Classic Cover! Appointment with F.E.A.R.

As capes and spandex seem to be very much on everyone's minds at the moment, today we thought we would revisit Fighting Fantasy's one and only superhero-themed adventure, Steve Jackson's Appointment with F.E.A.R.

Back in 1985, Steve Jackson had not written a Titan-set adventure since The Citadel of Chaos, and his fifth title in the series continued this trend. The hero of Appointment with F.E.A.R. is Jean Lafayette, or rather, his alter ego, the crime-fighting Silver Crusader.

The Silver Crusader does battle with such colourful characters as the Scarlet Prankster, the Serpent and the Alchemists, as he struggles to discover the time and location of the next meeting of F.E.A.R. – the Federation of Euro-American Rebels. This evil organisation is led by Vladimir Utoshski, a.k.a. the Titanium Cyborg who is the subject of the book’s cover art.

Appropriately enough, seeing as how Appointment with F.E.A.R. is, in truth, a comic book superhero gamebook - nothing more, nothing less - the original cover was painted by veteran British comic book artist, Brian Bolland, who was famous for drawing such iconic comic book characters as Batman and Judge Dredd!

Appointment with F.E.A.R. has since been turned into a nostalgic '80s-themed app, by Tin Man Games, and the cover of the most recent edition, published by Scholastic Books, features Vladimir Utoshski once again, this time as realised by Robert Ball.

But for many, it is Brian Bolland's cover that holds a special place in their heart.