A beginning is a very delicate time…
So intones Princess Irulan (played by Virginia Madsen) at the opening David Lynch’s 1984 adaption of Dune, and it was certainly no less true for the vision of Jones, Gascoigne, and Priestley. This was exciting new ground. Games Workshop were hardly the only game publisher looking to break into a new market with the release of novels based on their properties; Dungeons & Dragons had been doing it for years.
But it’s hard to think of a more delicate time for Games Workshop’s publishing interests than 1997-98. After all, novels were one thing, but a dedicated game-company literary magazine was quite another. Even Dragon Magazine, the venerable organ for TSR, had pulled back on the fictional content- a staple since the magazine’s launch in 1975- starting in the 90’s.
Even as Inferno! was being introduced to the world, plans were already underway for a companion publication- the comic magazine Warhammer Monthly- which would debut in 1998.
Today we’ll be looking at the first half of 1998 for Inferno!, a year which saw the introduction of one of the Black Library’s most beloved series. A delicate time, yes, but for Games Workshop and the editors of the Black Library, it was a time of triumph as well.
ISSUE #4: JANUARY 1998
The fourth issue of Inferno! represented something of a minor victory for editor Andy Jones, and showed the effort Games Workshop was putting into their fledgling publication.
In October of 1997, a growing Games Workshop had relocated its offices to Nottingham. “Here we sit amongst boxes and crates, the detritus of a ruined office,” noted Jones is the issues editorial lead-in. “The posters are all down off the walls and the Blu-Tac marks step out regular squares of white against the dim grey walls.”
All the same, Jones was plenty of cause for enthusiasm about the new digs. “At the new GW headquarters, we even have a bar and a social club!”
Under these conditions a delay would have been understandable, but the Black Library team overdelivered instead. The January 1998 issue was instead released early in time for Christmas, with an extra sixteen pages of content. Job well done!
Kev Walker was back for the cover of the “hefty Xmas issue,” with Boar Boss showcasing a familiar sense of style and proportion we’d see again just a few years later in 2002’s Onslaught set for Magic: The Gathering.Â
As with any other Christmas present, the real gift was inside with the debut of Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Gaunt’s Ghosts.
Ghostmaker, by Dan Abnett
In creating Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only, Abnett was inspired by a series of historical fiction novels by Bernard Cornwell (notably adapted into television in 1993 with Sean Bean in the titular role), featuring an English soldier and his men during the Napoleonic Wars.
“I wanted to capture the spirit of the Sharpe books,” noted Abnett in an interview, “which is to say a brave and capable leader with a group of men who will often find themselves doing really unlikeable missions because they’re essentially disposable, and to have that sort of feeling about it.”1
Abnett had started working on comic strips for Games Workshop and was invited to try his hand at prose.
“I think the first story I wrote was a Gilead story, which was then fixed up into the first Gilead novel, and then I wanted to do a 40k story, and was being encouraged to do that because it was their big seller at the time.
“I asked if I could write an Imperial Guard story, as it would be about regular people and I could relate to that, and understand it. I thought that would be a really good way for me to get the hang of writing 40k.”
Ghostmaker is a proper origin story, relating the occurrence of Gaunt’s assignment to the world of Tanith- and it’s fall to the forces of Chaos.
“Our world died. Commissar Gaunt,’ said Corbec, the title bringing Gaunt’s head up sharp. We saw it flame out from the windows of our transports. ‘You should have let us stand and fight. We would have died for Tanith.’
You still can, just somewhere else.’ Gaunt got to his feet. ‘You’re not men of Tanith anymore. You weren’t when you were camped out on the Founding Fields. You’re Imperial Guard, servants of the Emperor first and nothing else second.
Gaunt leads the newly-formed regiment in its first blooding on the Chaos-infested world of Blackshard as the story concludes.
As a character, Ibram Gaunt and his Ghosts have been a massive success. Abnett has penned an incredible fifteen novels with them, not to mention short story anthologies, spin-off novels, and background books.
