Wizard Magazine Should Be Good

[Zack]

Back in middle and high school, I recall enjoying WIZARD a lot and even having a subscription.

Then, as comic web sites became more popular, the news part of WIZARD seemed less interesting...and the articles seemed to decline in quality as well.

This past weekend, I was at home and found a big stack of WIZARD issues, and decided to pick one at random to see if my memories were just playing tricks on me.

The issue picked was #33, April 1994. The cover was...a big shot of Catwoman by Jim Balent. One point against.

The letters column was a tribute to Jack Kirby, who died the previous month. Touching and well-edited.

The Catwoman article was actually pretty good. Jo Duffy, the then-writer, was interviewed by Patrick Daniel O'Neil, and the focus was less on spoilers or describing the current plots than on how Duffy approached writing the book and the character. Up-and-comer alert: Dan DiDio did a sidebar about Batman and Catwoman's relationship.

This was followed by a nice article on Dave Cockrum and his career by Clifford Meth. Some fun early X-designs, and I recall it was a piece on Cockrum's health problems that made me pick up a few issues of WIZARD a couple years back.

Issue started to sink a bit after that, with several pages devoted to fan art, a hardcover "Before Zero Hour!" issue, pictures of pros as babies, "Hunk & Babe of the Month" (immediately followed by Bart Sears' "Brutes & Babes") and a contest.

Things picked up with a dense and entertaining Hollywood column, and a decent Ultraverse overview. This was followed by a great interview with Mike Allred on MADMAN by Brian Cunningham (there's also a "design a Madman costume" contest that payed off in the comic). In addition to Madman, there was a two-page "Palmer's Picks" on minicomics.

Most of the rest of the issue was devoted to buzz books and the price guide.

Some notes:

The feature articles all ran about five two-column pages, and emphasized text over graphics.

There were none of the extended previews that appear in the magazine now.

WHAT'S BETTER:

The interviews are more feature-oriented. They don't seem as concerned with what's ahead or providing "oh, this writer/artist is so great"-type background material than just talking about their careers and showing why they're interesting, and why their work is interesting by extension.

There's also more of a willingness to do extended feature stories outside of Marvel and DC.

WHAT'S WORSE:

There's less frat-boy humor, but there is a much stronger emphasis on "babe"-type material (see: cover, other features mentioned above).

About half the magazine is price guide, and it doesn't have semi-entertaining sidebars like the current edition.

OVERALL:

I'd like it if WIZARD had a better balance of stories focusing on creators like it did in its earlier years, but the emphasis on speculation is an example of why the industry imploded in the 1990s.

Looking at a current issue of WIZARD, I see some inklings of strong material (pieces on Jack Cole and Seth Fisher, for example), but there is a much stronger emphasis on either spoilers for Marvel and DC storylines, or on comic-related movies and TV series.

It's not as bad as it was a few years ago, but it feels stale already, while the articles in the older issues are still pretty entertaining. I'd like to see a better style of writing that doesn't emphasize fact-boxes and jokes as much as the current style.

WIZARD hasn't totally changed for the worse in the last decade...but it could still afford to change for the better.

Just my two cents. Anyone else have thoughts on WIZARD? Like it better in the early years, better now, or was it EVER good?

[shawnh]

I got sick of Wizard and its out of date support of speculation and didn't buy it for the last five years. I was intrigued by the format change, so I picked up the latest issue and I liked it better than the last few issues I'd bought before I gave it up. It was a nice enough read, with a couple of good articles. I always enjoyed the frat boy humor, that wasn't my problem with old Wizard.

It needs some more indepth pieces and to totally dump all references to speculation, though. No more slabbing articles and no more talking about how a book I bought three months ago is worth $30 in some magical, imaginary land. No price guide. Yep, I said it. Price guides are just an excuse for some teenager to try to charge me $20 a recent issue of Spider-Man. Honestly, how often do they really reflect what you can get an issue for if you look around a bit? The only people who charge Wizard prices are the people who use Wizard to set their prices.

Or at least no price guide every month, I wouldn't be that offended by a comprehensive yearly update.

