Moorcock, Art & Comics PART I

Simon Perrins joins me in Derry and Toms to discuss Moorcock, art, comics, Tolkien, TV adaptations, role-playing games, tortured poet musicians we adored in our youths and generally go totally fugazi.

Simon is the man behind our banner art, logo, Gerard Arthur Connelly portraits and pretty much our entire visual identity. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store.

Listen to BITR Breakfast in the Ruins Radio on Radio Garden.

Imagery and stuff we discuss along the way:

White Dwarf #57

Thrud and Eric of Boneymaloney – Carl Critchlow

Fighting Fantasy Book 9 – Caverns of the Snow Witch

Imagine Magazine January 1985 – Cover by Rodney Matthews

The Nomad of Time – Grafton Edition – Cover by Melvyn

The Tolkien Bestiary – David Day – Illustration of The Fall of Numenor by Ian Miller

More Tolkien Bestiary – elves by Victor Ambrus

Andy’s Fave Elric cover – Jack Gaughan

Barry Windsor-Smith’s Elric vs Conan

Simon’s fave Elric – Sailor on the Seas of Fate by Michael Whelan

Elric by Lawrence Cutting

Blue Steel

Science Fantasy #47

Stormbringer 2e by GW – Rob Halford Elric

James Cawthorn’s Stormbringer by Jayde Design

Death of Elric prelim sketch by Cawthorn

Cawthorn’s History of the Runestaff

P Craig Russell on The Dreaming City

Julien Tello on The Dreaming City for the Julian Blondel adaptations

Mike Mignola’s Corum

MM on The Beatles

Moorcock and Mike Harrison (Robert Crumb style)

Homemade MERP Screens

The Swords of Heaven the Flowers of Hell by Howard Chaykin

The Mad God’s Amulet by Bob Haberfield

Swords of Corum by Mark Salwowski

The Chronicles of Castle Brass by Mark Salwowski

Breakfast in the Ruins – Random House – artist unknown

Fantasy Masterworks History of the Runestaff by Richard Carr

Fugazi by Mark Wilkinson

Moorcock and RPGs Part V – Stormbringer Redux!

Moorcock & RPGs V – Stormbringer Redux!

Ted AKA @tedankhamen joins me in Derry and Toms for the second leaf of our Summer diptych musing on Moorcock, gaming and whatever else enters our eyeline.

Some choice cuts in here including miniature bashing, Tolkien (again), a shock Strongbow appreciation story, chaosium-isms… but mostly some good, chewy thinking on modelling Moorcockian worlds and cosmology. I also bang my BoL drum again.

Be sure to have a good delve around Ted’s blog Tomb of Tedankhamen.

Ted also mentioned Lasers and Feelings by John Harper. Lots more good stuff on his itch.io

You can check out the Tentacled Whisperer of Secrets Discord by making an offering to… THE TENTACLED WHISPERER… or just check out his profile. He’s pretty lax on gatekeeping for an ancient deity of unspeakable power.

Steve’s Stormbringer game recaps are on his blog.

Check out and subscribe to Jim Kirkland’s newsletter and read his spoiler-free review of The Citadel of Forgotten Myths.

Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store. Listen to BITR Breakfast in the Ruins Radio on Radio Garden.

Moorcock and RPGs Part Four – Sandboxing the Multiverse

We’re back in Derry and Toms to talk gaming again, this time with CLARKY THE CRUEL.

Dave gets shocked by the crap number of TV channels we had in the UK as kids, Clarky tells us about his sandboxing adventures beyond the ultraworld, and I get inspired. And we digress. Obviously.

You can find Clarky’s Dissecting Worlds podcast archive and all of his game logs on his blog (including entries by yours truly describing the action from the perspective of post-apocalypse fiction powerhouse Roy Saveloy).

Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store.

Listen to BITR Breakfast in the Ruins Radio on Radio Garden.

We also mention Jason’s podcast, the Nerd’s RPG Variety Cast.

Check out Miles’s new venture, the Casual Trek Podcast.

Moorcock and RPGs Part Two – STORMHACK!

We’re back in Derry and Toms and returning to Moorcock’s influence and presence in RPGs in the company of Ralph Lovegrove, host of the Fictoplasm Podcast and designer of STORMHACK!

We talk Moorcock (obviously), gaming, podcasting and other bits n bobs, as well as Ralph’s own take on the Moorcockian role-playing game… STORMHACK!

We also mention Appendix N and other recommended reading lasts from RPGs such as RuneQuest.

Breakfast in the Ruins is hosted on Podbean and available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, iHeart Radio, Owltail, Podparadise, TuneIn, Overcast, Amazon Music and most other podcast clients. If we’re not on your favourite let us know and we’ll sort it.

Check out our Patreon for exclusive updates and content.

Our banner art and logo is by Simon Perrins. Follow him on Twitter and check out his store.

Moorcock RPGs and the Journal of Gerard Arthur Connelly

Moorcock RPGs and the Journal of Gerard Arthur Connelly

Phil, Loz and I celebrate an all too brief interlude in lockdown life to drink weird porters and muse upon Moorcock’s treatment at the hands of tabletop role-playing games.

Phil taunts us with her syrupy beer avoidance skills, two-man canoes get far too many mentions and Loz gatekeeps Moorcock RPG play (the rotter).

Also, The Journal of Gerard Arthur Connelly debuts with chapter one. There are 5 more to come (and if I don’t get pelted with rottent tomatoes I may write more).

The Journal of Gerard Arthur Connelly – Audio Version (Work in Progress)

I’ve been thinking about how to vary the content on the show and one of the ideas generated is to do an ‘audio book’ version of an old write-up of one of Loz’s Moorcock themed games from a few years years ago.

Gerard Arthur Connelly is a character I created over 25 years ago (perhaps more) and have returned to regularly over the years. Being lazy and just playing variations of the same bod seems suitably Moorcockian.

I’ve shared some of the progress to date with patrons and, as nobody has told me it’s shit, I’ve done some more AND added some music. It’s still a work in progress and the atmosphere music is just to plug a gap until I get around to doing something original for it (probably with some help from Neil and Johnny Royale). I also realised when I got to the last chapter it was never finished so I haven’t recorded that yet. Will have to have a big splurge on the writing front if I decide to continue with it.

Once the individual chapters have had some more attention they’ll probably end up being dropped at the end of regular shows as an episodic deal or, if they don’t really end up working they’ll just stay on the Patreon site as oddities for our glorious patrons.

July is looking like a busier month (at last), I should have The Eternal Champ ep 2 uploaded this week, I’m catching up with Natasha a week tomorrow to round off The Jewel in the Skull and later this month Loz and I will embark upon our tour of the Corum books.

In other news the Gollancz Collection is finally almost complete. They may lack inspiring covers but they are definitive texts and are excellent reading copies. Sadly a lot of my older 60s, 70s and 80s editions are getting a bit fragile.

Finally for today, I just concluded play on Dirk the Dice’s terrific three-part Hawkmoon RPG scenario Casa De Mercurio. It was a ton of fun with a great plot, tons of Moorcockian flavour and a great group of players.

Incidentally, Dirk’s latest episode of The Grognard Files is all about the Hawkmoon Role-Playing Game and other associated bits and bobs. It’s required listening as always. Even if you’re not a gamer Dirk and Blythy’s observations on the Hawkmoon series of novels and the games they inspired are as astute, warm and informative as ever. Check it out here.