Dungeons & Dragons Cutter #1 (2013) cover a

Ain’t many fantasy comic series out there, not even if you had movie blockbusters behind you like LOTR, but IDW is trying again with the never-say-die D&D Forgotten Realm universe. Not only that, they brought in New York Times fantasy best seller, R.A. Salvatore, to script it…and here I thought my perusal of the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction bimonthly was the best I could get (and its emphasis seems to be on Sci-Fi, anyway). R.A. keeps it simple, with a cold focus on 4 characters while giving no sense of the larger world. If you know fantasy you know the standby: a kingship to be had, a struggle to take the throne. Art is done well, on the cartoony side, and R.A. sets himself up to explore more in later issues, though with heavy emphasis here on plot over deep characterization--my only complaint. Still, it’s a workable comic formula, and I’m willing to see it play out.