Knights of the Dinner Table
In "Shadis" #2 (March/April 1990), Jolly Blackburn began to run a comic that
he had written called "Knights of the Dinner Table", which depicted the humorous interactions of a gaming group. When Blackburn published that first "Knights" strip, he thought that he was just filling a blank page but when he tried to replace it with more professional strips beginning with "Shadis" #6, there was an outcry; because of that outcry "Knights" soon returned. Blackburn also published "Knights of the Dinner Table" as a comic book, the first three issues of which appeared from his company Alderac Entertainment Games over the next year (1994-1995). As a result of diverging interests with his partners, Blackburn left Alderac in 1995, with "Shadis" #21 (December 1995) being his final issue; he kept the rights to "Knights of the Dinner Table". Blackburn formed a new company called KODT Enteractive Facktory, which was to publish the "Knights of the Dinner Table" comic monthly. While he was working on getting that new company together, Blackburn received a call from the editor of TSR's "Dragon" magazine, asking if the "Knights of the Dinner Table" strip was now available; although Blackburn originally planned to continue the strip in "Shadis", he accepted the offer and "Knights of the Dinner Table" thus began appearing beginning in "Dragon" #226 (February, 1996). While working on "Knights of the Dinner Table" #4 (1996), Blackburn concluded that he really did not want to go it alone, and David Kenzer and the staff of Kenzer & Company wanted to get Blackburn to join their company. In November 1996 when David Kenzer and others were visiting Blackburn over the course of a local con, and Blackburn decided that Kenzer had the sort of business sense and integrity that he was looking for in a partner. Starting with issue #5 (February 1997) "Knights of the Dinner Table" was the work of the "KoTD Development Team" which consisted of Jolly Blackburn, David Kenzer, Brian Jelke and Steve Johansson.
History of modern literature
The first modern Arabic compilation of "The Book of One Thousand and One Nights" was published in Cairo.
In the mid-19th century magazines publishing short stories and serials began to be popular. Some of them were more respectable, while others were referred to by the derogatory name of "penny dreadfuls". In 1844 Alexandre Dumas, père published a novel "The Three Musketeers" ("Les Trois Mousquetaires") and wrote "The Count of Monte Cristo" which was published in installments over the next two years. William Makepeace Thackeray published "The Luck of Barry Lyndon". In Britain Charles Dickens published several of his books in installments in magazines: "The Pickwick Papers", followed, in the next few years, by "Oliver Twist" (1837–1839), "Nicholas Nickleby" (1838–1839), "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1840–1841), "Barnaby Rudge" (1841), "A Christmas Carol" (1843) and "Martin Chuzzlewit" (1843–1844). In America a version of the penny dreadful became popularly known as a "dime novel". In the dime novels the reputations of gunfighters and other wild west heroes or villains were created or exaggerated. The western genre came into existence. James Fenimore Cooper began a series of stories featuring the characters Hawkeye and Chingachgook. These stories were not only ""westerns"" but also "historical novels", the earliest setting being approximately 100 years earlier than the year James Fenimore Cooper was writing it. The series was called the "Leatherstocking Tales" and comprised five volumes: "The Deerslayer" (1841), "The Last of the Mohicans" (1826), "The Pathfinder" (1840), "The Pioneers" (1823), "The Prairie" (1827).