A semi-regular column about great comics you probably don’t know about. These could be Indie comics, comics with small print runs, or foreign comics. As reader and lover of comics for over 35 years, I’ve accumulated a huge collection. And this collection runs deep with the weird and the esoteric.

Timothy Truman has been making great comics for a long time now. Back in the early 80’s, Truman began his professional career as an illustrator for TSR, the Dungeons & Dragons people. His style was perfectly suited for creating detailed characters and the fully-realized worlds they could inhabit.

One of my favorite things that he illustrated is this ENDLESS QUEST paperback. You might have fond memories of this book from your childhood. I know I do.

Although the cover is not by Truman, there are more than a dozen full-page illustrations inside by him.

When I was kid, I read a ton of books like this, both the Endless Quest and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books.

The Endless Quest books were easily the better of the two, thanks in no small part to the first-rate illustrations.

For fun, I’ve been reading this book with my 8-year-old son. It’s even better than I remember and Russell is enjoying it as much as I am.

In 1991, Truman revisited his RPG days for a RIFTS book called Wormwood.

Notice that the cover says, “Created by Timothy Truman and Flint Henry”. Gotta love that!

While I did play some D&D back in the day, I never played RIFTS and I don’t really have any idea what it’s all about. Thankfully, trying to play the game was not my intention when buying this.

Check it out!

It includes a comic written and drawn by Tim Truman and Flint Henry!

This is pretty much a jam story, where Truman and Henry are trading off on art duties, inking each other as well as doing solo pages.

The story is a fun mix of Robert Howard’s style with maybe a bit of GRIMJACK thrown in.

These are the Truman-centric pages, but Flint Henry is a talent in his own right. And it’s a lot of fun to see these guys play around with each other’s artwork.

There are also a few illustrations by Truman in the gaming portion of the book.

This character reminds me of Garth Ennis’s BLOODY MARY.

I have so much admiration and respect for Timothy Truman’s work. I’m sure that this won’t be the last time he’s featured here in this column.

But next time on The Comic Exotic; sad people having sad sex! You’ve been warned!

See ya’ next time, Space Cowboy!

Question, comments, insults? Send ‘em to dubcomicsjon@gmail.com

Jon Vinson is the writer of the graphic novel Edge of the Unknown and recently launched the new comics series Nightingale and the Finch. He is the Founder & Publisher of DUB Comics.