Wizard Fires E-I-C

[drice6900]

linky

 

WIZARD FIRES EDITOR IN CHIEF

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

According to various sources throughout the industry, Wizard Entertainment yesterday fired Senior Vice President/Editor in Chief Pat McCallum. The firing was, reprotedly, met with shock among the company's staff.

 

While not a founder of the original magazine, McCallum was one of the very few original Wizard staffers still working at the company who were there when the business was founded by Gareb Shamus in the early '90s. By mid to late 1996, according to insiders, the comics/pop culture magazine has been under McCallum’s control, along with the company’s other magazines and website. McCallum also wrote Shadow Reavers of Wizard’s Black Bull comics line.

 

As Newsarama has reported, this year has been one of change for Wizard, as two long-time Wizard Convention staffers, Stewart Morales - Director/Strategic Planning and Marketing for Wizard Conventions, Inc, and Gabe Fieramosco, Manager of Business Development for Wizard Conventions, Inc. were let go from the company after this year’s Chicago convention. Those firings followed a round of lay-offs in May that affected all departments.

 

The magazine itself has also gone through many changes over the past decade, with direct market sales numbers (which do not include subscriptions or newsstand sales, but can still be seen as a valid sales indicator) – which used to hover near the 100,000 mark in the late ‘90s, now coming in at approximately half of that, according to estimates (October '98's issue #87 was the last to reach 100,000, while October of '06 direct market estimate was 50,600). Other observers have pointed to the dwindling number of outside advertisements in the core magazine, although, the recent change in format, from a more comic sized publication to a traditional magazine trim and shift to cover a braoder range of popular culture seems to have attracted some new advertisers.

 

Some observers are viewing McCallum's unexpected departure as perhaps one of the final steps of a de facto reorganization of the company, whose roots can be traced back to the hiring of Jim Silver as the new Publisher and Rob Felton being named Associate Publisher at the company in March of this year.

 

Wizard has issued a press release about the changes, which reads:

 

Wizard Entertainment today announced several staffing changes, including the addition of several new hires to the publishing and Wizard World tour divisions. Recent additions to the company include; Marketing Director John Ko; General Manager Keith Patrick; General Manager for Dealer Relations Peter Katz; Programming Manager for Wizard Conventions Inc. Adam Dickstein; and Sales Account Executive Bart Sciarraba. Additionally, Wizard announced that Editor-in-Chief Pat McCallum and Wizard Entertainment have parted ways.

 

“In an effort to grow the company and evolve with our customers, Wizard has made a number of aggressive changes over the past nine months,” said Fred Pierce, president and COO for Wizard Entertainment. “We have had a record year for both the publishing division and the Wizard World tours, and these staffing changes will ensure even greater success in 2007.”

 

Throughout 2006, Wizard leadership has been making moves to strengthen the company. In March, toy industry veteran Jim Silver joined the company as Publisher, while Wizard’s own Rob Felton was promoted to Vice President and Associate Publisher. In September, Wizard introduced a new format for its flagship publication, Wizard Magazine, growing it from comic book size to conventional magazine size. In October, the recently re-launched WizardUniverse.com welcomed a record 2 million visitors. Additionally, the annual Wizard World tour closed its tenth year in November with record-setting attendance and a continuously expanding variety of exhibitors, adding such partners as Spike TV, Video Games Live and International Fight League. 2007 looks to be another exceptional year, with several planned pop culture crossovers in Hollywood, comics and anime, and another action-packed Wizard World tour.

[dudeman5000]

Wow-didn't see that coming! I wasn't aware of Wizard's woes. I have a subscription and enjoyed the magazine since I started back up collecting in 2002.

 

Chris

[SolitaireOne]

Wow, interesting... most interesting . I've enjoyed Wizard fairly regularly since issue #6 or so. Being soooo involved in such a niche fanzine for such a long time, where will he head to now?