On his blog, Tom Brevoort shares the story of how he and Steve Wacker brought down the Wizard Awards ceremony that used to be held at Wizard World Chicago:
You see, last year, editor Steve Wacker won the award for Best Editor, primarily for his work on the weekly series 52. By the time the awards were being given out, Steve had switched companies, and was working down here at Marvel. Neither he nor I were slated to be in Chicago for the convention, but Marvel had begun dabbling with doing online videos. So we hit upon the idea of filming Steve’s acceptance speech, and having the Wizard folks play it during the ceremony.
The video we sent is embedded below. And we didn’t hear anything about it at the time, but apparently there were some people over at Steve’s former company who didn’t find it funny (I’m told they actually walked out of the awards ceremony after it played) and who made a big stink about it afterwards. Large enough of a stink that the Wizard folks decided to forego the awards ceremony entirely this year.
The video can be found at the link up top.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:24 am
What I recall is that the video clip was very funny and there was much chuckling in my vicinity; that Dan D. had to leave after he presented; and that fan attendance at the awards was particularly anemic.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
I don’t think the clip is very funny, but only because the acting and dialogue are lame, causing the joke to fall flat.
July 9th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Oh thank God. I’ve been trying to Google for the past week to get someone’s account of the award show. Thank you, Sean, for giving an account.
July 9th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Brevoort should be on the stage. There’s one leaving in an hour…
July 9th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Rockin’ Rich, you are so right.
Because B happens after A happened does not mean A caused B. Wizard is cutting back on all aspects, so maybe they just decided it cost too much money to rent the room. Or maybe it is too much trouble to run an awards ceremony with a smaller staff.
Another egotistical blog by Brevoort claiming he runs the world. Bah. And feh.
July 9th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Did Marvel learn nothing from “In the House?” On paper their creative staff is hilarious, on film they’re creepy and awkward.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
Not particularly funny. Or particularly inappropriate.
I’ve been going to WWChi since 1999 and have never, ever attended the Fan Awards. Like most people… I didn’t give a crap. I didn’t even notice there absence.
I was at the Sunday Conversation about Comics with DiDio and Brevort walked in late. Dan got a fan to slam One More Day in Tom’s presence, but overall it was good-natured fun.
I don’t believe this silly video stopped Wizard from having their dumb little awards.