Before Grimjack, before Starslayer, Timothy Truman worked for TSR on a variety of RPG-related projects, including "Daral of Gondwane" by the great Gardner Fox, surely one of his last stories. Other stories include "Braskan Gambit" and "Starmerchant," plus a two pin-up "portfolio" of character designs. Rarely has a new talent burst upon the scene so fully developed.
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I reserve the right, from time-to-time, to supplement "Tales by Timothy Truman" with "Covers by Timothy Truman."
Here is Jezebel Jade by Timothy Truman.
For Jezebel's granddaughter, Jasmine, see Dynamite's Jonny Quest #3 released this week.
DRAGON CHIANG:
Dragon Chiang is a Zen-Western-Trucker-Post-Apocalyptic-Highway-Action hero. The series was originally produced in five installments of 8-12 pages each serialized in European anthology magazines and eventually collected in a single 44-page volume by Eclipse Comics. My copy is autographed by Timothy Bradstreet, Tim Truman's best ever inker for my money. I got the autograph on July 11, 1991 (according the the flyer bagged with the comic). I was working part-time at the shop that hosted the signing, so I got to hang out with him all afternoon. He had a bunch of goth-vampire illustrations in his portfolio at the time, when vampires were just on the cusp of becoming overexposed. I would have liked to buy one, but I couldn't afford one on my then-current salary. He later released a retail portfolio of all of them, and I was more satisfied with that, I think, than I would have been with a single piece of original art. He was also working on a pre-adamantium Wolverine story at the time, which eventually saw print in Marvel Comics Presents. I remember I was very much into Crying Freeman at the time, and I ontroduced Bradstreet to the art of Ryoichi Ikegami.
HAWKWORLD:
This series was covered quite thoroughly in the "Hawkmen" discussion. Suffice it to say (for my own part) that I had a problem with it in 1989 but I no longer do now.
THE SPIDER: MASTER OF MEN:
Timothy Truman's version of The Spider is based (loosely, I assume) on the pulp and serial character of the '30s and '40s. Full disclosure: I am not familiar with either medium's version, nor have I previously read the comic book. All I know about The Spider is what I have read in The Steranko History of Comics, Vol. 1. I bought Truman's first "Spider" series but didn't read it for whatever reason (probably, oddly, because I didn't think it was "faithful" enough to the original version which, as I said, I have not read or seen). Because I didn't read the first series, I didn't buy the second series at first (although I later purchased it at a quarter sale). Both series are set in "the 1990s... according the the 1930s" (very much like the Gotham city of Batman: The Animated Series). In this reality, Hitler was overthrown in 1935. He still lives in 1990 and is planning a comeback. Volume two is Reign of the Vampire King, based on the 1935 pulp Death Reigh of the Vampire King.
DEAD IN THE WEST:
I'm not going to spend too much time on this one because Tim Truman only did the covers, but it's seasonal, so what the hell?
Them's some great covers, ain't they?
JONAH HEX:
Starting in 1993, Timothy Truman did a series of three Jonah Hex limited series for DC's Vertigo imprint with Joe R. Lansdale, Two-Gun Mojo, Riders of the Worm and Such, and Shadows West. I have been considering hosting a discussion of these series for quite some time now, but I can't decide whether to put them in a "Weird Western" discussion or a more comprehensive "Jonah Hex" one.
I have dropped my plans for either a "Weird Western" or a "Jonah Hex" discussion and decided to post my thoughts on the Truman/Lansdale series here instead. Genre comics never appealed to me to any great extent, and apart from his appearances in JLA #159-160 plus a few crossover "event" series, I had never read a Jonah Hex story before Two-Gun Mojo. I enjoyed it and Riders of the Worm and Such, but somehow I comnpletely missed Shadows West. When I found out about it, years later, a couldn't find any copies. In 2014 all three limited series were collected in a tpb, but somehow I missed that, too. A couple of years later, I bought it a a clearance sale ($2, I think) at my LCS. These series are all great fun, with no redeeming social value whatsoever.
THE LONE RANGER & TONTO:
I will spend more time on this series if/when I finally get around to doing that "Weird Western" topic, but right now I'm in the midst of a more "realistic" Lone Ranger discussion, and I don't want to throw Mexican (Aztec) mummies and whatnot into the mix. For now, here are the covers. Suffice it to say that I'm not wild about Lansdale's story, but I really dig Truman's art.
This one is pretty much as I remember it, except the "Aztec mummy" is actually an alien and "Ronald Reagan" guest stars as the governor of Texas. It's a great complement to Lansdale and Truman's "weird west" version of Jonah Hex, but it's not for Lone Ranger purists. Having said that, though, I would dearly love to see a "serious" treatment of LR&T by Lansdale and Truman. "Dime novels" have made the Lone Ranger a celebrity, but they don't present an entirely true image of who the Masked Man is, and certainly not of who Tonto is. Egos come into play. The Lone Ranger has begun to believe, at lest on some level, that is the hero the dime novels portray him to be, and that Tonto, his partner and a talented, dedicated man in his own right, is subserviant to him. Tonto doesn't go for this slant on things, and it causes a certain amount of friction between them until a profound revelation in their past is revealed and a break-up is inevitable.
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