Thursday, May 20, 2021

"Herbie": The Canadian Wargamer Podcast Mascot Figure

On his blog recently, Dai, a good friend of this blog and a good mate, was lamenting the tedium of batch painting.   Having almost finished 42(!) 6mm Napoleonic cavalry, I can well relate.  Sometimes it’s a welcome break to focus on one figure and lavish it with attention and with all one’s meagre talent (speaking purely for myself).  Hence, I present “Herbie”, a WW2 Canadian infantryman, named for the wartime cartoon drawn by Bing Coughlin and published in the Canadian Army newspaper The Maple Leaf.  I don’t think there was ever a widely adopted nickname for the Canuck soldier in that war, comparable to “Tommy” or “GI Joe”, but “Herbie”, Coughlin’s bewildered and misfit hero, seems to fit.

 

This figure is perhaps too martial and competent looking to be a “Herbie”, but I think that’s the name that stuck when my mate James got Canadian sculptor Bob Murch to design him as a registration gift for the 25th anniversary of the SW Ontario miniature gaming event, Hot Lead.  Here he is enjoying a brew (tea, hot, sweet, with a dollop of evaporated milk), his foot propped on a German helmet, in the ruins of some unfortunate city.  He wears the light blue shoulder patch of 3 Division and the “turtle” helmet issued before the Normandy campaign.

 Herbie will not be a gaming piece, but he’ll grace a bookshelf and perhaps be the image of the Canadian Wargamer Podcast, which James and I are dreaming up and which may see it’s inaugural episode recorded tonight.   Stay tuned for more.

 

Cheers and blessings to your brushes,

MP+

 

16 comments:

  1. Thanks for the props Mike!
    Herbie looks so good! A great pose and now I need to read up on the fellow.

    O and podcast you say? Just point me to where i can find and listen in.

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    1. Thanks mate. If you Google Bing Coughlin and Herbie, you should find a bunch of his cartoons. Very entertaining.
      Podcast is in the works, we just did a test drive last night to sort our some technical issues. Watch this space.

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  2. You have a podcast? Please tell us more. Good work on the figure.

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    1. Thanks Jonathan. In the works. Will be hosted on Podbean as The Canadian Wargamer, featuring me and an old friend, with a focus on wargaming in Canada, some guests, some waffling on, the usual. More to follow.

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  3. "...the Canadian Wargamer Podcast, which James and I are dreaming up and which may see it’s inaugural episode recorded tonight."
    Ooh, I'm excited about that!

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    1. PS, thanks for visiting. Have just Followed your blog, which looks great, and I hope to spend more time there for a proper look-see.

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  4. Nice work on that one. Looking to hear more about the podcast.

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    1. Thanks Doug, some news about a launch date soon I hope.

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  5. Ahh Herbie! My hero! I still have my Dad's booklet of Herbie cartoons. Some good laughs in it but many with a bite of dark humour based on real horrors or discomfort, not to be spoken of openly and not jingoistic or particularly sympathetic to officers or politicians.

    Nicely painted.

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  6. Hi Ross: Herbie was very similar to Bill Mauldin's Willie and Joe cartoons, same slightly satirical edge. My personal favourite is of Herbie and a friend looting material from a house that is obviously intended to become a still, while a padre watches them and says "Maintenance, I presume?". The horrors were underplayed, but the Germans were usually depicted as scary and not to be messed with, and not as cringing and ridiculous figures. He also wasn't that fond of MPs (who is, really?). Cheers, M

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