Welcome to MWAN Magazine, Issue #128. There are a lot of changes in this issue when compared to the last. The first is me. Let me introduce myself: I'm Don Perrin, the new editor for MWAN Magazine.
Hal Thinglum owned and edited MWAN from Issue #1 to Issue #127. That's over 22 years of magazines, and each one was a gem. I have read the magazine for years, and have enjoyed every one. That's directly attributable to Hal. He's quite a guy, if you get to meet him. He's quite a guy, even if you don't!
MWAN started out as the Midwest Wargamers' Association Newsletter. It was a photocopied (or as we used to say, "Xeroxed") newsletter, as the name suggested. Over the issues, the newsletter became thicker and thicker. By Issue #18, the newsletter had reached 32 pages. Just five issues later, the newsletter had a color cover (well, the cover was the color blue!) and was up to 60 pages! A year later, by Issue #31, the magazine was 108 pages. You'll notice that I changed from calling it a newsletter to calling it a magazine. That's my terminology. Hal still called it a newsletter, even up to his last issue. I call it a magazine, as it clearly was acting like one, with proper articles, ads and subscriptions. After all, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck ... By Issue #79, Hal had introduced professional printing. The cover was professionally laid out, with a color photograph, and the interior was no longer photocopied, but printed on a printing press. The whole thing was now 146 pages, and the binding switched from saddle stitched (staples) to perfect binding (with a printed spine). MWAN was truly a magazine at this point, looking very much like a Reader's Digest in format. Looking at Issue #127, you'll see that it was 192 pages with tons of excellent content, interesting ads and a sharp cover. Hal's intent was obviously to leave on a high note, and he certainly achieved that without a doubt!
Back in December of 2003, I saw a posting on The Miniatures Page (http://theminiaturespage.com) that Hal was looking for some help getting MWAN out. I was very intrigued.
I am a writer and graphic designer, having worked mostly in the fantasy game side of things (role-playing games, collectible card games and board games). Historical miniatures has always been my love, though. I have been building model tanks and painting infantry as far back as 1972, and started playing games with my toys in 1977, when I found a copy of "Operation Warboard" by Gavin Lyall. It was a book about World War II miniature wargames, including a set of rules to play. It was unique in that it was published in novel format, and I found it in my local book store. It changed my life. Sometimes I wish I could say that about more profound books, but for me, it was a set of wargame rules that did it. My life had been altered forever.
Since then, I continued to game and be interested in things military. I attended and graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada (a Federal military institution, much like West Point, USAFA or Annapolis in the US) and served 10 years in the Canadian Army. One of my jobs was buying brigade-level command-and-control simulators for the Army. In essence, I bought overblown wargames for a living! Since then, I started my own miniatures company. Perrin Miniatures specialized in 10mm figures and vehicles. It has since been absorbed into Noble Miniatures, of which I am a part owner. I have learned to spin metal, make molds and design packaging.
I wrote Hal an email, offering to either help him out, or to take over the magazine if he was thinking of retiring. I heard back from him right away, but the answer was no, that he would carry on as usual. I got another email from him a week later stating that he'd thought it over, and this was an excellent time to "retire" from MWAN. He had recently retired from his "day-job" and retiring from MWAN made sense, too. Still, he wasn't about to give it away to anyone that asked. We talked by email for a while, and we shared philosophies on how we each thought things should be done. We then talked on the phone, and finally I drove down from Williams Bay, Wisconsin to Hal's home just south of Chicago, in New Lenox, Illinois. We had lunch and Hal decided it was time to sell.
The actual entity that purchased MWAN from Hal is Legio X, Inc. It's a company formed by Kathryn Plamback, Michael Cosentino and myself. Together, we form the new MWAN Magazine team. My job is to edit and graphically design the magazine. Kathy is the Subscriptions Director, and it's her job to ensure that subscribers get the issues that they've paid for, and to ensure that those coming to the end of their subscriptions know how to resubscribe. She's also our web page guru, and we've a lot to thank her for. Our new website at http://www.mwan-magazine.com is just a start, and it already looks great. With it, you can resubscribe online with PayPal, and many people have already done that! We like to make it easy for you to give us your money! Michael is our Advertising and Retail Sales Director. His job is to get the advertising that graces the page of the magazine, and also makes sure that the finer hobby shops and game shops carry sufficient quantities of the magazine to satisfy you ravenous lot! This issue shows his prowess, with new color advertising on the back and inside covers.
