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 Wizard Magazine. The name sends chills of nostalgia and terror down the spines of any that have had the experience of reading an issue of the infamous magazine. A magazine that helped a growing and naive fanbase keep touch with the goings on of the comic world before the internet was what it is now. Also, if it was not the direct cause it surely was a big part of why the industry collapsed after it's short boom. It fueled a speculator market that still holds the industry underfoot even today. But it wasn't all bad was it? Well it mostly was. It was the best and worst of what comic fans would talk about in private amongst each other but out in the open for everyone to see. Full of childish 'humor' that wouldn't fly in 2012 let alone 2022 (and probably never should have flown at all). A true time-capsule of an age that we look on with nostalgia but probably shouldn't. I would imagine it formed and molded a lot of the young minds that were reading it in ways that are still causing problems for the industry today. It's full of content that one would hope would be laughed at by what we consider a modern comic fan. But most of us bought into that poo poo as a kid. One of my many failings as a human being is that I unabashedly loved Wizard Magazine with its giant warts and all. I still love it. In a different way. To me as a child it was a way to keep up with an industry that I didn't have the means to waste my money on. My parents bought me plenty of comics sure, but there's no way you can try and really keep up with the industry reading 8-10 books a month. We didn't have other means of knowing what was out there. We'd read our few books we followed and then we'd rely on Wizard to fill us in on the rest. I couldn't, nor wouldn't, ask my parents to buy some of the really low quality and sometimes really crass poo poo that was on the market then. But I was aware of it because I was able to get Wizard. That's probably not a good thing. But it is what it is. So sometime last year I came across a couple boxes in a dusty attic that had a lot of my old books. Including my Wizard Magazine collection. I have just about the entire thing. Wizard ran for 234 regular monthly issues from 1991 to 2011. I had issues 1-222 and about 30 or so special issues in that box. I decided it was up to me to both make society a better place and a much worse place. I have started scanning every issue front to back, excluding the useless price guides. This includes all the terrible ads that are somewhat insane at times, all the articles that still hold of nugget of value as sources of history and historical perspective, and of course all the regular features that everyone always wanted to argue about. We're talking about Casting Calls, Top 10 Heroes/Villains, Last Man Standing, Wizard Fan Art, Bart Sears' Brutes and Babes art tutorials that are both informative and completely ridiculous, Top 10 comics, Hunk & Babe of the month (a weird relic of the time), Todd McFarlane's opinion piece titled EGO that ended every issue starting about 15 issues in, and all the bullshit in between. And those are just a few of the things I've encountered while scanning the first 45 issues. I know there are other scans floating around out there. And a big part of this project is probably for nothing. I've checked them out. There's no complete set out there. And the ones that are out there an inconsistent in quality and contents. Some of them have ads. Some don't. I think the ads are important though. Not just in a crazy 'look at this '90s poo poo' way but in more of a small look into the window of what people were buying and what people were pushing on a young audience that suddenly had access to this crazy world. Not gonna lie though, a lot are gonna be posted in a crazy 'look at this '90s poo poo' way too. Because we all remember how fuckin' dumb a lot of that stuff was. Scan quality is also inconsistent on the copies in the wild. I'm scanning every page of this myself. I'm not some expert scanner so don't expect immaculate reproductions but every page I post in this thread will be a page I personally scanned. Most of these issues are my original issues I bought at the time they were on sale. A lot of the earlier issues are issues I bought second hand straight from the boxes of my LCS when I was trying to fill out my back issues in the '90s. Some of the later ones are from my subscription that kept going even though I'd somewhat fallen out of comics. When I found the box there was about 30 issues still wrapped in plastic that I never opened. I'd gotten them in the mail and just tossed them in with the others. Kinda makes me mad I apparently stopped so short of finishing the series at the time. I did order several of the 12 back issues I was missing from Lone Star Comics for super cheap. Apparently nobody wants old Wizards anymore, for some strange reason. So I have an almost complete collection for scanning and will probably get the last few before I get to the end. I'm going to use this thread to post about Wizard from time to time. Covering the issues chronologically and also just posting random out of context poo