COMIC STRIPS ® KNIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE PUBLISHER Kenzer and Company 10 Phone Home EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 11 The Swag Brigade Jolly R. Blackburn • [email protected] ASSISTANT EDITOR 14 The Pick Up Game Barbara Blackburn • [email protected] 18 Change of Plans KODT DEVELOPMENT TEAM Jolly R. Blackburn • Steve Johansson 21 Shanghaied David S. Kenzer • Brian Jelke • Barbara Blackburn (+1) 25 Kryptonite in a HACKMASTER EDITOR Steve Johansson • [email protected] Shot Glass KODT STRIP ART Jolly R. Blackburn 28 Bait and Switch COVER ART Fraim Brothers 63 One-Two Punches CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Brendon Fraim • Brian Fraim Larry Elmore • Bill “Indy” Cavalier • Jolly Blackburn • Carolyn Stogdill CONTRIBUTING WRITERS OTHER TOONS Kenneth Newquist • Noah Chinn • Mark Dowson 61 SnarfQuest™ Barbara Blackburn • Jolly R. Blackburn • Larry Elmore J.L. Duncan • Alan Hume • James Davenport • Kira Parker Larry Elmore 64 Additional Cartoons SALES/MARKETING/ADVERTISING Steve Johansson • [email protected] • 847-858-6847 Bill “Indy” Cavalier, Carolyn Stogdill SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES [email protected] CHARMED PERSONS Sample file Kevin Vance • Jack Grayson • Craig Zipse PRINTED IN U.S.A. ABOUT Postmaster: Send address changes to: THE COVER Knights of the Dinner Table 1659 N CLAREMONT AVE, CHICAGO, IL 60647 The Fraim Brothers are E-Mail: [email protected] • Phone: 847.662.6600 back with another classic World Wide Web: www.kenzerco.com comic book cover parody. Submissions: We accept submissions for strip ideas, jokes, cartoons, etc. We are interested in running anything that other gamers and fans Do you know which one? would enjoy. Check out our website for writer’s guidelines. Subscriptions: A standard 12-issue monthly subscription is only $77.99 (or $65.99 for slower bulk mail shipping). [US $92.99 for Canada or US $117.99 for other foreign locations.] 6- and 24-issue subscriptions are also available. To subscribe, order by credit card at our online store at HTTP://WWW.KENZERCO.COM or send a check or money order (made payable to Kenzer and Company) to: NIGHTS OF THE DINNER TABLE™ was accidentally created by Jolly R. Blackburn Kway back in 1990 as ‘filler’ for his small press magazine, Shadis. It was Kenzer & Company KODT Subscriptions, something of a ‘creative burp’ and Jolly really didn’t give it much thought. 1659 N Claremont Ave, Chicago, IL 60647 KODT Perhaps that’s why he was just as surprised as anyone that soon was Back Issues: KODT overshadowing everything else he’d ever done and that the created was now Older issues and other merchandise are avail- able for direct purchase on our website at HTTP://WWW.KENZERCO.COM controlling the creator. The Knights have gone far beyond anything Jolly or the D-Team (David Kenzer, Brian Jelke, Steve Johansson and Barbara Blackburn) ever imagined. In 2006, Jolly was ATTENTION RETAILERS: If you are having difficulty getting our inducted into the Hall of Fame. Now, with over 246 issues and over 74 trade paper backs under product (including back issues and RPGs) please call or e-mail us. their belts, it’s been a wild ride and we look forward to seeing where the Knights take us next. Knights of the Dinner Table® #246 3 FROM THE MAIL BAG... ot much time before this issue is ripped from were places I went for a laugh back in the day that I my hands and rushed off to press, so I’m turn- don’t think I would go to today. Part of it is due to the Ning to the mail bag and reader questions to fact the characters are much more developed these finish this page up. GenCon 50 is just weeks away days. Also the fact that each strip isn’t a simple set up and I have the Men that Hack tradepaperback to for a punchline. Aces and Eights wrap up as well as some tasks to Dueling Banjos comes to mind where it is implied a tackle. Needless to say things are frantic here. So — gamemaster had a player’s character raped. I winced without further adiou. when I read that strip recently. Also, some strips where Q: Will KenzerCo ever offer an ezine subcription? a player is mercilessly bullied by the other players. Some Do you forsee the dead tree version ever ending in of those give me pause today. favor of an all digital format. The truth is I’ve evolved as a person as well as a writer A: This is a tough one because, frankly I don’t know. over the decades and so has the comic. Just something The world is