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 Lord Damocles wrote:
Mod edit - removed, show some class..

Apparently you don't like me citing GW's opinion on older White Dwarf. Have a direct quote:
'The past 40 years of White Dwarf are an incredible triumph and provide a mass of wonderful examples of what's great and why, but you can always do it better. Nostalgia's not what it used to be, as the old joke goes, and looking back you can see that with White Dwarf. Fond as we all might be of our own favourites, the real triumphs aren't in the past, they're where we are now: the Ultimate Warhammer Magazine'
(White Dwarf May 2017, pg.144)

Now, obviously that opinion is wrong and insulting to Sawyer's time as editor, given the quality of the post-2016 re-boot(s); but it is GW's published opinion.


As I also stated, we wouldn't have expected to see anything regarding Sawyers passing in White Dwarf yet given their lead times; however if we do, well... we've seen their opinion already...

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Mod edit - removed, show some class..

Apparently you don't like me citing GW's opinion on older White Dwarf. Have a direct quote:
'The past 40 years of White Dwarf are an incredible triumph and provide a mass of wonderful examples of what's great and why, but you can always do it better. Nostalgia's not what it used to be, as the old joke goes, and looking back you can see that with White Dwarf. Fond as we all might be of our own favourites, the real triumphs aren't in the past, they're where we are now: the Ultimate Warhammer Magazine'
(White Dwarf May 2017, pg.144)

Now, obviously that opinion is wrong and insulting to Sawyer's time as editor, given the quality of the post-2016 re-boot(s); but it is GW's published opinion.


As I also stated, we wouldn't have expected to see anything regarding Sawyers passing in White Dwarf yet given their lead times; however if we do, well... we've seen their opinion already...

I mean, that opinion is from eight years ago, under a different editorial team. The issue 500 retrospective was definitely a lot more respectful of the past

We can probably at least agree that WD quality is not currently at its lowest point in history.

I'm not normally into personality worship and such but I do owe Paul Sawyer my lifelong love of White Scars.

 Platuan4th wrote:
Speaking of, Paul Sawyer's rebuilt Beastmen army is up on eBay.

So this has me thinking about the romance and gaming thread, because trying to explain who Paul Sawyer was and why buying his army is so important would be something of a challenge.

My wife would allow it simply on my say-so, but also because she knows that when she orders a truckload of books, I will be in no position to object.

I hope they get proper use. It's nice to see them finding a new home, and I hope the new owner brings them out often. It would be cool to play against!

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Mod edit - removed, show some class..

Apparently you don't like me citing GW's opinion on older White Dwarf. Have a direct quote:
'The past 40 years of White Dwarf are an incredible triumph and provide a mass of wonderful examples of what's great and why, but you can always do it better. Nostalgia's not what it used to be, as the old joke goes, and looking back you can see that with White Dwarf. Fond as we all might be of our own favourites, the real triumphs aren't in the past, they're where we are now: the Ultimate Warhammer Magazine'
(White Dwarf May 2017, pg.144)

Now, obviously that opinion is wrong and insulting to Sawyer's time as editor, given the quality of the post-2016 re-boot(s); but it is GW's published opinion.

As I also stated, we wouldn't have expected to see anything regarding Sawyers passing in White Dwarf yet given their lead times; however if we do, well... we've seen their opinion already...

JFC, it's an editorial from 8 years ago when GW were completely controlled by their marketing team and does not specifically mentioned Paul Sawyer at all. It's a massive stretch to assume it's some vendetta against a particular past editor or anything other than a blatant piece of PR spin to try to convince people to continue buying the current magazine.

We have no idea if there will be a tribute to Paul Sawyer in an upcoming WD. The print lead times are usually around 3 months so it may be that it appears in an upcoming issue. For all we know they asked the family and they said no. It's utterly bizarre to try to turn this into some anti-GW thing.

It sucks, but I guess they have to draw a line as otherwise people would call them out for missing other people that have recently passed. We've recently lost Brian ancell and Colin Dixion as well and I don't think they made mention of it.

Whilst putting a small note in white dwarf would be nice, the print times is probably too long. In this day and age, the best thing would be to pop a nice small article up on WarCom but I guess if they do it for one, they'd have to do it for everyone and we are at an age and time where every week we'd have an article now and it would start to look like more like the obituaries than a warhammer advertising page.

The lead times will be long for the major articles and other pieces but they absolutely have the ability to add 'stop press'-esque cutouts into the mag. Or at least, every other magazine I know of does.

Regarding other ex-staff passing away, Richard Halliwell did get a mention in the mag. Really, we are not talking about more than a small number of names here - this isn't Classic Rock magazine, which needs a whole Obituaries section. And especially in the case of Paul, someone that edited the magazine for a long period of time and during a period of great transformation for GW.

The guys writing now for WD will themselves be former staff one day in the future. The work they do means something to people, it will do to them, I think it's important that that can be remembered. And so I'm surprised and disheartened that they haven't done so.

 Pacific wrote:
The lead times will be long for the major articles and other pieces but they absolutely have the ability to add 'stop press'-esque cutouts into the mag. Or at least, every other magazine I know of does.

Regarding other ex-staff passing away, Richard Halliwell did get a mention in the mag. Really, we are not talking about more than a small number of names here - this isn't Classic Rock magazine, which needs a whole Obituaries section. And especially in the case of Paul, someone that edited the magazine for a long period of time and during a period of great transformation for GW.

The guys writing now for WD will themselves be former staff one day in the future. The work they do means something to people, it will do to them, I think it's important that that can be remembered. And so I'm surprised and disheartened that they haven't done so.

The staff at WD are lucky to get their surnames printed in the magazine. In a world where codexes go uncredited and staff interviewed on the community page are addressed purely by their first name, a culture of anonymity reigns at GW.

Pacific wrote:Regarding other ex-staff passing away, Richard Halliwell did get a mention in the mag.

With a wrong photo...

Shakalooloo wrote:The staff at WD are lucky to get their surnames printed in the magazine. In a world where codexes go uncredited and staff interviewed on the community page are addressed purely by their first name, a culture of anonymity reigns at GW.

We also live in a world of 'social' media where people may find it not that pleasant to be in the spotlight and getting harrassed by completely strangers.

 Dryaktylus wrote:


We also live in a world of 'social' media where people may find it not that pleasant to be in the spotlight and getting harrassed by completely strangers.

I believe that was one of the reasons they stopped putting an author on codex/battletomes.

Though I think the absolute worst was the authors of the kids books who got insane hatemail from writing them.



It doesn't take many people either to cause problems online; hound people and worse.


The flipside is GW also saw people like Duncan build a name for themselves and then strike out on their own; on a personal level they likely feel fine about it and are happy he's doing well; but on a company level the firm has to consider if they want to be basically promoting and investing into people who then vanish. Of course they've also learned that "faceless hands" don't get the attention nor views in videos either.

"Star players" was part of the marketing, until it sort of backfired in the Mat Ward years.

Now, you can still see names like Rick, Andy, Toumas, and Gav can still drive a lot of money for a project on name recognition alone.