poo I find amusing. Every time I post about a specific issue I'll post the cover, contents, and a rundown of what's in it. I'll post anything I want to point out specifically as well as post anything that anybody requests. I will not post whole issues full stop but if I post a contents page and there's something on there I don't post that you want to see let me know and I'll put it up. So before I get to the first issue I leave you with this. If this doesn't scream '90s comics I don't know what will. This comes to us from Wizard #19 in March of 1993. This in ad for Epic Comics. I think a relaunch of the Marvel Imprint? I don't remember any of these books. But they bought a 10 page ad in this magazine. And not 10 consecutive pages. We're talking about 10 pages that are interspersed between the text of three consecutive articles. This is the '90s. This is Wizard.           All full issues posted in thread are now available on Archive.org! https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Wizard+Magazine%22&sort=title X-O fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Sep 15, 2023 |
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May 31, 2022 17:35
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Wizard Magazine Issue #1 September 1991 Cover  Contents  Intro  Article of Note   Article of Note  The Top 10  Random Ads   
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May 31, 2022 17:38
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Wizard Magazine Issue #2 October 1991 Cover  Contents  Article of Note    Article of Note    Article of Note   The Top 10 (Yes the paper on these pages is different. Wizard went a through a weird transition over its first year where they used several different paper types in every issue before moving to the standard glossy magazine type most remember.)   Random Ads    
X-O fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 16:59
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Dawgstar posted:I genuinely wouldn't have been excited for Image if not for Wizard, and them being monthly in a way made up for the actual Image comics that never were, but boy howdy Wetworks #1 is coming some day! Also looking forward to when we get to what felt like essentially rigging the back issue market when it comes to the low print run Valiant stuff. Oh yeah lots of that coming up. And pushing the "Bad Girl" comic market with titles nobody talks about today? Remember Shi? No? Well in the '90s you'd have thought she was one of the biggest comic characters of all time destined for icon status. There was one Top 10 I recently scanned that had like seven of the top 10 books being Lady Death, Shi, Vampirella, and someone else I can't remember. These first handful of issues are pretty drat sparse in content and only have like five or six ads for the same stuff over and over again. Once we get out the first year that's when Wizard truly turns in a spectacle. X-O fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Jun 3, 2022 |
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Jun 3, 2022 17:57
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Wizard Magazine Issue #3 November 1991 Cover  Contents  Article of Note      Article of Note     Article of Note    The Top 10   Random Ads    
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Jun 3, 2022 23:48
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Wizard Magazine Issue #4 December 1991 Cover  Contents  Article of Note      Article of Note        Article of Note    The Top 10 (The first Valiant in the Top 10. The onslaught has begun...)   Random Ads (These are getting a bit monotonous now as it's evident Wizard had very few people faithful enough in the magazine this early to buy ads. It's mostly the same ads every month with a couple new ones)   
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Jun 7, 2022 17:38
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I'm going to try get through this first year or so relatively quick. Then the fun can begin. Wizard Magazine Issue #5 January 1992 Cover  Contents  Article of Note     Article of Note           Article of Note     The Top 10   Random Ads (These are getting a bit monotonous now as it's evident Wizard had very few people faithful enough in the magazine this early to buy ads. It's mostly the same ads every month with a couple new ones)   
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Jun 8, 2022 03:03
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:I'm interested to see when you get to the first one I ever bought. I'm pretty sure it was in the teens. I still viscerally remember the incredibly 90's cover. Who is on the cover? I'll let you know about how far away we are. For a while I'm gonna try to post two or three issues a day to get past this early stuff that doesn't have a ton of content.
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Jun 8, 2022 03:12
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:WildC.A.T.S. I'm pretty sure I know which one you're talking about. Especially if it's really in the teens. If I can move through this single digit issues as quickly as I want It'll probably hit this weekend or early next week.
