since i was about 10 years old i have loved comic books. in junior high and high school i was an avid collector. during the comic book boom of the 90's there were a bunch of magazines devoted to comic books that i read. the best of the best, though, was wizard magazine. you could pick up an issue and read it for hours learning all about the comic book industry, read interviews with creators and artists, find out about little known independent comics, as well as check out the price guide in the back. i spent so much time reading this magazine through out the years, loving every minute of it! as i went off to college i lost touch with the comic book world but would still periodically pick up the latest issue of wizard and find out what had been going on in the industry. this past summer my buddies and i, as is our annual tradition, went to the comic book convention in chicago. well, on the website for the convention was an offer to buy a ticket for the con in advance and receive a free 1 year subscription to wizard magazine. i took advantage, remembering how much i enjoyed the magazine all those years ago. well, after receiving the magazine for the past few months i have been heartbroken by just how far it has sank since the heyday of my youth. the magazine really shouldnt even be called 'wizard' anymore, it doesnt resemble its old self at all! no longer is it a magazine for comic books, now its about movies, tv and toys. oh, and sometimes theres a little article about comic books. it obviously has been hit hard by the decline of the magazine market. what once was a hulking 300-350 page issue has now been degraded into a 75 page pamphlet. where once there were long interviews and in depth looks at comic books, there are how pages and pages of huge images with barely a couple paragraphs per page. what once took me weeks to read, i now flip through in about 4 minutes. thats not due to lack of interest, that simply had to do with lack of content! all this once mighty publishing great has become is a pale imitation of entertainment weekly. but with less articles... they must really be struggling too because the amount of advertisements has exploded! in this last issue its gotten so bad that they have even put a paid advertisement on the cover! seriously?!? and the tron article featured on the front is only three pages long. back in the day it would not have been unusual for a cover article to be 10-15 pages. lame. even though i got this subscription for free, but i still feel like i want my money back.
MAGAZINES. wizard
since i was about 10 years old i have loved comic books. in junior high and high school i was an avid collector. during the comic book boom of the 90's there were a bunch of magazines devoted to comic books that i read. the best of the best, though, was wizard magazine. you could pick up an issue and read it for hours learning all about the comic book industry, read interviews with creators and artists, find out about little known independent comics, as well as check out the price guide in the back. i spent so much time reading this magazine through out the years, loving every minute of it! as i went off to college i lost touch with the comic book world but would still periodically pick up the latest issue of wizard and find out what had been going on in the industry. this past summer my buddies and i, as is our annual tradition, went to the comic book convention in chicago. well, on the website for the convention was an offer to buy a ticket for the con in advance and receive a free 1 year subscription to wizard magazine. i took advantage, remembering how much i enjoyed the magazine all those years ago. well, after receiving the magazine for the past few months i have been heartbroken by just how far it has sank since the heyday of my youth. the magazine really shouldnt even be called 'wizard' anymore, it doesnt resemble its old self at all! no longer is it a magazine for comic books, now its about movies, tv and toys. oh, and sometimes theres a little article about comic books. it obviously has been hit hard by the decline of the magazine market. what once was a hulking 300-350 page issue has now been degraded into a 75 page pamphlet. where once there were long interviews and in depth looks at comic books, there are how pages and pages of huge images with barely a couple paragraphs per page. what once took me weeks to read, i now flip through in about 4 minutes. thats not due to lack of interest, that simply had to do with lack of content! all this once mighty publishing great has become is a pale imitation of entertainment weekly. but with less articles... they must really be struggling too because the amount of advertisements has exploded! in this last issue its gotten so bad that they have even put a paid advertisement on the cover! seriously?!? and the tron article featured on the front is only three pages long. back in the day it would not have been unusual for a cover article to be 10-15 pages. lame. even though i got this subscription for free, but i still feel like i want my money back.
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