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Wizard Returns As A Magazine, With Brian Walton As EIC

Today, Wizard World announced the return of Wizard Magazine. Naturally Bleeding Cool scooped them on it a few weeks ago. They have announced that it will be a quarterly magazine and a digital daily video news service, WizPop with Nerdist's Brian Walton and current Wizard World head of content as its Editor-In-Chief.

Many Wizard alumni are embedded into the comics industry, especially at DC Comics, which will mean a bunch of new names for the magazine and site. Walton is joined by Luke Y. Thompson, formerly of Nerdist, Topless Robot, Deadline, and OC Weekly as Associate Editor.

The magazine will include familiar Wizard features Casting Calls and The Drawing Board, with previous columns revived for the web and video. And they will all be inherently tied into the Wizard World Comic Con – and the official launch will be at Wizard World Comic Con Chicago.

Wizard Magazine: A Guide To Comics launched out of the back of a comic shop in July 1991. With its high-end production values and monthly updating price guide in the back, it was a hit in comic book stores and on the newsstands, soon reaching a monthly circulation of more than 100,000 copies, outselling many of the big name comics it covered. It is most associated with the rise of Image Comics and Valiant Comics, both of which received considerable coverage by Wizard.

The magazine also spawned several ongoing magazines dedicated to similar interests such as ToyFare for toys and action figures, Inquest Gamer for collectible game cards, Anime Insider for anime and manga, and Toy Wishes for mainstream toy enthusiasts. Robot Chicken is based on "Twisted ToyFare Theater". But after 20 years of publication, it was down to around 17,000 copies a month and the magazine was cancelled, as the publisher switched its focus to the successful Wizard World conventions that continue to span the country.

Wizard alumni are everywhere in and around the comic book industry. Many, including its main editors Mike Cotton, Brian Cunningham, and Pat McCallum, all in senior roles at DC Comics, and many were recruited for DC's recent Direct Currents and Rebirth magazine. William Christensen and Mark Seifert formed Bleeding Cool's publisher Avatar Press. Recently, founders Gareb Shamus and Pat Shamus suffered a Shamus-ectomy from Wizard World….

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