Dragon Magazine 92, from December, 1984. The cover is by our old friend Denis “Chess Board” Beauvais and is called “Bridge of Sorrows.” Lots of things I like in the details – the black outlines that give stuff a cartoonish feel, the way the dragon’s breath is igniting like an aerosol flame thrower, the starburst from the lighting bolt impact, the way I keep forgetting the knight is a centaur. A little less thrilled with the half naked lady, but she kind of gives the proceedings a Fire & Ice vibe, which, well, is of its time.

Inside, not a ton that stands out in particular. Ed Greenwood’s got two pieces – “The Ecology of the Ettin,” which is OK, and the third part of his spellbook related series, “Pages from the Mages” which is pretty cool. Greenwood was all over the magazine at this point in time.

There’s also a slightly befuddled review of Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose. That’s a little weird, because I picked this issue pretty much at random, but I have been thinking a lot about Name of the Rose because I am watching the John Turturo series at the moment. Weird how the universe works sometimes.