Ghostmaker is followed by a two-page, pin-up style portrait of the characters by Logan Lubera and Craig Yeung. We looked at Lubera in-depth in our last issue, but Yeung is a fresh name here. Like Lubera, a Canadian artist working in comics, and Yeung’s inking resume is impressive with titles for DC, Image, and- where he currently plies his trade- Marvel. He’s inked the X-Men, Deadpool, Batman, and many more.
A Good Day to Die, by Bill Kaplan (script), art by Jeff Rebner, Mark Irwin, and Dan Nakrosis
The issue’s first comic story, Sgt. Fortius leads a breaching torpedo full of Ultramarines looking to clear Genestealers out of a space hulk. A graduate of Harvard, scriptwriter Kaplan had been an editor at DC in the early 90’s before jumping to the insurgent Image Comics in 1993. There amongst other duties he oversaw product licensing for the WildStorm properties like Gen13 and WildC.A.T.s.
Illustrator Jeff Rebner also worked at WildStorm at this time, and would eventually move to Marvel. Later in his career Rebner would make the jump to animation, working on properties like King of the Hill and American Dad. Irwin, another WildStorm alum, has also served as art director for Heavy Metal Magazine and Upper Deck, as well as working for Marvel, DC, and more.
Finally, lettering was done by Dan Nakrosis (billed as “Dan Nekrosis”). Nakrosis too had worked at WildStorm, as well as DC, Marvel, Archie, and Walt Disney. A graphic designer, his commercial portfolio included work for Trader Joe’s. He passed away suddenly in 2020, at the age of 57.
Orlock vs Malcadon, by Karl Kopinski
This one-page Necromunda comic depicts a Malcadon Spyrer ambushing an Orlock ganger, not so much telling a story on its own but instead in service of Rites of Passage, the following short story.
If anyone was destined to illustrated for Games Workshop it was Kopinski, a native of Nottingham who started illustrating professionally in 1997. In addition to loads of work for Games Workshop, Kopinski has illustrated nearly 200 cards for Magic: the Gathering, including prestige Planeswalker illustrations for Garruk and Liliana Vess.
Rites of Passage, by Gordon Rennie
We examined Rennie in the previous installment, with his writing of the Blood Angels serial Bloodquest. In this Necromunda short, five Orlock gangers brave the lowest depths of the Hive as part of a coming-of-age ritual.
The stakes couldn’t be higher as they quickly realize they’re being stalked, and may not make it back out at all. An interesting analysis by Track of Words noted that this story seemed less a tonal fit with Necromunda and more in line with 40K, owing to its “darker and harder” nature.
Cardinal Viriniul, art by Kev Walker, poem by Andy Jones
With Walker’s contribution being attributed as “computer art,” this clearly is a creature of its time. It’s still unmistakably Walker art in this profile of a High Lord of the Ecclesiarchy. Jones’s poem is said to be from the Book of Visions, a heretical text penned by the noble ruler of the Thuban system before giving himself over to Tzeentch.
Into the Maelstrom, by Chris Pramas
The second of Chris Pramas’s three short stories for the Black Library, with the first (The Black Pearl) having appeared in Issue #2. Pramas had met Marc Gascoigne (one of the co-founders of the Black Library in 1997) when the two shared a booth for Hogshead Publishing at GenCon and connected straight away.2
“When Inferno was starting up,” Pramas told Track of Words, “you just pitched story ideas to Black Library’s founders, Marc Gascoigne and Andy Jones. You could propose just about anything…” In this story, he’d pitched a White Scars tale of intrigue as they battle against the Red Corsairs.
Obvious Tactics Episode Four, by David Pugh
Besieged by a Plague Daemon and the Death Guard, the Blood Angels receive more help from an unexpected source.
