Years ago, I was doing a signing at a convention, and a kid brought me a copy of an issue of X-Factor to sign. And I glanced at it and said, “I didn’t write it. I’m sorry, but I don’t sign comics I didn’t write.”
And he said, “The Wizard guide says you wrote it.”
I said, “I’m sorry,but I didn’t. It’s wrong.”
He stared at me , uncomprehending, unable to process it. “But…Wizard says you wrote it.”
I opened it for him and pointed to the credits. “See? Right there. I didn’t write it.”
“But…Wizard says you did.”
That is the hold that Wizard Magazine once had on young readers (no, I didn’t sign it, if that’s what you’re wondering.) It directed their every interaction with comics. But time has passed, and anyone with eyes could see how the publication was shrinking, to the point where there was no advertising–the lifeblood of magazines–to keep it going. And now it’s stopped going.
I, personally, am saddened by it. Anything that shutters an avenue of comic collection diminishes us all, even if we weren’t always thrilled with how they presented the hobby. Plus it means people are out of work; never a good thing in today’s economy. I know a lot of people will be pleased to see what they perceive as something that did the hobby no favors folding, but to me it’s just another tangible indicator of the funk the entire industry is in.
PAD
• 
I feel bad for the people that lost their jobs, but the writing was on the wall for years regarding Wizard.
Now the loss of Toyfare hurts. The world just won’t be the same without the antics of Mego Spidey and the rest of Twisted Toyfare Theater. Yeah, we still have Robot Chicken, but I really miss Mego Spidey.
Could not agree with Aaron more about Toyfare.
I wonder if anyone has tried to sell Twisted Toyfare Theater as its own publication> I know there were TTT freebies at conventions, but have they ever tried to sell it as its own commercial product? Some of that stuff is funny, so maybe it would sell.
Luigi, they did in fact sell collections of TTT, although several early strips featuring DC characters had to be edited or left out.
Around 1994 I went looking for some missing back issues in a comic store a couple of towns away from my regular store. I was a little suprised when I did not see any price tags in the bags of the back issues. I thought maybe they were selling them at cover price. Instead, the guy at the register picked up the latest issue of Wizard and used their price guide to set the prices.
.
I started reading comics in ’91 so when Wizard first came out I enjoyed the articles that gave background story to current comic events. I did not have money to track down the classic stories so Wizard and Hero magazine were my only source of information.
As a person who enjoys humor but doesn’t collect toys, I get the TWISTED TOYFARE THEATER collections instead of individual TOYFARE issues. But anyway…
I’m sorry to see it go, but it’s not a shock: Lots of entertainment magazines have folded (as a gamer, I miss SCRYE) or reduced price to stay alive (something I noticed on both COSMOPOLITAN and MAXIM).
On a slightly tangential side, does anyone know if/when comic book publishers will start making current books available for digital devices, like the iPad and Kindle? These devices sell like crazy, I suspect they’ve revitalized sales for the publishers making their works available on them, and I would imagine once the software is in place an electronic comic would be far easier to send than printing and mailing a hard copy. I’ve heard the argument that some refuse because that would hurt comic book stores, but to me that’s like a music company avoiding iTunes because that would hurt Best Buy. It really seems like a missed opportunity.
Most major publishers are releasing comics for ipads.
Ah, you meant Current.
.
Archie is the only publisher that does the full line current. I wouldn’t expect to see the other publishers follow suit.
.
There are reasons why this makes sense. But it’s too early in the day to go into it.
You know, I checked out Marvel’s iPad app, and it’s nice and all, but I think they’re missing the boat on digital comics in terms of release time and pricing. It’s like they are afraid the digital sales will ‘steal’ sales from the paper comics, so they wait a long time to release them digitally. Same deal with DC, now that I look. And it’s stupid. Yeah, I know the Diamond lists are the barometer of success for comics, but hëll, come up with a new one.
.
The pricing reminds me of what’s happening with games, I don’t know if it’s the same reason, but it seems it might be. See, with games, the brick and mortar stores threaten publishers with a boycott of their games if they do not price the digital copies the same as the box versions. (though Steam and other digital retailers tend to get around this somewhat by offering like, 75% off sales fairly frequently. Same idea as Marvel offering free issues, I suppose) Though he digital version is cheaper for them to produce and distribute, and in some cases you get less stuff, it costs the same, which hardly seems fair, but the publishers do it in order to keep their games on the shelves of brick and mortar stores. I could easily see a similar situation in comics, or in a less cynical version, I could see DC/Marvel etc. feeling responsible for keeping comic shops afloat, since it’s such an insular industry.
.
What I would LIKE to see them do, though is release the digital versions cheaper, and current (I’d accept a week or two later, but months later as it stands now is absurd) and use them to push TPB’s. I’d totally buy comics on the cheap digitally, and then get the trade later. I like trades a LOT more than single issues, but it would offer me a way to keep current with the stories. But I simply can’t afford 4 bucks an issue PLUS the trade. It would also probably cut down on the digital piracy of comics. And people will buy trades of things they read digitally, ask Warren Ellis with Freakangels, or numerous web comic authors who sell trades collecting their strips.
.
Kinda sad to see them go, but I guess the writing was on the wall.
I have sympathy for some Wizard Press employees….but not so much for others, and they are the reason why I stopped buying Wizard Magazine years ago, a reason that relates to PAD’s anecdote at the top: factual inaccuracy. I have never encountered a genre publication with as many inaccuracies per average issue as Wizard Magazine had. Most were minor, but on occasion they would publish a “fact” that even the average non-reader of comics could spot as an error.
.
