Joe Dever, Author Of Lone Wolf, Has Passed Away

Joe Dever, the famous creator of the Lone Wolf gamebook series (and the less known Freeway Warriors series) has passed away. According to an article on the British local newspaper East London And West Sussex Guardian, he died after "complications from bile duct surgery in August arose". He was 60 years old. The Lone Wolf gamebook series was extremely popular in the '80s, especially in Europe (particilarly in the UK, France and Italy) and after a period when the series went out of print and the author lived in (relative) obscurity, along the novels published to capitalize the success of the series, it experienced a revival in the '00s. In the UK Mongoose published a role playing game and the Lone Wolf Collector's Series but both were stopped due to financial reasons. Catalyst Game Labs published then the Lone Wolf Adventure Game (after a very successful Kickstarter project) and the German publisher Mantikore Verlag picked up the rights for continuation of the English langiage series. The Italian publisher Forge Reply produced a tablet game, released in 2013, and there is a project for a live action movie too. A frequent visitor in convention around Europe and a regular at Lucca Comics & Games, he will be sorely missed.