Other 40K Content
David Pugh, the artist behind the Obvious Tactics comic, contributed a visual profile of the warship Ultimate Vengeance.
ISSUE #5: MARCH 1998
It was back-to-back Fantasy covers for 1998 with Morathi – The Hag Sorceress by Mark Gibbons. Gibbons’ tenure at Games Workshop was the result of three years’ worth of effort. He’d dropped out of art school after just two weeks, after his instructor directed the class to paint with unconventional media (a nice way of saying ‘gravy and custard’3).Â
He found work on a freelance basis, but had set his sights on Games Workshop. For the next year and a half he continued to send them Warhammer-inspired art, which finally earned him some commissioned pieces for the company. Another year-and-a-half later they brought him aboard full-time. Once again, persistence pays off!
Unthinking Justice, by Andras Millward
Growing up in Northwestern Wales, Millward had noted a lack of science-fiction stories in Welsh so he took it upon himself to start writing some of his own. His novels included Prosiect Nofa and Un Cythraul yn Ormod, and he chose to write some of his work specifically for those who were learning Welsh. In addition to writing, he was also a musician and martial arts instructor.
In Unthinking Justice, Millward’s sole Black Library credit, an Inquisitor and some Black Consuls play a deadly game of cat and mouse against Astartes of the Alpha Legion.
Millward sadly passed away in 2016 at the age of 50.4
Obvious Tactics Episode Five, by David Pugh
The fight continues against the Death Guard. While these stories are certainly drawn with a lot of care and detail, the two-page length restricts them to very little development at a single sitting.
Last Chance, by Gav Thorpe
While Issue #5 marked the 40K debut of longtime stalwart Gav Thorpe, it wasn’t his first piece in the magazine. That honor went to Birth of a Legend, a story about Sigmar that appeared in Issue #2, and he also had another piece appear in Issue #3 (The Faithful Servant).
Like Abnett, Thorpe is a towering figure in Black Library history, author of nearly fifty novels and novellas and twice again that number of short stories. He’d gotten his foot in the door at Games Workshop as an assistant game developer in 1993, at the young age of nineteen. A fan of Blood Bowl, he’d written some rules for the game (released in 1986) and passed them along to Jervis Johnson, the game’s creator, at that year’s Games Day5.
Last Chance marks the introduction of a squad that would be known as the Last Chancers, Imperial Guardsmen in a penal legion who get sent on ever-more-suicidal missions.
As Thorpe relates6, he’d been asked to come up with some characters for inclusion in the Second Edition release of the Codex for Imperial Guard (published in 1995). A pastiche of Flashman7, Sven Hassel, Predator, and The Dirty Dozen, the Chancers were intended to show a gritter side of the Guard than readers had seen in Gaunt’s Ghosts.
This first story used a flashback-style conceit Thorpe would jettison afterwards, as he put it “backstory masquerading as story masquerading as backstory.” He’d considered making this approach the brand-standard for his Last Chancers, but abandoned the “two stories for one” approach as it was too much hassle.
Here we are introduced to Lieutenant Kage, a Last Chancer who, separated from his unit is racing through a deadly no-man’s land where enemy snipers abound. He links up with a platoon of green Mordian Iron Guardsmen, relaying to them the tale of how he came to be part of the Last Chance unit.
This would hardly be the last we’d see of these characters, with their debut novel 13th Legion just two years away.
Chimera Cutaway, by Logan Lubera and Craig Yeung
The Lubera/Yeung team were back at it for issue five, this time showing the cross-section of a Chimera armored personnel carrier in this one-page illustration to end out the issue.
ISSUE #6: MAY 1998
Kev Walker was back, this time with a cover for the 40,000 side of things with Genestealer. While not officially so, the sixth issue of Inferno! stuck close to a Necromunda theme, at least for the 40K half. Two of the issue’s three stories were in that setting, with the remaining tale being a new installment of Gaunt’s Ghosts.
