Along with the AD&D storybooks, Marvel and TSR collaborated on five coloring books featuring the same cast of characters, some of them from the toy line, others from The Shady Dragon Inn (1983), a game aid featuring pregenerated characters (and stats for the characters in the toy line).
Jane Stine, who co-wrote The Treasure of Time (1983), wrote the Characters coloring book. Earl Norem did the cover art. Jim Mooney, who worked for DC in the ’60s and Marvel in the ’70s and ’80s, and John Tartaglione, Silver Age inker of Sgt. Fury and Daredevil, did the interior art. (The lips look unmistakably Mooney to me, so I gather he did the pencils.)
The book is essentially a visual illustration of the different D&D character class attributes, alignments, and skills. It even covers some spells (feather falling) and magic items (helm of water breathing). Unlike the storybooks, there’s a definite link to D&D‘s role-playing core.
Parts two, three, and four of the Characters Coloring Book are here, here, and here.
2 Warps to Neptune 
Huh… who knew Strongheart the paladin was sporting “the Moe cut” under that helmet?
I think Norem was going for a monk cut. Severe moral code, and all that.
What about that sappy Bard? Whose ass is he going to kick?
Oh I know, I’m just playing. That is a serious pageboy, though.
And yeah: NOBODY is scared of bards.
Ow, my back hurts just LOOKING at that stance.
We’re so old.
What happened to her bow?
Or what happened to her sword in the previous shot?
There must be a bag of holding stashed inside her tunic. I’m sure that’s what the artist was thinking.
Hey, thanks for posting this: D&D was forbidden by my parents when I was a kid, and of course it made anything that smacked of D&D that much more enticing. For years one of the things that fascinated me the most was the toy line, and I always felt like there was a coherent world and storyline behind them that was never fully realized. This post led me to find a PDF of “The Shady Dragon Inn” and the toy line characters’ backstories give more of a hint to the developing universe behind the toys. It’s kind of a shame the D&D cartoon didn’t use this stuff.
Sure! I need to take a better look at The Shady Dragon Inn module. I love all the character names.
This reminded me of the D&D toys I used to have when I was a little kid: they were a rubbery sort of plastic, fairly solid. I recall a bugbear holding a big club over/behind its head, a troll, and someone with swords. Can’t recall what others I had, if any. I suppose they were part of this toy line. I’ll have to look it up.
Here’s the bugbear: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1980s-AD-D-Dungeons-Dragons-Bugbear-Monster-PVC-Action-Figure-/400392607340?pt=US_Action_Figures&ssPageName=RSS%3AB%3ASHOP%3AUS%3A101&hash=item5d3942566c&nma=true&si=nhl8m%252B5il6U18%252Bc8SmBWaPxwG8Q%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
Any idea where/how I can search for the rest of the toys in this set?
Andy, they’re all here:
http://www.toyarchive.com/Dungeons&Dragons/PVCBendy/PVCBendy.html
They’re part of the LJN line, and way cooler than the action figures, in my opinion.
I can remember my father giving my mother the Bullywugs for Christmas one year as a joke gift. We used to hide them in the kitchen cupboards so that they’d be peering out from behind mugs or bags of cookies or whatnot at the next person to open that cupboard.
Oh sweet. Thank you. I figured if anyone knew, you would. 😉
Let’s see: I had the bugbear and goblin, the elves of the woodland, and the terrible troll and goblin. Good memories.
Awesome stuff! Remember having these books as a kid and spending hours coloring in! Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
Great stuff, 2WTN!
I wish to one day see images of the Dungeons & Dragons Magical Coloring Book before I die too (lol). There was a fellow that bought one and mentioned (bragged about) it on the D&D toy group on Facebook (I hope you’re a member)
However, when I asked if he could share some images of some of the interior pages, he refused (he spouted some baloney about copyright…on a 35+ year old book, that’s out of print?). He showed us a photo of the cover…thanks, dude…I’ve seen the cover, before…Aaaargh!