I've heard from quite a few folks about this thing: an attempt by TSR to keep the characters from the TV show nominally alive by working them into a promotional comic book. This particular attempt at life support doesn't sound, shall we say, too successful. Of the various descriptions I've seen of the comic, the one by Kelly St. Clair is the most complete, and the best analysis of what went wrong.

FORGOTTEN REALMS: THE GRAND TOUR ---------------------------------

Synopsis by Kelly St.Clair (kellys@efn.org)

"The Grand Tour" was a promotional comic book, published by TSR in 1996 and given away as a freebie with TSR purchases, set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting by Ed Greenwood. As we shall see, the comic suggests that the Realms and "the Realm" of the cartoon are one and the same. There's no Dungeonmaster, though, just a certain arch-mage.

The credits on the first page list Jeff Grubb as writer, Todd Fox as the penciller, Steve Kurth and Steve Mitchell as the inkers, Les Dorscheid as colorist, Mike Malkovas as letterer, and Thomas Reid as editor. Grubb is a name well known in the industry, having done a lot of work for TSR and other companies. Mr. Fox and the Steves, however, should be hung up by their thumbs - the art sucks almost as much as my own attempts. *grin* Likewise, the colorist chose a really awful palette. Still, what do you expect in a free comic?

The story begins with the famous wizard Elminster coming down to an inn for the evening, and attracting the notice of a party at a nearby table who look rather familiar... except that they're all several years older, Eric looks like an elf (or a Vulcan), Bobby is absolutely huge, Diana is colored so dark you can't make out any features, and Presto has a scraggly fringe beard that looks awful on him. Did I mention the art sucks?

Here's the dialogue:

ERIC: "Gods, he looks old." DIANA: "He looks pretty good, considering. I hear he's over a thousand years old." PRESTO: "I don't know about this, guys."

ERIC: "Huh! Wizards tell all sorts of lies like that. makes them seem more important." HANK: "You're not backing out now?" SHEILA: "We've come all this way. You might as well ask." PRESTO: "Well... it looks like he's busy."

BOBBY: "Busy sucking down a few cold ones, looks like." DIANA: "Careful what you say. Wizards have ears like a fox. You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

ERIC: "Of course, if you chicken out, we'll remind you about it for the rest of your life. Cluck buck buck!" PRESTO: "No, no... I'll do it."

(?): "Go get him, champ!" ERIC: "Cluck buck buck!" PRESTO: (thinking) I'm going to die. I just know it.

Presto goes over to Elminster and starts to ask if he might want to take an apprentice, but has second thoughts and apologizes for disturbing the wizard. The rest of the gang aren't about to let Presto back out, though; they crowd around and offer these recommendations...

"He'd make a great apprentice!" "He's an excellent student!" "He's a hard worker." "He doesn't eat much." "He's REAL smart!" "He's already got the pointy hat."

"I take it that these are your friends?" *whimper* "Yes, sir."

Elminster agrees to give "Preston" (the name he gives) a chance, and takes him on his evening rounds of the Realms. The two vanish in a flash, and appear on the edge of the great desert Anauroch, once the site of the now long-gone empire of Netheril.

As Elminster leads his charge through the ruins, reminiscing about ancient glories, Presto notices a huge green gem lying amid the rubble. Unable to resist, he picks it up before following Elminster. They've only gone a short way before they run into one of the hazards of the ruins: a monster called a sharn, dating back to Netheril itself. It looks like a sandworm made out of liquid metal, with really big teeth, of course.

"How do you fight it?" "With your hat." "Your hat?" "You grasp your hat firmly... and RUN!"

Elminster explains, as they appear somewhere else, that this is his first lesson: there's always something bigger, nastier, or luckier than you are. (No kidding. I can name two: Tiamat and Venger.) It turns out that they're in Cormyr, one of the few "civilized" nations in the Realms, though there's trouble brewing on the horizon. That is not their concern at the moment, however; Elminster's lesson two is, you can't do everything, so you do what you must.

Instead, Elminster takes Presto to a wizard's bar (the picture on the signboard is the original TSR wizard logo), where Jeff Grubb plugs one of his own characters - Volo, wanderer, mage, and writer of travelogues. Volo gives Presto and the reader a quick geography lesson. He especially praises the cities of the Realms; when Presto asks, "What of the spaces between the cities?" Volo replies dismissively, "Boring stuff - monsters, ruins, and treasure. Can't even get a decent ale." As the arch-mage and his young companion take their leave, Volo is seen giving his latest manuscript to a pair of TSR people.

The next destination for the pair is Skullport, a secret city underneath the famous Waterdeep. Here Elminster checks in with a Drow friend of his and gives Presto his third lesson: don't judge by appearances. (Funny, given how many episodes dealt with exactly this, you'd think that's one thing Presto and the others would already have down pat.)

While Elminster makes small talk with the dark elf woman, the sharn shows up and attacks again. The wizard and the Drow blast it easily, though Elminster decides to press on before it regenerates...

They arrive at a temple outside Turmish just in time to join a group of defenders (including Alias, the redhead in mostly-decorative chainmail you might have seen on FR novel covers) and stop an attack of gnolls led by an evil priest. Elminster gives Presto his staff and goes to engage the cleric; when he finds the man is protected from his magic, he drops a stone arch on him instead.

Meanwhile, Presto is blasting gnolls with the staff, but when one clubs him down, he's reduced to helpless prayer. He's saved when Red Son/Alias sticks a sword in the gnoll's back and suggests he "might want to get in a little more practice, child, before taking on entire armies." Later, once the fight is won, she comments to Elminster that he seems "pretty shook up" and that it was apparently his first real battle.

Ahem. This is obviously an imposter, as the "real" Presto, along with his friends, is neither incompetent nor a stranger to battle. The "real" Presto would have, at the critical moment, pulled something goofy out of his hat to incapacitate his gnoll opponent. Grubb should either do right by these characters (who will only be recognized by their fans), or not use them at all.

To make a long story short, the sharn attacks again, and Presto finally realizes (with some prodding from Elminster) that it wants the gem he picked up. He gives it back and the sharn vanishes. Wasn't this the kind of thing that Eric was always doing, and getting scolded for, in the old days?

All in all, a very unflattering portrait of the gang in many ways. The only reason to get "The Grand Tour" is if you're an obsessive completist.

(Don't look at me like that...)