23rd, 2008 la 2:00 pm
That was just awesome. I think my favorite is “The Kitty’s Name is Mr. Murder”, but I love them all.
June 23rd, 2008 la 2:01 pm
Led, even. Apparently I need more coffee.
June 23rd, 2008 la 2:42 pm
I love you for the Dokken thing more than you can possibly know.
June 23rd, 2008 la 3:01 pm
@Joysweeper: Note that the Lizard-King’s crown is actually a giant crab-spider-thing.
June 23rd, 2008 la 3:12 pm
Gonchong?
(I swear, I just have a really good memory. Or, as it may turn out, a crap one)
June 23rd, 2008 la 3:32 pm
Omg, I had Lizardman Robin Hood when I was a kid! What a wave of nostalgia…
June 23rd, 2008 la 4:06 pm
The lonliest manticore lives in The Shamutanti Hills, the first of Steve Jackson’s “Sorcery!” four-part series. The Farting Shuggoth gets his revenge in the second book of that series, Kare: Cityport of Traps. The third book is The Seven Serpents and the last book is The Crown of Kings, one of the most sadistic gamebooks ever set to print. It has about 800 entries and the series used a magic system just to ratchet the complexity up a notch.
So much distilled awesome though, the exclamation mark, the printed dice at the bottom of each page so you could flick through the book rather than geek-roll in the library, the magic system, the artwork…the time I had to play them when I was twenty years younger…
There are some scary intronweb sites out there for these bad-boys BTW. Sequences of numbers as paths through books anyone?
June 23rd, 2008 la 4:25 pm
Oh man, it makes me want to learn how to use photoshop.
You sir, are a deity.
June 23rd, 2008 la 4:43 pm
[…] I really hated getting killed by The Farting Sluggoth A stash of charmingly goofy adventure book covers from Christopher "MGK" Bird. Previously on Mefi for his Marvel Comics Civil War remix […]
June 23rd, 2008 la 5:50 pm
Wait. The most awesome game ever does not just have dinosaurs vs. robots, but Dinosaurs vs. Robot COMMANDOS?
How much is it on E-bay these days?
June 23rd, 2008 la 6:05 pm
Well, I HAVE THE FIRST FOUR OF THEM IN SWEDISH!
Then I had to switch to english. Oh how I loved them. Except in one of them, where you were inside a mountain labyrinth there was a typo that led you round and round and round again so me and my brother actually had to sit down and map the entire labyrinth.
Which turned out to be surprisingly small.
Unlike the penis of a vengeful god… *snickers*
June 23rd, 2008 la 6:15 pm
I agree with Zenrage– you *must* do this for some of those old CYOA books. Awesomesauce.
June 23rd, 2008 la 6:24 pm
So I’m all “Hey, is that Steve Jackson of GURPS and Steve Jackson fame?” And I find out it’s not, it was another SJ who wrote gamebooks from the UK. Except that US SJ did some of the books. So it might be. Gah!
June 23rd, 2008 la 7:37 pm
Love the Photoshops…and I had quite a few of them as a lad.
The first two ‘Farting Sluggoth’ ones…never got a chance to play ‘Evolution’.
I also loved ‘Steve Jackson’s Sorcery!’ the first two books of which were ‘Loneliest Manticore’ and ‘Farting Sluggoth II’.
June 23rd, 2008 la 10:53 pm
Wow, this takes me back. In the fifth grade at least half the boys at my school were into these books, including me. The first one I ever read/played was “The Monster That Was A Vagina”! I think the real title is “Citadel of Chaos” but not 100% sure.
Oh yeah, this is also hilarious.
June 24th, 2008 la 12:15 am
Poor Manticore, it can come live with me, I would feed it marshmallows
June 24th, 2008 la 2:51 am
Onion: It is a spiked shield! So you can use it as a buckler or punch with it and spike somebody. No, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but then again you have to realize everybody on that cover is also wearing a mask and fighting blind for the “privilege” of going through Deathtrap Dungeon. That is how awesome that book (Trial of Champions) was.
Bret: Between two and fifteen bucks, depending on the auction.
Rob Brown: You are correct; that is the second cover for Citadel of Chaos. There was also an earlier, crappier one, which I almost did but I was getting bored.
June 24th, 2008 la 2:54 am
Nice Sherlock Holmes reference.
I can just imagine the people who didn’t get it scrolling up in confusion.
June 24th, 2008 la 11:55 am
Bret: No, the Awesomest Game Book Ever features Robot Commandos that TRANSFORM INTO ROBOT DINOSAURS. And battle Dinosaurs.
God I loved that book, even if the best robot in it was the Dragonfly, which isn’t even a dinosaur.
June 24th, 2008 la 12:28 pm
[…] Posted by strawberryluna . Jeez, i remember these from when i was at school __________________ […]
June 24th, 2008 la 12:33 pm
My fave was “Form 22.1(B) of Malevolence”. Awesome!