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Jun 8, 2022 03:28
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Wizard Magazine Issue #6 February 1992 Cover  Contents Someone at Wizard thought this layout was better for a contents page. I'm going to assume this person was fired as it was completely different by next issue.   Article of Note      Article of Note Your eyes do not deceive you here. This article seemingly ends mid sentence. The immediately following page is an ad and then another article starts right after that. Other scans of the issue that previously existed show the same thing. Where's the end? I don't know. Quality editing here at Wizard Magazine.      Article of Note Your eyes do not deceive you here either. This article seemingly also ends mid sentence. Though it does appear to be end of the article this time so better I guess? Wizard Magazine, what can you say?      The Top 10   Random Ads (The Valiant push has begun...)    
X-O fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Jun 8, 2022 |
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Jun 8, 2022 14:39
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Wizard Magazine Issue #7 March 1992 (This issue is basically dripping in Valiant Propaganda) Cover  Contents   Shameless Inclusion (How could I not include this mammoth three paragraph historical documentation of a character that had existed for like maybe 10 issues at this point?)  The Flash!   Article of Note        Article of Note     Article of Note     Fan Art! (Uh-oh, this is the beginning of what could be a very questionable thing to include. I foresee bad things in the future here.)    The Top 10   Top 100 of 1991  OVERKILL  Random Ads (Basically a million Valiant ads, stuff you've already seen in the previous issues and a couple random ones like this)  
X-O fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Jun 8, 2022 |
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Jun 8, 2022 18:25
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Conrad_Birdie posted:I really quite like that Flash cover, actually That was the first issue* to have a variant cover of a different character. Ironically enough the other cover featured my namesake, X-O Manowar and I do not have that version. Alternate covers became a big thing for Wizard later. *Technically the previous issue with Hulk had a variant as there was also a Gray Hulk version of the same cover. Vulpes Vulpes posted:I don't think I knew anything about Morrison at the time, and so for years this picture from the JLA special was the image of them that came to mind: There were actually two JLA Specials. One in '97 and one in '98. Both of them will eventually find their way to this thread! X-O fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Jun 8, 2022 |
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Jun 8, 2022 20:43
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Wizard Magazine Issue #8 April 1992 Cover  Contents   Wizard News  Bishop The Future's Hottest X-Man (Nope.)  Article of Note         Article of Note    Article of Note    Fan Art!     The Top 10   Random Ads   
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Jun 9, 2022 16:48
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Endless Mike I will not hesitate to stare at your post in disgust if you call my boy Darkhawk's book a bad investment choice. Someday!
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Jun 9, 2022 16:54
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Wizard Magazine Issue #9 May 1992 Cover  Contents   Wizard News Holy poo poo look at those Marvel 2093 designs! Also 2093? C'mon. Thank goodness someone had the balls to push it up six years.     Venom    Article of Note This is the one that is very "of Note" as this article set things in motion that would make Wizard a must read for years.          Article of Note      Article of Note      Fan Art!     The Top 10   Random Ads    
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Jun 9, 2022 17:30
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:It's interesting to think of whether Image Comics would have succeeded without Wizard. Because however hard Wizard is shilling for Valiant in the previous write-ups, they raise the loving bar beyond the moon as soon as they see Image. I mean, yeah, it probably would have been fine because of the talent involved, but Wizard definitely had a hand in the hype. I remember them endlessly fawning over that one ultra-delayed Image comic (Wetworks?) for literal years before it came out. EDIT: Previously I had written a joke about Wetworks being infinitely delayed and now having actually done a search and seeing why I feel sorry I joked about it. Real life issues take precedent over comic books and what happened is a sad and very relatable story. I wouldn't have wanted to work on comic books at the time either. X-O fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Jun 9, 2022 |
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Jun 9, 2022 17:43
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Wizard Magazine Issue #10 June 1992 Cover  Contents   Wizard News      Youngblood  Cable    Article of Note        Article of Note    Article of Note     Article of Note     Brutes and Babes Learn to draw! Kind of.   Fan Art!     Gratuitous Nonsense That Probably Shouldn't Be Posted.  Top 10 Heroes and Villains   The Top 10   Random Ads   
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Jun 10, 2022 00:04
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In my opinion this was the first issue that really felt like it had the formula of the Wizard I knew and remembered. It's still a work in progress but the framework is showing in this issue.
