David Trampier

It's Tramp Time -- One more cycle has passed. During the hours of this day, we can consider the ways your art and imagination influenced and entertained two or three generations ...maybe four if you include that of our parents. I hope, wherever you are, that you're able to learn and create. Having those capabilities would make you happy! How many more Wormy adventures you could hatch...and we all would love to read them...along with everywhere else your ingenuity and originality will have...

At least once a year I post some of David's work on various social networks to do my part and put him in people's brains. To remind those of us who remember his art, and introduce those who haven't seen it yet.

Here's Tramp Day once again. We'll always remember you & the fabulous work you shared with the world. Thank you, from a friend you haven't met.

While never having met you I sure knew of you from your work. I believe it was an Egyptian saying that a man never really dies when his name is spoken and remembered.

David's work has touched the lives of so many in the gaming community that he does live on in the hearts of many.

David, thank you so much for what you gave us all. Like so many others, your drawings helped define not only my childhood but my appreciation for art as well. Hours upon hours spent staring at your illustration on the back of the DM's screen has forever embedded those images in my brain and soul. I still find your art the most evocative, the most powerful and the most creative of all the 'game art' that has come since. And in fact, your art has always transcended genre and just been plain...

Dave, your art added joy to some of the best times of my life. "Wormy," the TITAN counters, those countless illustrations in the D&D manuals -- all are wonderful, and I am sad that you are no longer with us.

Thanks, and rest well.

David Trampier was a huge influence on me as an young artist in the 80s and continues to be as I write this message at the age of 46. I can't tell you how often I dig into my old D&D archives to figure out how DAT would draw it--people, trees, water, fur, clouds, stone, etc. He defined an entire imaginary world and I introduce my students to his work every semester. My condolences to family, friends, and fans.

He was a great talent. My brother and friends and I used to comb the early D&D books comparing art from DIS and DAT (I imagine they thought it was quite the joke). I had no idea that he was also the brilliant mind behind Wormy. Wormy and Phil and Dixie were my favorite thing about Dragon magazine. I wish he were still here, illustrating my imagination.