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Don Bluth might be an animation legend, but you don't need to give money to him.

The post Don Bluth Doesn’t Need Your Money To Make A ‘Dragon’s Lair’ Pitch appeared first on Cartoon Brew.

As we reported a month ago, the Dragon’s Lair in Omaha, Nebraska, had occupied the same building since 1976, until a recent fire elsewhere in the building caused extensive smoke and water damage to the store.

Main stock bins installed March 12.

Since then, the store has relocated five blocks west, to 2227 N. 91st Plaza on Blondo, and will reopen today at 9 AM.  (It’s located behind Romeo’s Mexican Food & Pizza which has been in business as long, if not longer, than The Dragon’s Lair, so the food must be good.  (I grew up in that neighborhood, and I can’t remember it NOT being there.))

Owner Bob Gellner will open the new location today, with a sale and a drawing for two $50 gift certificates.

The Dragon’s Lair isn’t a fancy shop like Bergen Street, or a mancave like the Android’s Dungeon.

What it is is a comics shop also selling cards and games, staffed by people who are welcoming, even if you only visit them once or twice a year from out of town.  Most of his staff have been there a long time (Craig Patterson, the manager of their Millard location, was working at the Blondo store back in the 80s when I started shopping there), and some of their customers and employees have gone on to start their own stores in the metro area.  (One customer even became a best-selling graphic novelist!)

First printing!
Cover price!

From January 1985 until January 1994, Dragon’s Lair was my local comics shop.  It’s where I fed my inner Marvel Zombie, and, a few years later, starved it to death as I discovered a multitude of other titles I had to read more than X-Men, Spider-Man, or She-Hulk.  It’s where I discovered Tales of the Beanworld, Neil the Horse, Bone, Sandman, Concrete, Justice League International, Uncle Scrooge; and ignored hundreds of other small press titles, which I can only guess at now, as I peruse old preview copies of Amazing Heroes.

It’s where I bought my weekly copy of the Comics Buyer’s Guide, and the occasional copy of the Comics Journal.

It’s where I found cheap copies of Marvel Tales and Not Brand Echh and MAD Magazine in the back issue bins.

It’s where I spent the first ten years collecting comics, and I’m lucky it was my local comics shop.  Omaha is lucky that it was the local comics shop in the 80s.  They are the reason my passion for comics is so eclectic, and why Omaha has such a strong geek community now.

If you live in the Omaha metro area, heck, if you live in eastern Nebraska or western Iowa, stop by!  (You should probably visit some of the other great shops in the city as well.  Omaha is a nerd oasis.)  It’s a quintessential Midwestern store, not unlike the dry goods variety stores once common on Main Street USA.  Low key, offering great selection and service, run by nice people.  I’ll be stopping by the next time I’m visiting family, and until then, I wish them a grand reopening!

Animation legend Don Bluth hardly needs an introduction on Cartoon Brew. Long story short, he started working at Disney in the late 1950s, and rose through the ranks to become a key animator at the studio. In the 1970s, he famously rebelled from the then-current vision of animation by Disney’s bosses and launched his own company, Don Bluth Studios, with fellow animators Gary Goldman and John Pomeroy.

His independent spirit led him to create animated features like The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail and The Land Before Time, but for some gaming fans, it’s his work on innovative arcade games like Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace for which he is most fondly remembered. Fast forward to today, and that’s the reason we’re talking to Bluth as Zuuka Comics is releasing a digital version of a Dragon’s Lair comic Bluth co-authored as an app for Apple devices.

Bluth is a seminal figure in animation, in many ways a canary in the coalmine for the downturn at Disney in the late 70s as well as positive turns like the use of animation in video games, now a billion dollar industry of its own. Bluth’s last feature film was 20th Century Fox’s Titan A.E., and since then he’s been keeping busy doing work on video games like 2003’s I-Ninja and his own game company, Square One Studios. In 2004 directed the music video “Mary” for the band the Scissor Sisters, and him and his partner Gary Goldman have been working on various Dragon’s Lair projects including a potential feature film and this  new digital comics app.

Chris Arrant: We’re talking to you today because Zuuka Comics is putting out a digital comic app of the comics based on your Dragon’s Lair work. First of all, what’s it like for Dragon’s Lair to be one of your best known works?

Don Bluth: Well, it has been very strange. Even as far back as our move to Ireland (1985) the young art students knew us more for Dragon’s Lair than for The Secret of NIMH. But then, Dragon’s Lair made a huge splash around the world. To us, the game was not as dear as working on feature films. We just had fun with it. It was truly a surprise when we heard back from the distributor that the three short sequences we had finished for the Chicago Gaming Convention in March of 1983 was the hit of the convention.

Chris: For this app you drew the cover to chapter one as well as a bonus story – comics seem a rarity for you. What do you think of the comics form with your own art in mind?

Don: I actually read a lot of comics when I was a kid on a farm. And, I used the comics to copy and practice drawing the characters. Mostly Disney comics at that time. I think the artists that drew our characters and laid out the pages did a great job, as did the inkers and colorists. I enjoyed doing the pencil for the cover art. It had been 20 years since the release of the original game (1983 – 2003), so I had to drag out of the old model sheets to draw the Dirk and Princess Daphne characters.

Chris: Although Cartoon Brew readers kno

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