Rise of the Dungeon Master

My love for Dungeons & Dragons starts during the pandemic. The beautyness of the stories told using the most famous roleplaying game of all time captured me and brought me in this wonderful world. As a huge fan of D&D, one of my greatest curiosities was around the birth of this tabletop experience, and while searching for a gift for a friend, I have found “Rise of the Dungeon Master”, a graphic novel about the theme. This comic is the adaptation of a famous Weird article about Gary Gynax made by David Kushner, with the drawings of Koren Shadmi, an isreali author. The style of this creation is not one of my favourites. I don't like the “adult-swim” inspiration Shadmi has, and I find the amount of content found by Kushner impossible to reduce to a single volume. Despite that, those are little critiques to a huge operation.
The entire production starts from the rise of D&D, his first ideas and the debt it has with the tabletop war games, coming to the last moments of the creator of this marvellous universe.
Rise of the Dungeon Master is an heartwarming tribute to a cultural movement more than to a simple game. Using he great technique of investigative journalism, Kushner and Shadmi perfectly portrayed all the figures who contributed to this success: Dave Arneson is the light-hearted dreamer searching for the funniest game; the videogame developers are personalities ready for tributes and new creations expanding the base; William Dear is a meticulous private detective ready to hunt down D&D and than chaning the opinion on the game. All these names are little encounters in the life of a hero. Gary Gynax is the tormented author the readers loves these days, but he shows so hard his geek lifestyle to represent those kids fighting for their passions. The atmospheres and the emotional impact of this incredible reportage have the power of memories and meloncholy, with a supported rhythm similar to one-shots and campaings made with friends.

STYLE: 3
SCREENPLAY: 4
RHYTHM: 5
REPORTAGE QUALITY: 3,5
CHARACTERS: 5
ATMOSPHERE: 4
EMOTIONAL IMPACT: 5

FINAL VERDICT: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Fun. I appreciated that the women were present in the graphics even if they apparently only come in child and barbie models.

I don't recall reading this in 2017, oops.
But I enjoyed it more this time around, amending the rating to 4 stars.

I thought it was interesting that he didn't care for Tolkien, but I'm not surprised that he enjoyed Conan the barbarian.

Also amused that I got a text from my D&D group as I was reading it.

D&D felt like a huge part of my childhood. I played with my dad, my ‘uncle' (long time family friend) would DM, and usually a cousin and best friend would join in too. It was hard for my mom to get a game that didn't have an end, but it got us to think critically, use math, and be artistic/creative.

Now I work with kids and I've heard from parents that D&D (or perhaps the more general concept of table top role playing games) has been used to help kids: face fears, work as a group, connect with other kids, think about consequences, gain confidence, make choices, and so on.