Out Of My Mind

These maps were part of a much larger series done for Hero Games’ publication, Pulp Hero. Part of the background for the sourcebook was an overview of the world of the 1930’s. This was one of the heyday decades for pulp action, and of course, the stomping ground of that modern pulp icon, Indiana Jones.

Pulp World 1935

In order to give these maps flavor, I decided to go with a period look. I wanted the maps to be interesting props, evoking the feeling of the setting as well as being an informative guide.

The first step was of course, the maps themselves. This proved to be no small challenge. There are numerous sources for maps with modern or recent boundaries, but when you start to dig into historical eras, you quickly discover that sources disagree—sometimes wildly—about place names and even the geographical extent of whole countries. Part of the reason is that national boundaries are nearly always in a state of flux; map makers of the period often had to make decisions on what source to follow (i.e. who to listen to for disputed territory). Also, place names rise and fall in favor. No one nowadays refers to Persia or Leningrad, though the places are roughly the same locations now that they are called St. Petersburg (again), or Iran. Peking is Beijing now, of course. These problems multiply enormously when you are dealing with sources ranging over the period of a decade or more, and when the maps originate from different countries.

This was probably the most educational series of maps I ever produced, since it forced me to learn quite a lot of history very rapidly. It also impressed upon me the enormity of the transformative event that was World War II. Just look at the part of the map depicting Africa and compare it to a modern one. WWII put Africa through a blender in more ways than one.

The production of the series was complicated, comprised of detailed maps for each continent, and a special time-spanning map detailing German Expansion from 1930 to 1939. For this article, I am presenting the world map, and the German expansion map.

I had continent outlines from the very helpful source of the Cartographic Research Laboratory of the University of Alabama. They were very nice to give me permission to use them for a commercial product. There are a lot more sources for such maps these days, but some sources are of doubtful provenance.

Of course, the continent outlines were only the start. I had to re-draw every border as painstakingly accurately as possible, using a 1935 atlas as a guide. The atlas was lent to me by the publisher for the duration of the project. It was extremely useful.

World Map without treatment

Once the base art was created (using the wonderfully period-feeling Copperplate typeface for the main titles), I needed to give it the period feel I mentioned earlier. I used two techniques for this project. The first was to create a textured surface to give the feel that the map was printed on an actual piece of paper. (Well, of course the map really was printed on paper, in the game book, but you know what I mean).

I took an ordinary sheet of bond paper and folded it map-fashion. I also carefully dog-eared some of the edges and corners. I then photographed it. I purposely did not scan it. A scanner uses a source of light at right angles to the scanned surface. This eliminates cast shadows. For this project I needed those shadows to be very prominent. The viewer needed to see the folds and creases very clearly. So I photographed it in bright sunlight, with the sun at sufficient angle to give me good relief. Then I took the photo into Photoshop, corrected it for lens distortion (a square is never really square in a photograph), removed all color, and heightened the contrast. This gave me an overlay I could drop on top of the map to give it a real folded look.

Folded Paper Texture

The second feature all of these maps had, was a prop. Each map had some real-world object sitting on it to give it some character and enhance the verisimilitude. I fortunately had enough things sitting around the house, or that I could borrow from friends, that looked like they might come from the era and area. The Africa map had a pair of spears my father had bought in Africa in the 1960’s. The map of the Middle East had an old-fashioned oil lamp (Aladdin-style), and so forth. The World map had an old bellows-style camera, to symbolize a world that was just starting to see the exotic sites of foreign lands through photography. This particular camera is likely from the forties, but it’s close enough.

Old Fashioned Bellows Camera

For the German map I had the extreme fortune of having a friend (Thanks, Kevin!) who had some props he had bought for a costume party: a replica luger pistol, and an SS dagger. I don’t know how accurate the dagger was, but it just looked perfect for the image of a nation gearing up for brutal conquest. I was particular pleased that the arrangement allowed me to do some foreshadowing by placing the dagger through France and the pistol pointed at Warsaw.

German Expansion, 1930-1939

These items were also photographed in bright sunlight, against a white illustration board background. In many cases, this gave me an actual shadow I could incorporate into the final composite image. Sometimes I needed to re-draw the shadow for better composition.

The maps were created in Adobe Illustrator. The paper texture and the objects were manipulated in Photoshop and dropped into place in Illustrator, so that I could move them around for best effect. Once the maps were approved, I output the entire image as one file, in Photoshop. This is the file that went to the customer. It’s safer that way, rather than sending a customer the working Illustrator file. There is far less that can go wrong before the image gets to the printer.