Wizard Magazine Is Kaput

2011 could go down as a turning point year for the comics industry. Last week we saw the end of the Comics Code Authority, and this week the very long-running industry magazine, Wizard, has shut down. Bleeding Cool reports that the shut down is effective immediately and that most of the magazine’s employees have been laid off. According to the site Toy Fare, Wizard’s toy-centered sister publication, is not impacted. Also not impacted are the Wizard World conventions.

Wizard would have been 20 this year; at one time it was THE source for any comic book news, but the internet had taken the wind from those sails. I quit reading the magazine when it became focused just on the big superhero events and when its tone became so fawning it made me want to puke. Supposedly the magazine really improved in recent years, but I never found out.