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French TSR ad with Mickey Mouse and Cthulhu
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lokiwookie
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Post Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 6:34 pm 
 

Yesterday, I was reading some French mags and I found this pretty cool advertising for D&D. I am not a specialist, but it looks funny to me because of the presence of Mickey Mouse wearing a dragon mask and a space ship crashed on the background :)

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Adventures in Austerion : a fantasy RPG, with boardgame mechanisms and modular battlemap. By Guillaume Tavernier and Géraud G.


Last edited by lokiwookie on Sun Dec 25, 2011 8:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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TheHistorian
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Post Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 7:45 pm 
 

The dragon eating Cthulhu is pretty weird too.

What year was this?


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lokiwookie
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Post Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 8:11 pm 
 

I was focused on Mickey... and I even noticed Cthulhu!!!!  8O :lol:

The magazine is Dragon radieux mag, Nov 1987.

And to translate what is written in French:
"The 1st RPG is always the best RPG ever"


Adventures in Austerion : a fantasy RPG, with boardgame mechanisms and modular battlemap. By Guillaume Tavernier and Géraud G.
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Post Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 2:33 am 
 

That ad is a really nice find.

What do you suppose is the source of the wierdness in this ad?

Did non-gamers create this ad...figuring that gamers pretty much like anything that's suitably surreal?

Or, is the dragon eating Cthulhu supposed to say that gamers should play D&D instead of Call of Cthulhu?  And are the crashed space ships supposed to indicate that D&D is better than space RPG games? (This idea would seem to be supported by the ad text.)


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Post Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 3:59 am 
 

FormCritic wrote:Or, is the dragon eating Cthulhu supposed to say that gamers should play D&D instead of Call of Cthulhu?  And are the crashed space ships supposed to indicate that D&D is better than space RPG games? (This idea would seem to be supported by the ad text.)


i'd say so! really great finding!

the ad is extremely sophisticated... if i were sixteen and read that mag, i wouldnt probably understood the ref to chaosium's CoC, the other generic sci-fi games and comics! (in the '80s mickey mouse was really selling a lot in italy!).

ciaooo


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le Rahib
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Post Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 4:52 am 
 

Very nice find !

I first think that it was from TSR UK, but it seems that François Marcela-Froideval and Herny Bismuth have worked together around 1988. Then a year later, FMF left Transecom (from FMF's wiki article).
  

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Post Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 9:45 am 
 

We have a discussion on a French forums about this.
It seems that this ad was commissionned by Transecom (which translated and distributed D&D/AD&D in France) to highlight the fact that D&D is the best seller RPG:
- the dragon would be Rêve de Dragon (the best French RPG ever :))
- the spaceship could represent Empire Galactique (a French Space Op game) but could represent all futuristic RPGs as well
- the burning car on the left: post-apocalyptic games as Bitume (a French post-apo RPG) or Car Wars
- Cthulhu: ...
- Mickey: perhaps Toons, but not sure at all

For those can be read French
http://www.pandapirate.net/casus/viewto ... &start=435


Adventures in Austerion : a fantasy RPG, with boardgame mechanisms and modular battlemap. By Guillaume Tavernier and Géraud G.
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Post Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 1:13 pm 
 

Sweet... :)
lokiwookie wrote:- Mickey: perhaps Toons, but not sure at all

Unfortunately probably a bit late for an oblique reference to Games Workshop (original logo). ;)


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Post Posted: Mon Dec 26, 2011 1:39 pm 
 

The first step of the Mickey (or cult initiate), is to don the dragon mask. Next, all ties to the outside world are abandoned (the burning vehicles), & bank accounts turned over to le Donjon Master. Finally one realizes the full glory of dragonhood, with the submission of hot pink she-dragons, & the privilege of eating the flesh of the god. Or defecating it or copulating with it, all one & the same to the enlightened.
  
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