So what's going to change with MWAN Magazine`? Well, first off, not much. We were attracted to MWAN because of the excellent quality that Hal had achieved. I come from the army maintenance world, where the dominant adage is "If it ain't broke, don't fix!" Of course the other one is "There's always a bigger hammer" but we won't go there! MWAN Magazine will remain in its current format of 6 inches by 9 inches, with a color cover and 192 pages, all perfect bound. I think you'll find that the images are a little crisper and the text a little easier to read in this and future issues. That's because we're now using a traditional digital pre-press system to lay out the magazine. We take contributors' digital articles and images and use them, as opposed to scanning them from a hard copy. It should mean that images are easier to see, and the text is consistently large enough to read comfortably. Lastly, we did change the name of the magazine. We're now calling it MWAN Magazine. After all, the Midwest Wargamers' Association is no longer active, and this is no longer a newletter. Still, everyone knows this little book as MWAN, so that part of the name's going to stay.
We do want to focus on North American content. We're interested in what Americans and Canadians have to say about miniature wargaming, and this magazine is a great way to get the word out about what we do. The British magazines have held sway in the US and Canada for some time, and I'd like to see that change. It's great to read about the latest DBA tournament in Manchester, but it means more to me to read about a Fire & Fury game at Historicon in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, or a Sword & the Flame game at Little Wars in Chicago, or a Legion & Empire game at Hot Lead in Stratford, Ontario. To me, that means more because I can go to these conventions. We North Americans are quite used to traveling a good distance to attend a show. According to MapQuest, it's 780 miles from Williams Bay, Wisconsin to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. That's a heck of a road-trip. It also means more because they're games invented by us, put on by us, and played by us.
It's one thing to support products made at home, but it's really easy to do when they're great games! We'll still have content from anywhere it comes in, but the emphasis in the magazine will be on North American content. I'd say American content, but there's a great group of Canadian garners out there, and they do fantastic stuff, all the way from designing games to poking fun at historical miniatures with a comic strip (which we're proud to have - Larry Leadhead, of course). That, and you'll remember a few paragraphs ago that I am a Canadian, now living in the US. We've got some of the best talent in the world here in North America. Let's showcase it!
So why is it that we sometimes feel dominated in this hobby by the British? That's an easy one, really. It's history, and we're a bunch that takes history rather seriously. H.G. Wells didn't start modern miniature wargaming, but he certainly was one of the first moderns to do so, and he popularized it. Since then, the United Kingdom has been the grandfather birthplace of our hobby. Between Dixon, Miniature Figurines and Essex, the first generation of miniatures manufacturers, sculptors, mold makers and rules designers emerged. It took a while for us North Americans to get on the band wagon. We were playing, to be sure, but manufacturing took a while to get here. In the 1950s, Jack Scruby and Frank Conley started the first North American manufacturing company of historical miniatures. It didn't last long, but it started a ball that's still rolling today.
Today, the most dominant force in our industry isn't in our industry, isn't a North American company, and doesn't do historicals. I'm talking, of course, of Games Workshop, the Nottingham, UK based miniatures manufacturing behemoth. They do make miniatures, but they're either fantasy or science fiction. They do make historical rules, but it's a minor diversion for them. Games Workshop has taken the ubiquitous 25mm figure and made it larger. Now, the term 28mm (or heroic 25mm) is the standard for larger wargame figures. It all comes back to them. Now, even Old Glory's 25mm figures are on par with the 28mm figures from the UK. With such a huge influence from across the pond, it's no wonder we look to the UK to see what's next.
Well, stop it. You need look no further than the Atlantic shore to see what's up-and-coming in our world. We have innovative companies all over this fine continent, all doing fantastic things. It seems strange to me that we feel that we're not the leaders in our hobby. If we look to other industries, you could see North American dominance easily. Automobiles, electronics, banking, energy supply, space exploration, military hardware - all these things are dominated by us. Yet, in historical gaming, we just don't feel that way. I'm here to tell you, brothers and sisters, that it's just a myth. It's not that there's anything wrong with the British, Irish or Scottish, or anything that they do or sell to us. It's just that there's so much great stuff here within our shores.
So it's a new beginning for us with MWAN Magazine. The more it changes, the more it'll stay the same. We value and respect and are very thankful for the work that Hal Thinglum has done over the years. We salute you, Hal! The best part, however, is that Hal hasn't gone away. He's still here, and will be providing us with his fabulous column every issue as long as he wants to continue writing it. We're very happy to have him! Letters to the Editor and items for sale or wanted for the Sutler's Wagon are very welcome. Please send them to Editor@MWAN-Magazine.Com. Your submissions for articles are also very much appreciated, and form the life-blood of the magazine. We'd like to continue the tradition of a rules set in every issue. Help us do that.
Hail and Well Met, MWANers!
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© Copyright 2004 Hal Thinglum
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