changing for all of us and all we can do is I’m mindful of. — Jolly adapt. As with so many things, the market ultimatly Q: Do you think Ken Whitman will ever finish KODT dictates what whose adaptations will be. Certainly, at Live Action and release it to backers? some point, we’ll be offering ezine subs — while at the A same time continuing with dead tree. : Only Ken knows — and he’s been silent. Last year he announced a new deadline — kicking the can down As for when — I don’t have answers. There are still the road to August, 2017. So I guess we’ll see what some barriers and problems without immediate transpires next month. But I’m not hopeful given past solutions (for a company our size). — Jolly promises. Q: Have you ever published a strip or added a detail Well, that’s all the room there is for this issue. Hope to KODT canon that you later regretted...? you enjoy the issue in hand — and as always, A: Good question. And the answer might suprise My all your hits be crits! some. Recently I was re-reading some of the verySample early file issues of KODT and I was confronted by the fact that Jolly Blackburn I’ve changed as a person over the last 25 years. There July 4, 2017 Twenty Years Ago This Month: B.A. struggles to keep the Knights on the straight and narrow. From Knighs of the Dinner Table #9 July 1997 4 Knights of the Dinner Table® #246 we are GOING... o-okay..... MOVE IT...¡¡ OKAY — \’m GOING... -push- -shove- Big Guy mode and attempting to raid Hard that cool wall clock as my own. Eight’s shipping office of invoices so he Favorite part of the entire issue was the could sell Gary’signature. “bee-beep” as Brian and Sara looked on in EDITOR’S NOTE: The mail just Sara having to literally shove him toward wonderment when Crutch drives by on a never seems to stop. While we the door had me laughing out loud. Part of fork lift. Can’t wait to see what he does with make every effort to read each and me thinks she was so quick to do so because it but I’m picturing mountains of pallets on every letter, it is not always possible she was half tempted to grab a few invoices Brian’s “pooling point”. to give a personal reply. Even if your letter herself. She just wasn’t going to let him keep My only disappointment is we didn’t get doesn’t happen to be published or if you don’t talking and talk her into it. to see the end of Gary’s game and no one get a direct response, rest assured you are Brilliant writing. Brian’s downfall months who participated would share the details. being heard. ago, his redemption and now his first real Bummer. I assume we’ll hear what happens Remember, KODT is an interactive temptation. He just can’t help being Brian. eventually but dirty trick, Mr. Blackburn. magazine. We want you, the reader, to be I have a feeling Gary is going to be sorry Nice work. Looking forward to the next involved. So keep your suggestions, thoughts he ever agreed to this shopping spree. issue. and opinions (constructive and otherwise) coming. Opinions expressed by readers are Sample fileMike Ross 7 Paul Rine ^ not necessarily shared by the editor or Kenzer and Company. Please be aware that due to BEE-BEEP! KEG MONKEYS space considerations, some letters have been Issue 244 really made my week. Was wait- Just finished issue 243 and I was really edited and/or trimmed. — Jolly ing for me when I returned from a road trip taken by Gary Jackson’s Hobgoblins and keg and I read it cover to cover before going monkeys. Especially the footnote explaining SOCIAL BODY GUARD through my stack of mail. That should tell a bit about them. Is this actually a thing in you how eager I was to read it. HackMaster? Gunpowder using “Hobgobs” I love Sara. And god help me, I love Brian. Good lord, why don’t real life game with trained monkeys who deliver powder He’s a bastard but he’s so passionate about companies have shopping sprees like this? kegs down field? Sounds like crazy fun. If not games I can’t help but love him. My palms were sweating and my throat was are there any plans to write them up? I’m with the reader who wrote in saying tight with suspense when it occured to me Since I’m writing you already, I might as she was afraid the character of Brian might it’s a fictional company with fictional well add that my favorite part of Knights is be ‘wonked’ if he changed his ways too characters and fictional product. Heh. when players are fighting for their lives and much. I’d be filling my socks with mood dice as they are working as a team.