A World Above, by Alex Hammond
This was Alex’s third story for Inferno!, and his second set in Necromunda after Issue #1’s The Demon Bottle. Here a Spyrer hunt into the underhive runs into unexpected trouble when it comes across the ferocious Knife Edge Liz.
Like The Demon Bottle, A World Above would be reprinted in 2000 as part of the Status: Deadzone Necromunda omnibus. It wouldn’t be the last we’d see of Knife Edge Liz, either.
Wayne England provided the story’s accompanying sidebar title illustration.
Gaunt’s Ghosts: A Blooding, by Dan Abnett
The second installment of the Gaunt’s Ghosts finds them in a major engagement on Voltemand fighting against the forces of Chaos. This story was notable for the introduction of the Ghost Meryn Flyn as well as General Noches Sturm. Sturm underpinned the rivalry between the Ghosts and his Volpone Bluebloods that would play a prominent role in future Ghost story arcs.
Obvious Tactics Episode Six, by David Pugh
No fighting this time, the Blood Angels link up with a Callidus Assassin operative who has been on-world working to assassinate the planet’s traitorous leadership. At last, we get some exposition here to put the comic’s narrative direction in proper focus as Pugh makes full use of the four pages allotted him.
As it turns out, the nine planetary leaders had pledged themselves to Nurgle, and converted the planet’s population to the Grandfather’s worship. Anticipating retaliatory action by the Imperium, they set a trap that could tear a rend in the fabric of reality and create a new Eye of Terror.
Sergeant Fortius, by Jeff Rebner
Here Rebner gives us a two-page centerfold-style portrait of Sgt. Fortius of the Ultramarines, hero of the comic A Good Day to Die that we saw in Issue #4.
A Day of Thirst, by Tully R. Summers
In today’s piece we’ve looked at two titans of the Black Library whose contributions are many across the span of years. For others, their intersection with telling Warhammer stories might be quite brief, but nevertheless have fascinating careers in their own right.
Take, for instance, Ben Chessell. Chessell’s Warhammer Fantasy story Hatred was in Issue #2 of Inferno!, the first of ultimately three. Later, he’d make the jump into filmmaking and go on to direct episodes of Dr. Who.
Similarly, Tully Summers would have two short stories published in 1998 (starting with this one) and then exit stage left. Art moreso than writing was his driving passion, compelling him to break in as an intern at the age of sixteen.8
From here, though, he’d go on to a fascinating career as a concept artist/creature designer working on a number of major studio franchises like Avatar, Men in Black, Star Trek, Batman, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and more.
For A Day of Thirst we’re back to Necromunda to see what happens when a High Priestess of the Blood Coven calls in a debt that the gangers aren’t able to pay.
In Our Next Installment
We have a lot of ground still to cover in these early days of the Black Library, and next time we’ll be looking not only at the other three issues of Inferno! but also at the launch of its sister publication, the comic zine Warhammer Monthly!
Footnotes
- Forgotten Texts: Dan Abnett Talks Ghostmaker – Track of Words
- Forgotten Texts: Chris Pramas Talks The Black Pearl – Track of Words
- “I bet Frank Frazetta never had to do this!” Gibbons recounted his indignation with the custard-and-gravy exercise in a Reddit AMA.
- Yr awdur, Andras Millward, wedi marw yn 50 oed – Golwg360
- Games Day is an annual convention put on by Games Workshop, with the first one held in 1975.
- Track of Words continuing to do the Emperor’s work: Gav Thorpe Talks Twenty Years of Black Library – Part One – Track of Words
- Flashman’s valor-through-cowardice would more directly form the foundation of another beloved Black Library character, Sandy Mitchell’s Commissar Ciaphas Cain. We covered this connection in one of our Lore Explainer articles just last year if you’d like to learn more!
- He talks a little about this in an interesting interview he gave about being a creature designer, which just seems like an awesome thing to do for a living. Seriously, check these out.
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