When I pay money for a publication with a stated intent of providing information on a subject of interest to me, I expect at least a minimum of effort on the part of writers and editors to provide accurate information, using either a basic knowledge of the subject matter, or at the very least, taking the time and effort to research the material and confirm that the information gathered is genuine. Judging by the material that saw print, in Wizard and comics-related material for Toyfare, Wizard Press staff were often unable or unwilling to make said effort. So consider me unsympathetic in that regard.
.
As for Toyfare–well, I’ve already been missing Twisted Toyfar Theatre for a bit over a year, since Toyfare cut its page count in half but kept the same cover price, so it doesn’t really change much for me.
.
Overall, I’m doubtful that this is a sign of the current state of the industry as it is a sign of consumer reaction to quality and value, or the lack thereof. Publish an accurate, informative magazine at a price that’s worth the quality of the content, and you might prosper. Charge as much as you want for whatever you want to stuff inside a cover, and you might not. (Wait, that’s actually a fair reflection of the comics industry as it stands…) Where Wizard and Toyfare fall in between those two extremes is, I suppose, up to the individual consumer’s opinion, but if neither magazine can stay afloat, the aggregate consumer judgement has apparently been made.
.
.
Chuck
I asked Peter about this on his “So, what do want to know?” thread yesterday, and got a response from one of the posters saying that there was going to be a website launched called “Wizard World.” Given how their last website sorta went into the çráppër, I have only one thing to say – “Good luck with that.”
As for the magazines… while Wizard was responsible for getting me back into comics in the late 90s, what kept me reading were articles like “Last Hero Standing” and “Casting Call.” What I really looked forward to, however, were the “How to Draw” segments. Even though I can’t draw worth a lick to save my life, it was nice to see established talents lend their time to show aspiring artists the tricks of their trade.
Once the magazine changed formats, though, and the abovementioned articles were discontinued, my interest waned. And when the quality and page quantity changed, I dropped the magazine.
Toyfare, however, was worth reading for Twisted Toyfare Theatre alone. Hope someone continues Mego Spidey’s adventures.
I will, however, miss Wizard Entertainment’s special publications, such as the hardcover Millenium Editions and the Postermania issues (but then again, those haven’t been published in a long while, so the point’s moot).
I’m a little worried about Comics Buyer’s Guide, too. That magazine, which was thick enough to have a spine when it changed over from a weekly newspaper, when to a regular stapled binding a year or so ago and feels a little thinner each month.
It’s the economics of periodical publishing, I’m afraid. There was a car magazine I read that only launched in late 2008 and at the end of 2010 the publisher folded it and its three other marque-specific magazines into one thick monthly which is divided up among all those marques–but the question is whether the combined product will be able to hold onto enough of each of those specialized readerships to stay afloat.
Wizard, unfortunately, had already folded its other magazines, so combining them into one thick mag wasn’t an option.
I’m worried about CBG too. As I noted in the last stash thread, it’s now thinner than the Marvel Index books (I think the last issue of CBG was 48 pages). I think that the print magazines that survive are going to be more ones like Back Issue and Alter Ego which are mostly looking back at previous eras (CBG does this too to a degree but it also has a foot in the present day). To survive in print you really need stuff you can’t get online somewhere.
As former Staff Editor for CBG, I’m worried about what Wizard’s cancellation means for CBG, too. I was under the impression that CBG’s change from weekly newspaper to monthly magazine was in part influenced by Wizard.
I think it was 60 pages, but they’re now counting the covers in the page count. I realize I’m not helping the problem, but noticing that was what convinced me to drop it. Back Issue and Alter Ego, contents aside, still feel like value for money.
.
I suspect CBG’s change to monthly had as much to do with the Internet as anything. Back in the day, coming out weekly made sense when they could be a source of breaking news. (I remember reposting information from them to Usenet; I think I was the first person to make a factual post about Image Comics to rec.arts.comics.misc, and to make a joke about “Substance Comics”.) Once the Web became the quickest way of getting that information, it made sense for CBG to refocus.
.
That seems to have been part of what did in Wizard the print magazine, too; a few years ago there was a definite shift from “covering comics news” to “we write about whatever seems cool to us”, which cut out the one serious article they usually had a month. (That was the point I stopped reading it.)
I’m glad to see the current print incarnation of Wizard gone, but miss when comics-based magazines were interesting, entertaining and plenty (whether your favorite was Wizard, Hero Illustrated, CBG, Comics Scene or what have you).
The world’s moved on, I guess.
I’ve had Wizard on my pull list at my comic shope for years (probably woulda been cheaper if I subscribed, but what the heck) so I’m gonna miss it, not that I found it all that informative or in depth (but it did have it’s moments) and I wouldn’t sit there and crack open a magazine and read it cover to cover it’s just that it was great reading for whilst having a smoke and, uh, personal constitutionals. Of course, I also have Entertainment Weekly which is great for that too. But I’ve been cheating on my magazines lately and watching my iPod instead. So I guess I’m going to miss Wizard simply because it was an easy, breezy, fun read.
To me, Wizard will always be associated with the crap that came over comics in the 1990s. Still, it was the only comics magazine that one sometimes could find in imported comic shops here in Brazil, in those pre-Internet times. So, if you were a serious comic fan, you couldn’t escape it. Not too sad to see it’s gone, but I’m sad that the industry seems to be shrinking.
I also have to wonder, if Wizard magazine is gone, what does that mean for the various conventions it took over?
Wizard the organization still exists; they’ve announced a new publicly-traded company and an online magazine, both named Wizard World.
PAD wrote: “I opened it for him and pointed to the credits. ‘See? Right there. I didn’t write it.’
‘But…Wizard says you did.'”
Wizard knows more about you than you do. 😀
Funny. I remember reading the letter you wrote to Wizard telling that same story, and it was the first thing I thought of when I heard the magazine was folding.