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Putting this here as it predates the whole 'Warhammer' thing.

I thought people might be interested to see this. As part of Ian Livingston and Steve Jackson's Crowdfunding of their book, Dice Men: Games Workshop 1975-1985 they showed this picture of the very first lineup for their products:



Anyone else find it interesting? I forget sometimes that Steve Jackson was a part of Games Workshop, much less that they were a more traditional RPG distributor before Warhammer.

Anyone old enough to remember when this shop first opened?

i'm technically old enough, but wasn't aware of them then,

but I do remember them as an RPG distributor, and later a licensor of a variety of RPG titles like Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer and Runequest where they printed their own versions of the rules etc

and I remember when they stopped carrying any of them and sold off all the remaining stock cheap (although I can't remember if this was the same point that their shops when GW only or a bit later?)

Is the book still not funded? Dang.

 ChargerIIC wrote:


Anyone else find it interesting? I forget sometimes that Steve Jackson was a part of Games Workshop, much less that they were a more traditional RPG distributor before Warhammer.

Just to be clear, it's not the Steve Jackson of Car Wars, Illuminati, Munchkin fame. Different Steve Jackson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_Workshop#Overview_and_history

 Valander wrote:

 ChargerIIC wrote:


Anyone else find it interesting? I forget sometimes that Steve Jackson was a part of Games Workshop, much less that they were a more traditional RPG distributor before Warhammer.

Just to be clear, it's not the Steve Jackson of Car Wars, Illuminati, Munchkin fame. Different Steve Jackson.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Games_Workshop#Overview_and_history

Indeed. He's the Steve Jackson that wrote the Fighting Fantasy Books and also co-founded Lionhead Games with Peter Molyneux. Just to be even more confusing the American Steve Jackson also wrote 3 Fighting Fantasy books too.

That picture was in a White Dwarf a while ago - one of the anniversary ones (probably GW's 30th). Interesting how they've gone from multi-channel distributor to just selling their own products. Older WDs are a good read just to see the reviews of non-GW stuff.

And that there is the start of the nerd/geek stereotype we have been stuck with for 40+ years.

SeanDrake wrote:
And that there is the start of the nerd/geek stereotype we have been stuck with for 40+ years.

"I never chose the geek life..."

"....it chose me!"

SeanDrake wrote:
And that there is the start of the nerd/geek stereotype we have been stuck with for 40+ years.

Lol, yeah, because every single one of the guys in that pic went to bed the night before this picture was taken as the very paragon of bleeding edge cool, then *poof* woke up the next morning looking like that!

Bell bottoms was a nerd thing back in the day?

 Desubot wrote:
Bell bottoms was a nerd thing back in the day?

nahh that was more of a general 70's malaise in the UK, of course I was one of the cool kids and dressed as a Cowboy until stupid primary school intervened

Perhaps it's the historical snob in me; but I look at a company history about to be written by the founders and see a very one sided biased rose tinted book in the making. Sir Allan Grant, the Director of John Brown did something similar back in the day for example, and the result was really quite vapid. Whilst there's enough literary credits in the team that I've no doubt it'll be well written and entertaining; I have my doubts over the relative quality of the content.

SeanDrake wrote:
And that there is the start of the nerd/geek stereotype we have been stuck with for 40+ years.

Yeah, can't believe those Nerds have been cramping the style of us cool Wargamers over the past 40 years.

I remember this in real time. But here in the states it was just white dwarf magazine. But there was already dragon magazine. So it was weird.

Dragon magazine was the "house organ" of TSR. Who were known for D&D and little else.

WD was the house organ of GW (who had publishing rights to quite a few US originated rpgs - like Cthulhu, paranoia, D&D ).
Back in those days, the only reason WD had articles about "non GW games" was because they had the rights to those games for UK/Eire and possibly Europe, too - and they could.

Glad im not that sad...oh wait i still listen to Disco while painting toy soldiers

I can remember taking grief at school for wearing trousers that weren't flares. The cool kids definitely wore flares. I was not a cool kid. I wore a parka with a fur-edged hood. And read 2000AD. I also had a balaclava.

Actually, serious point, if you reduced the width of the bell bottoms and shortened some of the hair, this would pretty much look like it was taken on a wet day just recently. Seriously. Fashion hasn't really changed much for a lot of folks in 40 years. The detail - the designs on the t-shirts and the product used in the hair, and the prevalence of beards, but really, not that much at all when you think about it. Compare this photo to one from 40 years before that (which would have been the 1930's) and the differences would be *much* more marked - everyone wearing suits, caps or hats, no trainers...

In the grim darkness of the 1970s.... Games Workshop had net curtains in their windows.

To be fair, I think that bloke at the front by the bike is the paragon of nerd chic, he's got a kind of 70s proto-tech entrepreneur look and is rocking it with supreme confidence.

This is such a cool piece of history.

 Osbad wrote:
I can remember taking grief at school for wearing trousers that weren't flares. The cool kids definitely wore flares. I was not a cool kid. I wore a parka with a fur-edged hood. And read 2000AD. I also had a balaclava.

Actually, serious point, if you reduced the width of the bell bottoms and shortened some of the hair, this would pretty much look like it was taken on a wet day just recently. Seriously. Fashion hasn't really changed much for a lot of folks in 40 years. The detail - the designs on the t-shirts and the product used in the hair, and the prevalence of beards, but really, not that much at all when you think about it. Compare this photo to one from 40 years before that (which would have been the 1930's) and the differences would be *much* more marked - everyone wearing suits, caps or hats, no trainers...

Nah...

Can you imagine that look in the late 80s or the 90s? Things got fluorescent and Joe Bloggs before going grunge and indy, whilst the beards disappeared.

Fashion is cyclical, you could get away with the Jeff Lynne 70s thing back then and now, but if I'd tried it in school in the intervening decades, I'd have got my head flushed down the bog for it.

Gamers were so much thinner back then! Not like what you see at your LFGS currently. Must be GW's fault.