#looming head

[oldschoolfrp]

DeathMaze, Howard Chaykin cover art for SPI’s 1979 RPG-lite dungeon crawl board game, featuring the looming head that found its way into everyone’s art in apparent reference to the Dawn of the Dead poster

[mudwerks]

In Mexican comic book art of the 1980s, which is a subset of modern pulp we've documented before, a motif that recurred was the looming head. Multiple artists used this idea, which can only mean it was encouraged or sought by the publishers of series such as Micro-Misterio, Frank Kein, and Sesacional de Maistros.. 

...creators include Beton, Dagoberto Dinorin, Rafael Gallur, and others...

[oldschoolfrp]

Together in one place, TSR and SPI games that all reference the #looming head in the Dawn of the Dead poster:

Dungeon Geomorphs DeathMaze Voyage of the BSM Pandora Dawn of the Dead

[oldschoolfrp]

Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Geomorphs, Set One to Three: Basic Dungeons, Caves and Caverns, Lower Dungeons, by Gary Gygax, TSR, 1980.  This set combined the three separate geomorph sets from the 1970s with a new cover.

Bill Willingham's homage to the Dawn of the Dead poster may be creepier than the original.

(Image via acaeum.com.)

[oldschoolfrp]

DeathMaze, fantasy RPG/modular boardgame by Greg Costikyan, cover by Howard Chaykin, SPI, 1979.  DeathMaze was a dungeon crawl with a map built from randomly drawn counters representing corridors and rooms.  The game was later expanded with new rules to become Citadel of Blood in Ares magazine #5.

The box art revisits the design of the looming head above the landscape from Dawn of the Dead.

(Image via boardgamegeek.com.)