June 24th, 2008 la 12:56 pm
These are brilliant, but I hold a special flame for one of them in particular.
The Robot Commando one. Man I loved that book as a kid. It had it all, the cover promised awesomeness and right from the start it delievers. Dinosaur ranchers who use robots? Why is this one not a role playing game? Why?
June 24th, 2008 la 1:44 pm
…….
Wow.
There are no words.
June 24th, 2008 la 2:01 pm
I am laughing so hard I’m crying. Clash of the Genres is what got to me.
June 24th, 2008 la 3:09 pm
[…] More fun with goofy book jackets over at MightyGodKing […]
June 24th, 2008 la 8:32 pm
[…] Posted by strawberryluna Mightygodking.com
June 25th, 2008 la 3:29 am
I really, really liked these!
June 25th, 2008 la 4:50 am
How boring most are shopped titles. Not even that funny retards
June 25th, 2008 la 3:50 pm
Hilarious! Great stuff and I hope to see more!
FYI Links:
Fighting Fantasy official site:
http://www.fightingfantasygamebooks.com
Online FF Adventures:
http://www.ffproject.com
FF general discussion:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/fighting_fantasy_gamebooks/
Discussion about Titan, the FF world:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/titan_rebuilding/
FF Wiki:
http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
And, lastly, the original Farting Sluggoth can be found here:
http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Bloodbeast
gracias
Andy
June 26th, 2008 la 2:24 pm
Aw, the poor sad manticore.
June 26th, 2008 la 4:17 pm
Damn, I definitely had the manticore one when I was a kid. That cover just brings the memories flooding back.
June 26th, 2008 la 7:39 pm
I remember those books well… I read loads of them, and I still have a few.
June 26th, 2008 la 10:38 pm
I just got a whole bunch of weird looks from my co-workers. These were a mainstay of many winter nights as a kid and I just about wet myself laughing seeing them again like this. Great stuff
June 28th, 2008 la 2:31 am
[…] Mightygodking.com » Blog Archive » Bad habits. “Attack of the Impractical Horde” seems the winner in my book (tags: books rpgs Steve-Jackson amusing photoshop vintage) […]
June 28th, 2008 la 2:59 pm
I DO have all of them. The only book from the series I now don’t have is the Riddling Reaver, so as a fighting fantasy fan of long standing, here are the names of all of them al. yes, I’m shamelessly
1) #6 Deathtrap Dungeon
#24 Creature of Havoc
2) #9 Cavern of the Snow Witch
3) #7 Island of the Lizard King
4) #15 The Rings of Kether
6) #18 Rebel planet
7) #46 Tower of Destruction
9) #11 Talisman of Death
10) #2 of Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! Khare - Cityport of Traps
11) #21 Trial of Champions a sequel to Deathtrap Dungeon
12) #4 Starship Traveller.
13) #1 of Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! series The Shamutanti Hills.
14) #3 The Forest of Doom
15) #34 Daggers of darkness
16) #2 Citadel of chaos
17) #22 Robot Commando
18) #8 Scorpion swamp
19) #28 Phantoms of Fear
June 28th, 2008 la 9:11 pm
Funny, funny, funny! I was literally laughing out loud.
June 28th, 2008 la 10:10 pm
Unpublished: attack of the badly edited gamebook….
June 30th, 2008 la 9:41 pm
Those are really great! Thanks for sharing! I should get some of the originals for my 9 year old. I forgot how much fun they were.
July 1st, 2008 la 3:34 pm
you saved the best title for last - Benjamin Koshkin
July 1st, 2008 la 3:35 pm
Truly one of the best photoshop fantasy sites ever. - Michael Adkinson
July 1st, 2008 la 3:36 pm
Brilliant, even the zombie hordes laughed their heads off. they may spare you for amusement.
July 6th, 2008 la 12:11 pm
“The Loneliest Manticore” sounds like a Tom Holt novel.
July 23rd, 2008 la 12:55 pm
Ciekawa strona, trafilem tu przypadkowo, ale od dzis bede wpadal czesciej, pozdro
August 8th, 2008 la 7:30 pm
these are fantastic! great post
August 9th, 2008 la 11:18 pm
Dude, you made my night. I’m sending these off to my old D&D buddies. I’m still laughing just thinking about El-Roidicus !
August 14th, 2008 la 5:39 pm
The Penis of Vengeful good and the monster that was a vagina. I’m going to have to use those.
August 19th, 2008 la 1:20 am
I, for one, am greatly offended at the misrepresentation of my people, the farting sluggoths.
September 8th, 2008 la 2:02 pm
Ciekawa strona, bede ja odwiedzal czesciej, pozdro
September 20th, 2008 la 6:31 pm
I never played these (I stuck to the Goosebumps choose-your-own-adventure series, and cheated the hell out of them), but the many-eyed, bloated beastie on the first Farting Sluggoth cover looks oddly familiar. I think it was on the bookshelf in my French class. Were these books ever published in French?