Obituary

Michael Gilbert: 53 Years Old

by Jean Lochet

Wargaming has lost another great contributor. Mike did many illustrations for The Courier including special column headings like that of Despatches From The Field and Sapper’s Report which you see in this issue. He also wrote a painting column for these pages and painted many of my 15mm Napoleonic armies. He will be sadly missed. - Dick Bryant

Mike was a special friend of the Jean Lochet and his wife and was instrumental in the publication of Jean’s Empire, Eagles and Lions magazine. Jean sends this rememberance of Mike: Michael Gilbert attended the Rochester Institute of Technology, receiving a Bachelor degree in Art and Illustration. During his fifty-three years, he was a Civil War reenactor, proud to have served in such Centennial battles as the reenactment at Gettysburg.

His involvement with miniature figures and historical wargaming began in childhood, with plastic Airfix figures and then the metal Scruby figures. Little did anyone know that when he fielded his first battle with these plastic and metal figures, he would go on to paint vast armies for both himself and gamers around the country. He worked with all the major figure manufacturers on design and packaging and with their own display armies. At the time of his death the estimate of his figure collection ran to more than 300,000 figures-not counting the navies. Of course, playing existing games wasn’t enough for Mike, before long he was creating his own sets of rules for miniature wargaming, all published by Fantasy Games Unlimited. These included a set for the American Civil War, a set of skirmish rules entitled Fire, Hack and Run, and such fantasy game rulebooks as Down Styphon, based on the H. Beam Piper novels, and Archworld, based on a fantasy novel of his own creation.

The first gaming magazine he was involved with as an illustrator and cartoonist was Dana Lombardy’s Conflict, and they worked together on other projects as well. He also provided numerous illustrations for The Courier over the years. For over twenty-five years, Mike was one of the editors of the Napoleonic magazine, Empires, Eagles, and Lions, regaling readers with his famous cartoon series “Friday Nights at the Fights,” which introduced gamers to such notorious figures as The White Menace.

In addition, “Jerome’s Corner” offered gamers detailed advice and tips on painting as well as reviews of the latest figures and gaming accessories - the troops often came to life in his illustrations for the magazine. Mike’s color plates and black-and-white illustrations can be found in many military history and reference books.

In the science fiction and fantasy field, he was the author, with Andre Norton, of a children’s science fiction novel, THE DAY OF THE NESS. He was also a frequent contributor to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Analog. He was the art director for Worlds of If, and his cartoons appeared in numerous publications around the country. In recent years, he worked for DAW Books, Inc. in both an editorial and art capacity.

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