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Jun 10, 2022 00:23
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Wizard Magazine Issue #11 July 1992 (This is one of the least noteworthy issues for me. No really good articles at all.) Cover  Contents   Wizard News     Spawn  Spider-Man   Article of Note       Brutes and Babes   Fan Art!      Gratuitous Nonsense That Probably Shouldn't Be Posted.  Top 10 Heroes and Villains   The Top 10   Random Ads    
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Jun 10, 2022 16:52
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That is super awesome yeah. I wouldn't doubt there's more as well buried in there or in the letter pages. I should probably start posting those too.
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Jun 11, 2022 01:19
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Wizard Magazine Issue #12 August 1992 Cover  Contents   Wizard News   WildC.A.T.S.   Article of Note        Article of Note    Article of Note     Article of Note    Brutes and Babes   Fan Art!      Top 10 Heroes and Villains   The Top 10   Random Ads   
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Jun 13, 2022 19:53
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:Yay, that's the one. That article even has Tim Curry still tapped to play Joker.
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Jun 13, 2022 20:06
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Wizard Magazine Issue #13 September 1992 Cover  Contents   Wizard News    Article of Note     Article of Note    Article of Note     Brutes and Babes   Fan Art!     Top 10 Heroes and Villains   The Top 10   Magic Words!     Random Ads   
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Jun 14, 2022 02:28
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I need votes yay or nay on the following. Don't go out of your way to vote unless you back up your reasoning. Coming up soon in a few issues they start doing monthly cosplay articles. Do we want to actually unleash these back into the world? Are people ready for content of such a quality like early '90s cosplay? What say you thread readers?
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Jun 14, 2022 02:38
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How Wonderful! posted:I think Chris Battle also went on to a successful career in animation, working on stuff like Ahh! Real Monsters, Dexter's Lab, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, Teen Titans Go and more-- at least the location and the style seem to match up. Please keep doing this. It's very cool to hear that some of these people went on to actually have successful careers.
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Jun 14, 2022 03:26
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Wizard Magazine Issue #14 October 1992 Cover  Contents   Wizard News     Article of Note    Article of Note    Article of Note         Article of Note     Brutes and Babes    Fan Art!     Top 10 Heroes and Villains MIA this issue for some reason.Weird. The Top 10   Magic Words!     Random Ads   
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Jun 14, 2022 13:01
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Wizard Magazine Issue #15 November 1992 Cover   Contents   In Memoriam: Joe Shuster  Wizard News     Article of Note     Article of Note     Article of Note     Article of Note    Brutes and Babes    Fan Art!     Top 10 Heroes and Villains Still missing? How am I ever going to know how cool Venom and Cable are in comparison to each other? The Top 10   Magic Words!     Random Ads      
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Jun 14, 2022 17:47
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I've kinda of become amazed at how a lot of the fan art is better than the stuff actually in the books in the '90s.
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Jun 14, 2022 18:03
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Madkal posted:I keep checking the fan art to see if there are any future superstar artists there. Also it is amazing how little of a presence DC had compared to Marvel. I think Mavel was basically just cranking it out in the early 90's while DC was focusing more on just chugging along and not doing anything too crazy. It kind of payed off in the end as Marvel got too bloated (just look at all the stuff about them in the Wizard issues) whereas DC could hardly come up with any hip new characters but still had some solid lines. There is a future superstar coming up later. This is not my scan, but it pops up several issues ahead of where we are. 
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Jun 14, 2022 18:46
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Goodbye 1992! Wizard Magazine Issue #16 December 1992 Cover   Contents   Guest Editorial  Wizard News        Article of Note     Article of Note    Article of Note    Article of Note     Article of Note     Brutes and Babes    Fan Art!   All Dressed Up   Top 10 Heroes and Villains I have been forsaken by my God. The Top 10   Magic Words!    Random Ads      
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Jun 14, 2022 20:15
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Random Stranger posted:It didn't take a genius to see how rotten the whole system was. The thread tag isn't an accident. Dawgstar posted:You know in my ten years working at a comic store I never saw anybody try to bring in those Valiant issues to try and fund their kid's college education like they did with your X-Forces and Death of Supermans. I mean, how could you with SUCH LOW PRINT RUNS???
