by Brant Guillory, 7 November 2024
One thing we’ve lost with digital sales & distribution is the paper catalog. So few companies produce one anymore, and yet the few that do are roundly praised and lauded for them. There’s a reason we’ve often sunk an entire episode of our podcast in the Autumns past to talk about the Compass Games catalog1.
We’ve talked about catalogs several times before in our Throwback Thursday columns, here, here, and here. So what is it about the paper catalog that so ignites our interest, our imagination, and our excitement?
Compass Games’ 2021 Holiday Catalog – from Compass Games
Maybe it’s the joy of discovering a heretofore-unknown title that piques our interest. Perhaps is the graphics that catch the eye, or the a descriptive blurb that sends down a rabbit hole for more information about a battle, a designer, a historical figure, or a map.
TSR’s 1981 catalog – from the author’s collection
And that’s all good and well, but what about catalogs that are 20 or 30 or 40 years old, or more. In fact, there probably aren’t many of them that are under 25 years old, since that barely squeaks into the 1990s at this point, when very few companies were still publishing paper catalogs.
Military Simulations 1975 catalog – from archive.org
Aside from the memories of flipping through those catalogs and remembering our daydreams about the games we wanted, what’s the fascination? Is it a longing for the prices of 45 years ago? Is the fact that you used to be able to order individual pieces of games from Avalon Hill? Are we remembering games we haven’t even seen on shelves since Reagan was President? Are we thinking back on games that we played as kids, but have long since been lost to either a skinflint friend who borrowed the game and never returned it, or mom obliviously slapping a $3 tag on it at a yard sale?
Avalon Hill’s 1982 Catalog – from the author’s collection
For some of us, it’s the typography, color, layout & design, and visual aesthetic of the catalog that clearly situates it in a specific time & place. Tracking the evolution of those catalogs serves as a proxy for the developments in publishing technology from manual paste-up to digital layout, and from 1-color to 2-color to 4-color to digital printing presses that offer a greater visual appeal to the readers.
Whatever the fascination, older catalogs are still a blast to flip through. If you enjoyed these, then join us on 11 November 2024 for our live show talking about wargame catalogs (or watch it afterwards if you missed us live).
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Its wargame porn! Seriously, before the Internet, what else did we have? Ads in military and modeling magazines and catalogs. I sent Russ Gifford PDF scans of some old SPI catalogs that I had. They are posted here: https://www.spigames.net/SPI_Ads.htm