It also seems to slant the articles more to a "Marvel/DC is kewl" angle, which I don't like. They need to make some attempt at objectivity. I wouldn't mind if they took some ideas from older magazines I used to read, such as the more detailed interviews from Comics Interview or the way Amazing Heroes did reviews.

[BillR]

No, Wizard should be cancelled.

[TheTen-EyedMan]

Combine Back Issue with Wizard.

Best of both worlds.

[Alan2099]

It used to be mroe entertainibng. I've noticed a lot of the more fanboy type sections, the last man Standing, Mort of the Month, and the like were dropped in effort to make the magazine seem a bit more serious, which stakes some of the fun out of stuff.

I'll agree with dropping the price guide althogether. They've also seemed to suck-up a bit too much. They used to outright slam bad books and characters but they hardly say anything bad anymore about these things.

[algertman]

The thing about Wizard is that it has ALWAYS sucked.

[algertman]

Originally Posted by BillR

No, Wizard should be cancelled.

Then what? you expect a good chunk of the fanboys to think for themselves?

[hmnut73]

For the record Wizard use to be good (like in the early 90's). They actually reported on comic books like real journalist.

I remember there was a time when many comic books would have covers that were nothing but the character or team making a generic pose having nothing to do with what the issue was about. Wizard commented on it and within a few months that trend was gone.

That was not an isolated incident either, they use to comment a lot on what was going on back then and they were objective. And they often helped make a change. I use to be really impressed. As a kid that was the closest thing I had ever seen to the idea of "power of the press".

They were also really good at reviewing comic books. Giving light to good books that no one is reading, also even putting down big name books when they start to get dumb.

The comic book industry never had its own version of real journalism before Wizard (to my knowledge anyway). But those days are long gone now. Wizard is just a joint press release for all comic companies to shell their books (good or bad). For shame.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

I remember when Wizard would rip comics and companies for bad ideas. Then get in trouble at times. I laughed my ass off when they said DC got pissed over the article on Jean Paul Valley's new costume and Marvel hated the intense hatred Wizard had towards the Spider-Clone and all.

Wizard needs to grow a set of balls again and attack more. I remember they ripped JMS for " Sins Past " and had others voice their anger.

[algertman]

Originally Posted by hmnut73

I remember there was a time when many comic books would have covers that were nothing but the character or team making a generic pose having nothing to do with what the issue was about. Wizard commented on it and within a few months that trend was gone.

That never went away

[Gingold]

Wizard used to have the balls to take down sacred cows like Azrael's new costume and the Spider-Clone saga? They didn't care who they pissed off in those days, did they?

[stealthwise]

It's funny. I bought Wizard a few times over the past few months, and after reading some articles, I'd get caught in the hype machine.

They tricked me into getting Infinite Crisis. They tricked me into getting Civil War. The magazine is just a hype machine, but it's a very good one.

Then I remembered that I could buy two comics instead of the one magazine and promptly stopped picking it up.

[Pól Rua]

Originally Posted by stealthwise

They tricked me into getting Infinite Crisis. They tricked me into getting Civil War. The magazine is just a hype machine, but it's a very good one.

That said, they're also the reason I started buying Kagan MacLeod's 'Infinite Kung Fu'. Wizard's toilet reading, but there's no reason why it shouldn't be decent toilet reading.

[the_big_billbowski]

When I was in the Service I didnt have the money to collect like I had in highschool so I collected Wizard to stay abreast of what was going on. I still do to a point, but I do get caught in the hype and end up buying crap comics. They recently got rid of the feature that would tell what's going on in a comic for the month and what to expect for the next issue. I often used that to judge if I would try a new book. Although sometimes it did have a spolier or 2 in them. I miss alot of the humor of the letter pages and the side bars. thier nots as funny as they used to be. I think losing Jim Mcahalin (or however you spell it) really hurt Wizard. It's not as good as it used to be but I do like the new over sized format. It's still good I just wish it was funnier.

[Alan2099]

Originally Posted by Gingold

Wizard used to have the balls to take down sacred cows like Azrael's new costume and the Spider-Clone saga? They didn't care who they pissed off in those days, did they?

Nope. They've even ranked Spawn and X-men as bad reads before.