When was Knights of the Dinner Table first published?
Knights of the Dinner Table
February 1997
In Shadis #2 (March/April 1990), Jolly Blackburn began to run a comic that
he had written called Knights of the Dinner Table, which depicted the humorous interactions of a gaming group. When Blackburn published that first Knights strip, he thought that he was just filling a blank page but when he tried to replace it with more professional strips beginning with Shadis #6, there was an outcry; because of that outcry Knights soon returned.[3]:262 Blackburn also published Knights of the Dinner Table as a comic book, the first three issues of which appeared from his company Alderac Entertainment Games over the next year (1994-1995).[3]:263 As a result of diverging interests with his partners, Blackburn left Alderac in 1995, with Shadis #21 (December 1995) being his final issue; he kept the rights to Knights of the Dinner Table.[3]:263 Blackburn formed a new company called KODT Enteractive Facktory, which was to publish the Knights of the Dinner Table comic monthly.[3]:309 While he was working on getting that new company together, Blackburn received a call from the editor of TSR's Dragon magazine, asking if the Knights of the Dinner Table strip was now available; although Blackburn originally planned to continue the strip in Shadis, he accepted the offer and Knights of the Dinner Table thus began appearing beginning in Dragon #226 (February, 1996).[3]:309 While working on Knights of the Dinner Table #4 (1996), Blackburn concluded that he really did not want to go it alone, and David Kenzer and the staff of Kenzer & Company wanted to get Blackburn to join their company.[3]:309 In November 1996 when David Kenzer and others were visiting Blackburn over the course of a local con, and Blackburn decided that Kenzer had the sort of business sense and integrity that he was looking for in a partner.[3]:309 Starting with issue #5 (February 1997) Knights of the Dinner Table was the work of the "KoTD Development Team" which consisted of Jolly Blackburn, David Kenzer, Brian Jelke and Steve Johansson.[3]:310