Today’s article will mark the sad passing of the great John Blanche, whose artistic vision played a key part in building the hobby as it stands today. What I want to celebrate in particular is a small part of John’s legacy that might not be on your radar, but is well worth a look: his contributions to Fighting Fantasy, and in particular Steve Jackson’s Sorcery! series.
The Background
There are two Steve Jacksons in wargaming: British Steve who (along with Ian Livingston) co-founded Games Workshop as well as the Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks, and American Steve who published Car Wars and Munchkin. It’s the former Steve who worked closely with John Blanche in the early days of GW, and when Steve and Ian launched the immensely successful FF books, they had to push pretty hard for their publisher to commission the artistic talent they needed to bring these worlds to life:
We argued that rather than upsetting children, the art we were proposing promised them excitement, danger and adventure in amazing fantasy worlds. To their great credit, Puffin conceded and agreed to let us commission the artists.
~ Sir Ian Livingston, “Magic Realms” (2024)
So for that reason they commissioned heavyweights of Warhammer art including John Blanche, Iain McCaig, Russ Nicholson and Les Edwards to make beautiful, engaging art for Fighting Fantasy. And it was amazing.
Sorcery!
FF sold by the truck load and made everybody involved a hell of a lot of money. The prose was brutal, the difficulty curve was cataclysmic and the art was exceptional. Those lime-green spines were iconic to British kids of the 90s, and for a long while it had bigger cut-through into popular culture than Warhammer itself. They were never widely distributed in the USA (where CYOA and Lone Wolf were king), but everybody in the UK knew about these books. Everybody.
As Fighting Fantasy was on its way up, Steve Jackson launched into a passion project: the Sorcery! series. These were set within FF canon and aimed at an older audience, focusing on magic over combat with a bespoke spellcasting system. The first print run came with a separate spellbook and you were encouraged to actually learn the contents, and have them ready to cast at your fingertips.
The whole 4-book series was illustrated inside and out by John Blanche and it’s exceptional. Every image showcases John’s trademark drawing style, evoking medieval and even prehistoric art and rewarding repeat viewing and exploration.
For me and many others, it’s a peak moment in wargaming, fantasy art and 1980s British creative culture.
Availability
Beware the reprints. Tracking down and enjoying Sorcery! is a great way to enjoy John’s work, but Scholastic reissued a bunch of FF books (including all four volumes of Sorcery!) in 2018 and while they’re fine for gaming, they don’t have the original art. Most fans consider the replacement art to be pretty crude by comparison. There was an earlier set of reprints by Wizard in 2003 that lack the original cover art, but these do have John Blanche’s interior art, so they are a good compromise if you can’t find the originals in reasonable condition.
In fact there’s a great Wiki covering the various print runs, which you can use to identify which Fighting Fantasy books have John Blanche’s artwork inside:
The originals are usually available on eBay, going for roughly $50 each, but don’t expect them to be pristine. These were bought mainly as practical, hands-on gaming books back in their day, which was 40 years ago now, so most of what you find will be beaters.
One other option to consider is Magic Realms: The Art of Fighting Fantasy. This celebration of the whole movement covers lots of John’s works alongside other plenty of other classics:
So that’s well worth a look if you are interested in classic fantasy art. As for me, I don’t actually own a full set of the original Sorcery! books yet, so maybe it’s time I went and tracked them down.
So that’s one little corner of John Blanche’s work that I wanted to explore in celebration of his life, and I hope you enjoyed it.
Let’s wrap up today by saying thank you, John Blanche, for the worlds you created. Your work, and life, will never be forgotten. Vale.
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