|
By Jason Bourgeois
Is it weird to eulogise the passing of someone who may be seen as a competitor? Ah well.
Ahh, Wizard Magazine. Remember them? They started off almost 20 years ago, and 235 some odd issues later, and a few spin offs, and they have decided it is time to cease publication.
That decision shakes me probably more than it should, probably more than it does most people, but I've been with them for a good, long time. I didn't start getting Wizard from the beginning, although I did look at my friends' copies from time to time. The first issue I ever bought was #14, and it wasn't until over a year later when I bought my next issue with #28. So I was there pretty early on.
After #28, I bought every single issue of Wizard. Every one. Until now. I have the long boxes full of issues to prove it. One or two have gone missing in the intervening decades, but for the most part my run is intact. I'm not sure if I should be more ashamed or proud of this fact.
A little bit later they tried branching out from comics, and stepped into toy culture with ToyFare magazine, and I have a complete run of that save for the very first special issue. There was also attempts at the collectible card game market with their magazine InQuest which didn't last more than a few years, and the same thing with Anime Insider and a few other projects.
Wizard and ToyFare were their two big ticket items that really had staying power; comics and toys. It's easy to see why those two titles were the ones to endure. Those are the two topics that seem to be the ones that remain. You can still find CCGs out there, but they are nowhere near as big as they once were, and even more niche than even comicbooks these days. Anime may be big, but is just as easily covered in with other comics.
Sadly, as with a lot of publishing, things have been on the downturn for Wizard Publishing for awhile now. Wizard has never been as popular as it was towards the end of the 90s. It hasn't broken sales of 100,000 issues since 1998. Things have become ever more difficult to publish a monthly magazine as the internet took off. Who wants to buy a magazine with all the latest news that you already heard about weeks ago online?
Well, besides me, that is. I always liked their offbeat sense of humour. Even if it became ever more juvenile as time went on. I think they were getting more desperate and reaching to grab a younger audience, trying anything to keep them around. But the audience just wasn't responding. Still, I got a few laughs out of every issue of Wizard or ToyFare I bought.
Even so, I have a giant stack of both issues, going back for a year, that I've only skimmed through for the good bits. I've not read an issue of either fully in well over 12 months. I just haven't found the time, and again, most of the news I've already seen. They may go more in depth, may get better interviews, but it's all old hat. And the longer I waited, the less relevant it became to get around to reading. What incentive do I have to read Wizard #212 about Captain America's death? He's back already!
And before anyone checks that number and issue content, I just pulled it off the top of my head as an example, and probably has nothing to do with Cap. But you get my point.
The magazines have not been relevant for at least five years, and I am probably being way more than generous. 10 years is likely more accurate, and I'm sure some people reading this are asking, "Were they ever relevant?" Well, yes. I think they were. They were a source of news, such as it was. Although there was always better sources. They were a handy sales guide for people interested in that. It certainly had its purposes, back in the day. But there are far better, cheaper, and readily available ways today than there even were in the 90s.
There's an argument that Wizard was bad for the industry, and there may be something to that. They were a hype machine. They pushed books, they had their 1/2 issues, foil covers, special limited editions, and their close relationship with the Comics Grading Comission, which is another rant entirely. But I think the problems with the comics industry go deeper than Wizard truly had the ability to be the primary cause. They didn't help, to be sure, but Wizard is more a symptom than the cause. Which is again another topic for another day.
It's been a rough few years for the company. They may have increased their convention presence, but their employees in the publishing division have been slowly hacked away for the last few years. More people were going than coming, and the writing has kind of been on the wall for quite awhile. So, this is ultimately no surprise, but still a bit of a surprise to hear that other shoe drop.
Wizard will still continue on in its conventions spread across the United States, and focusing on those endeavours more than ever. Which is a shame, since they won't have their own publications to promote them anymore. Also, there will be an online website magazine, but that's just not going to be the same either. Still, they're not going away entirely.
Even though I have not cracked open an issue to do more than flip through and read an article here and there, I'm still going to miss the books. They've become a mainstay of the industry, and not having one in my hands regularly will be weird. Good or bad, Wizard has been with us for twenty years, and that's nothing to sneeze at.
So, I raise a glass of Coke to the publications, that helped shape the industry in the 90s, whatever you may think of that shape, and I will always have fond memories of the purile jokes, and the conventions I went to because of them. At least for one person, they will be missed.
|
