Dean Morrissey has passed

[tdenmark]

I heard the fantastic artist Dean Morrissey passed away. The covers he painted for Dragon magazine were some of my favorites.

dungeoneering.blogspot.com/2021/03/dean-morrisey-1951-2021.html

[tdenmark]

I always liked this cover. It was just around when artists like Keith Parkinson were doing "mundane fantasy" - making the fantastic look mundane in a good way.

You can really see Dean Morrissey's evolution as an artist throughout the run of Dragon magazine.

[Zenopus]

RIP, and thanks for letting us know. I wasn't really aware of which covers were his, but seeing them there are what I associate with the time period when I was just getting into Dragon magazine - #81 being my first issue.

This looks like a gallery of all of his Dragon covers:

www.comiccollectorlive.com/LiveData/Credit.aspx?id=5f58a842-f6f0-456c-965c-6e8e332ab639

Issues #16, 18, 70, 84, 91, 95, 102, 107 - I remember those last five well. It's not exactly photorealistic, but it's trending in that direction from earlier TSR art, and that's not something I'm necessarily a fan of, but I do like these particular covers of his.

Edit: Looking at RPGeek and the Acaeum Wiki, he also did these covers:

#28:
rpggeek.com/image/582041/dragon-issue-28-aug-1979

#36:
rpggeek.com/image/593242/dragon-issue-36-apr-1980

#45:
rpggeek.com/image/604146/dragon-issue-45-jan-1981

#57:
rpggeek.com/image/640125/dragon-issue-57-jan-1982

#60:
rpggeek.com/image/639044/dragon-issue-60-apr-1982

Basically 1-2 covers a year, every year between 1978 and 1985

[Zenopus]

He also did pieces for the 1981 and 1982 Days of the Dragon Calendar. You can see the 1982 one, a Bronze Dragon for the month of September, here:

waynesbooks.games/2019/11/03/days-of-the-dragon-1982-dungeons-dragons-fantasy-art-calendar/

[Zenopus]

He also did the original front cover of Northern Mirkwood: The Wood-Elves Realm (1983) for MERP:

rpggeek.com/image/502257/northern-mirkwood-wood-elves-realm