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Wizard - anyone have the whole story...

Started by slym2none,

50 posts in this topic

Ryan.

Ryan.

Posted
Posted
I'm not justifying what they did - I'm just saying without Wizard, comics might not have seen the same explosion in the 90s - and what might have happened then?

 

I assume Lady Death, Lady Rawhide and Vampirella would have had much less sell-through.

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Dr. Balls

Dr. Balls

Posted
Posted
I'm not justifying what they did - I'm just saying without Wizard, comics might not have seen the same explosion in the 90s - and what might have happened then?

 

I assume Lady Death, Lady Rawhide and Vampirella would have had much less sell-through.

 

Don't forget Shi, Cyblade and Razor!

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Kevin.J

Kevin.J

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Posted

I loved the Wizard Ace editions and the Wizard 1/2s, it was risky sending away for them from the UK and hit or miss what you would get back.

I still collect these but never did find a complete listing of what existed and what didnt, with a ton of variants, I still keep finding the odd issue.

Anybody got a complete list or set, they would like to share ?

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Kevin.J

Kevin.J

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Posted
I loved the Wizard Ace editions and the Wizard 1/2s

 

Every one I ordered arrived bent in half.

 

They used to come in a very hard type envelope to the UK, I dont remember any getting damaged, I just used to get differnt stuff to what I ordered lol

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FineCollector

FineCollector

Posted
Posted
Fan magazine by Overstreet was 10 times the mag Wizard was.

 

When I was 23 buying new comics I always bought Fan over Wizard, I always felt Wizard was for 12 year olds. Of course I liked the top 10 report from Wizard, but everything else about the mag was so sarcastic and it was ALL Image and Valiant really! I remember reading that Wizard was also awful to their employees, I'm sure that didn't help in regard to their demise.

 

Overstreet Fan's problem was that it was accurate. The price of most books doesn't change all that quickly, so that probably turned off monthly buyers, who enjoyed Wizard's 4 month roller coaster of hot, up, down, not listed anymore.

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jjonahjameson1

jjonahjameson1

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While it may have been entertaining to many people it was useless. The price guide section most of all. They screwed people out of money with their list of must have hot books that they were selling themselves in a complete conflict of interest. I'm glad the whole thing imploded and am anxiously awaiting the same thing happening with the Wizard World conventions. It will happen eventually, you can only inflate your admission prices so much before people decide to stop shelling out when there are so many other and better run conventions to attend. 2c (thumbs u

 

Yes and no. I agree the priceguide was useless, until (and perhaps someone can confirm), they started publishing sales of CGC - slabbed books. I think WIzard did it first, then Overstreet amalgamated raw and slabbed sales into their valuations afterwords.

 

Also, I found the interviews and upcoming comics features to be interesting, and I thought they had some top-notch covers by Image, Valiant, Marvel and DC artists. Yeah, there were some dopey covers early on with Superheroes in wizard garb, but someone must have called the fashion police, 'cause that theme was dropped after the 1st year of publication.

 

Other imitators came onto the scene (Hero, anyone?) and quickly faded from the racks. So whether it was childish or not, Wizard seemed to resonate on some level with enough folks to enable it to continue publishing for about a dozen years and that's a pretty lengthy track record in the comics industry.

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Logan510

Logan510

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Posted
I generally assume that the main reason behind any business is to make money. By that criteria, Wizard was wildly successful and allowed the original publisher to branch out into several other fields.

He was the main guy behind the Team MMA league that briefly flourished and while looked down upon by purists Wizard World seems to be doing just fine. Last time I saw Gareb, he was riding in a 7 series BMW so I think he'd argue Wizard was a decent success.

 

There's no question it was a success. Wizard may have been one of the greatest scams in the history of comics.

 

The "price guide" was just a glorified catalog for their stores.

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techtre2003

techtre2003

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Posted
Wizard lied

Speculators cried

 

 

Before joining these boards I actually believed the price guide they would put in the back :tonofbricks:

 

That was the price guide back in the 90's. It's what comic shops used to buy and sell books. Overstreet was like the old man who yelled at kids to get off their lawn. I can't speak for outside of my area, but the only reason you had an OSPG was to cover any books that weren't in the back of Wizard.

 

In hindsight, people love to blast Wizard for it's sins - but aside from it's own ethical practices, it had the kind of content people wanted to read.

 

I was a kid collecting in the early '90s so I didn't know much about the business but I always liked Comic Values Monthly as a price guide better.

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