Gareb Shamus (worked with him at a convention almost 10 years ago) was a little egomaniacal but whatever. Still doesn’t change the fact that Wizard had overinflated prices (which sad to say, some comic shops actually used to price their back issues), and started to dictate what was “cool” and ignore a LOT of the good comics out there. Won’t be sad to see it go at all, not in the least bit.

Good-bye Wizard, don’t let the door hit you on the @$$ on the way out…. and btw, don’t bother wasting time re-inventing yourself as a online comics news site, unless you do something VERY VERY unique and different. Other sites have already beat you to the punch.

Comic books have come a long way. But they will never be entertainment medium of choice for the majority. I think Wizard probably could’ve weathered the storm if they’d remained true to the medium instead of trying to rub elbows with Hollywood all the time. It’s a beautiful dream, but reality caused a once great comic book news magazine to fold.

By the way, I’ve been there since issue #1.

- Issue # 100, Captain America with a caption saying “Remember kids, French Canadians are just as worst as the real thing”. I’m French Canadian and I found it offensive, especially considering that we frenchies here bought the book each month.

- The Wizard World website once had a cool online comic filing system that cost $20 a year to use. Then one day the website shut down. They were now using another domain name with the system. When I asked them what happened to my service, they claimed that they had sold that website to someone else and the website owner declaired bankruptcy. They said they were not responsible for any refunds but did not help me in getting more information.

- The cover price in Canada was $2 more than it was in the U.S.. When the Canadian dollar’s value became at par with the U.S. dollar they did not reduce the price, this despite the fact that all comic companies had done so already. When Wal-Mart Canada announced that they would now sell all their magazines at the listed U.S price, Wizard responded by having all copies shipped to Canada WITHOUT the U.S. cover price. I found that to be very shallow on their behalf.

- The last Wizard I bought had a page count of less than 70. It was more than double that previously. To make matters worse, the cover price did not go down with the page count.

- When they included cards or samples with their magazine I had no problem with them selling the mag bagged. But the last few months the book was still bagged but with no freebies. I think they did that to prevent people from seeing the page count.

All in all I’m not surprised and I will miss the old Wizard, but good ridance to that thin expensive new magazine that tried to be a sell-out and ended up not having an issue sold-out in years.

Did everyone notice that Wizard World is a separate company now? That’s so that they won’t be liable for any debts owed by the former company. In other words, everyone they owed money to will be screwed, when the old company files for bankrupcy.

Will the comics publishers and comics pros (and of course, the movie studios!) continue to pimp themselves out at their conventions, knowing how many fans and staffers they’ve screwed out of their money?

Will the zombie fans continue to support the sister company that ripped off so many other fans, because they can’t miss the chance to meet some pros and see some movie trailers?

It remains to be seen.

But it’s been coming for a long time. Their downward spiral came when they stopped really going in depth into the industry and started putting out vapid features like Top Ten Marvel stories/DC/X-Men/Super-hero slugfests/Plot twists/yada yada yada all butressed with, I’ll admit, hilarious writing styles. But towards the end of the 90s they just weren’t covering anything of interest. Their news section was basically full of press releases, rumors and pap, the price guide was fairly useless for prices, though good at noting who wrote and drew what and when characters made first appearances or died. Eventually they stopped bringing anything new to the reader and were coasting on a lot of good will which runs out eventually, and did.. Then when the video game industry exploded and when superhero movies were being made left and right, any focus on no name comic creators was all but gone. Video games were cool and writers had more incentive to try to land interviews with famous actresses and big name directors then that jerk who wrote some no name book for some third tier publisher.

Alas poor Wizard, I knew it well!

A few years ago I decided to buy another subscription to the magazine, only the find out the new Wizard was just a shell of its former self. The Wizard from my childhood was chock full of entertainment from cover to cover. Every picture had a funny caption and they had fun articles like “Casting Call” and “Mort of the Month.”

The new Wizard pretty much cut all of the fun out of the book. It felt lobotomized. One of the last issues I received in my subscription was put together wrong so that the second half of the magazine repeated itself. I didn’t even bother trying to get a replacement, I just let my subscription die out.

Even as the magazine started to slip, I held out hope that if Wizard just got back to its former fun roots and stopped trying to consider itself a serious source of comic book news, it could get back on top. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like they did.

RIP Wizard. Maybe like Cracked you’ll be able to successfully reinvent yourself online. Even if you don’t, we still had some good times together, I’ve even got a giant rubbermade tub of back-issues to prove it.

Their articles on Bill Finger, Wally Wood etc. were stellar.
In recent years it has become a joke, but those first 100 issues are still in my wardrobe and reread at various times.