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Jun 15, 2022 18:14
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Hello 1993! Wizard Magazine Issue #17 January 1993 Cover   Contents   Wizard News     Article of Note     Article of Note        Article of Note    Article of Note   Brutes and Babes    Fan Art!      Top 10 Heroes and Villains I mean, it's coming back right? The Top 10   Magic Words!     Random Ads     
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Jun 15, 2022 19:17
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Wizard Magazine Issue #18 February 1993 Cover   Contents   Wizard News     Article of Note    Article of Note   Article of Note   Article of Note      Brutes and Babes    Fan Art!      Fine, if it's not coming back we'll do something else.   The Top 10   Magic Words!     Random Ads     
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Jun 19, 2022 22:05
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This is several issues ahead but very cool. Kenneth Rocafort won Jim Lee's drawing table in a contest in 1995. He was born in '83 so that makes him 11 or 12 at the time of the drawing. drat. This was issue 43. Kenneth would later draw one of the two covers to Wizard issue 124 in 2002. X-O fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Jun 19, 2022 |
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Jun 19, 2022 22:27
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Wizard Magazine Issue #19 March 1993 Cover  Contents   Wizard News     Article of Note    Article of Note    Article of Note     Article of Note    Brutes and Babes    Fan Art!        The Top 10   Magic Words!     Random Ads This issue also included the 10 page Epic Comics ad from the OP. Starting to get to the era where almost every other page is an ad.    
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Jun 20, 2022 12:41
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Wizard Magazine Issue #20 April 1993 Not really sure what got into them this month but they included more articles than normal that were somewhat worth reading! Cover   Contents   Wizard News     Article of Note     Article of Note       Article of Note   Article of Note       Article of Note    Article of Note    Brutes and Babes    Fan Art! No future superstars in this issue. Nope. Second time for Chris Battle, who was mentioned earlier in the thread? Guess he was steady submitting covers.        The Top 10   Magic Words!     Random Ads     
X-O fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Jun 20, 2022 |
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Jun 20, 2022 16:45
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Wizard Magazine Issue #21 May 1993 I think this is the first issue that really feels like the Wizard I first remember reading. The letter section is the first thing in the book, and the main monthly features are starting to look like I remembered them. Cover   Contents   Magic Words! This one features a letter explaining the TRUE ORIGINS of Venom! Also Jeff Matsuda letter fan art!     Wizard News    Article of Note    Article of Note      Article of Note   Article of Note    Article of Note    Brutes and Babes    Fan Art! Raff Ienco is currently drawing Darth Vader for Marvel and Ken Lashley has been all over the place. In fact, he was drawing Excalibur by the end of the year that this issue of Wizard was published in!      Wait This Returns Before Top 10 Heroes/Villains?  Comic Watch   The Top 10   Random Ads ROYAL FAMILY TRADING CARDS?!?!?        That Arcomics ad is loving hilarious. "Art and Story by the creators!" "First appearance of major characters!" X-O fucked around with this message at 19:57 on Jun 20, 2022 |
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Jun 20, 2022 18:46
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Madkal posted:Recommending Cerebus to the woman letter writer asking for better representation of women in comics has aged really really really badly. In the 21 issues I've posted so far I've skipped a few Dave Sim interviews for this exact reason. I'm not sure anyone wants to read what that dude had to say anymore. I'm not saying there's anything bad in them, but I'm not reading them and I don't think anyone here is interested in reading them knowing what we know now. quote:aged really really really badly I'm sure there's going to be a lot of that in this thread. It may very well be the prominent theme going forward. X-O fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Jun 20, 2022 |
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Jun 20, 2022 19:48
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I think #18 was the first issue with no Marvel in the Top 10. It was the first one I noticed. And I can't be bothered to go look at the previous 17 before I hit the submit reply button so I must be right.
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Jun 20, 2022 20:17
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RevKrule posted:Issue 17 was still riding the Morbin high which also means issue 18 was all Morb'd up even if it wasn't listed because it's always morbin' time. Let's just say next issue will be a big hit then. We're talking Multi-Page Morbin as only 1993 Wizard can do.
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Jun 20, 2022 20:30
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