Does Wizard Blackball People or What?

So what about the non-attributed Heidi MacDonald wrote about Tuesday that asserted Frank Miller and Wizard Magazine are in a period of rapprochement after feuding for several years, a time during which Miller was effectively blackballed from coverage in the magazine?

Looks pretty good to me.

Yesterday I looked at what minor facts I could access that might support or thwart such various statements made in the article.

Since then:

1) I've had it confirmed by people who own a greater run of the magazines than I do that Miller, Dark Knight Strikes Again, the Sin City movie and even advance word on the forthcoming sure-to-be-smash All-Star Batman and Robin are rarely if ever mentioned in the pages of Wizard during the last few years.

2) I received the usual rounds of no comments or was ignored by the principal players I contacted (my space continues to be yours, of course, if any of you change your mind).

3) I also heard from a number of people - no one from DC, NECA, Dark Horse or Wizard wrote me with comments, if anyone's reading from those companies, so no looking suspiciously at your co-workers! - who suggested that at the very least this rumor was widely understood as truth in their various circles, and that Wizard's shit list is aggressively applied and has also contained other industry members, both big players and small.

So there's at least some feeling out there that Wizard has entertained feuds that have explicitly affected their coverage. The reason for the feuds is seen not so much as ethical disagreement on what is good for comics, but more earthy concerns like specific snubs or even corporate politics. The recent publication record indicates that something like this could certainly be true of Miller and the magazine, although you have to give Wizard the benefit of the doubt until someone credible comes on the record and stands behind the claim. If true, Wizard almost certainly short-changed their readers who count on them for a certain kind of coverage. Beyond that, I don't have any clue if a hype magazine has obligations of the more serious kind. It wouldn't be the first magazine in comics to have feuds, that's for sure.

We do know Frank Miller's feelings about Wizard from things he's said or done on the record, so if the two work together past this toy offering, that would just about be confirmation something's changed. The keys to watch for would be a feature article in Wizard that includes some sort of interview, an appearance on one of the magazine's top 10 creator lists, and, most of all, a convention appearance at a Wizard World between now and year's end in anticipation of this year's All Star Batman and Robin project.
 
posted 11:06 am PST | Permalink
 

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