• Just finding out about this. As I had been looking forward to having it come to my house rather than going to a store to buy it. I was given a gift sub from a family member in January. And I decided to see what was what since I wasn't seeing it in the stores anymore. Any idea on where to turn since they cashed the check?

• A little late here but thank God it over! That shitty magazine helped to sour the industry in the 90's and had a following of mostly smarmy sheep who wanted to be told what was hot before buying a comic.(which would then remain unread and gather dust waiting to send someone to college!) Good riddance and don't let the door hit'cha, Wiz.

• Wow, the end of an era.

• Holy shit, I always wondered if Topless Robot commentator Zach Oat was actually THE Zach Oat, oh happy days, "Num Num Num, toy taste good, Zach chase me, gotta go". The man deserves RESPECT.

• My subscriptions are paid ahead by 5 years for Wizard and 4 years for Toyfare due to receiving several gift subscriptions from several people several years in a row. Crap.

• Agreed. I think Wizard had a lot to do with why a lot of people have comic collections that are worthless now, boxes full of worthless Image trash, and 90's DC books. All in all, I am unsurprised by the deaths of Wizard (and Toyfare). I flipped through both mags briefly a few months ago at my local comic shop, and I remember thinking how everything they were talking about old news. I'd seen everything they were covering on the internet weeks before. That's probably one major reason why they can't compete. Oh well, good riddance.

• I'd like to echo Zach's recognition of Rob and this site for being a place where the spirit of what was good about Wizard continues. Kudos. And while I'm at it? I always enjoyed your stuff in the magazines, Zach.

• I started reading Wizard with issue #7 when i was in eighth grade. In that issue the Wizard staff interveiwed the founding fathers of Image comics, and it was in black and white. I am sad to see Wizard and Toyfare(which coinencidenitally I also started with issue #7),but the internet has all but killed most magazines. And to be honest wizard had stopped being a comics and nerd magazine and had become a pop culture mag a few years ago. Print media as a whole is dying a slow and painful death. There will only be a few magazine that will survive. Why would I wait a month to find something out when you can get the same info instantly and for free. I will miss Wizard and Toyfare, but I saw this coming.

• Toy Fare, I can salute, but I have never been able to forgive Wizard for their role in the comic collecting craze-turned-crash of the mid-'90s.

• On the plus side, I look forward to the former employees of Wizard coming forward with juicy stories of behind-the-scenes dirt. Heads are gonna roll!

• Wait, I thought only living things died, and magazines went out of publication? Anyways, goodbye Wizard print magazine, and hello Wizard World digital online magazines! I could care less...

• Its about time. What a rag.A bunch of comic book frat-boys who wanted to write for Maxim.Crappy magazine.Toyfare was cool,tho...

• Amusingly, it's the very attitude of his "When I speak, I speak for everyone in my company. OR ELSE!" attitude which makes me dislike magazines in general. A company man is worthless for diverse opinion.

• I remember the glory days of Wizard (91-96), when the issues were 300 pages thick, filled to the brim with the lastest comic news, exclusive promos (like 1/2 issues and limited edition figures), contests for great prizes, free comic and card pack-ins, great articles and laugh-your-ass-off jokes on every page (even in the legal fine print!). The high points were the annual Halloween costume contest, the custom-made/repainted action figure page, Wizard Pop Quiz, Casting Call, and the never-ending "Iron Man vs. X-Men" debate in the letters column. Then the magazine got smaller in page size, and comics took a back seat to movies, TV, and half-naked chicks. It became Entertainment Maxim Weekly. I predict GamePro is next to die. It used to be a fun Video Game magazine loaded with tips, cheats and fun reviews- now it's a boring watered-down Wired clone.

• Man, this news really bummed me out. I haven't read Wizard since it was the huge, square-bound juggernaut of a magazine that I eagerly looked forward to every month, but, still, sad news none the less. I started buying issues around the low teens and kept until the mid 90's....man, those were the days....I still miss Hero magazine as well....

• Yeah, this magazine was so incredibly tied to my childhood, sad to see it go. I remember my friend in high school had a subscription and he would let me borrow it in class and I would ignore my teachers and spend hours reading it.

• I just to love Wizard! I'm surprised it couldn't survive, comics seem more popular than ever lately with all the movie adaptions.

• It's just a feint. Gandalf will conjure a spell and Wizard will reappear in a white wrapper ...

• This is sad news. During the peak of my comic collecting days in the 90s, getting the latest copy of Wizard always brought a smile to my face.

• Despite my complaint about their forums, I liked the comic when I was reading it as a middle schooler going to high school. Late '90s to '00s. I picked up a recent issue and I can see why they died out. I didn't enjoy the content. It was very minimal and mostly toplists, as stated earlier. No humor, nothing. I liked it when it was jam packed with all kinds of content on every page, made the thing worth reading over and over. But yea, the internet. Life's a bitch for print mags catering to geek culture.

• Ah yes, the combined forces of the World Wide Web and the decline of superhero comics of recent years finally took its toll on Wizards. I feel sorry for the staff of Wizards who had been let go, but on the other hand, if my Magic 8-Ball was correct and that Wizard Magazine was truly manned by an all-nerds staff, they can probably breathe a collective sigh of relief now that they no longer have to watch their beloved nerd properties get mangled by reboot after ret-con after not-quite-dead after Crisis after Civil Wars after cluster fuck after nonsensical plot continuity after mindfuck after whatever shit it is Marvel and DC thought was a "brilliant idea at the time." Well sure, there's the Vertigo and Image and independent comic route, but perhaps that was deemed not enough to maintain circulation. Or some other business reasons that my addled monkey brain is too underdeveloped to grasp. Either way, I'd like to say thank you, Wizards Magazine. It's been a wonderful, albeit short, 2 years that I've known ya. But I sure as hell am gonna miss you! Best of luck to the staff as well, and may this Crisis (sorry, can't help it) could bring for all of you a Brand New Day (okay, okay, I'll stop now). Cheers, mate!

• I'm named after attach sounds both Bruce Lee AND Kenshiro make, do you think I care about mutton chops?? Besides, those magazines are already dead...

• up until 18 months or so ago i was reading wizard. In fact i was reading Wizard since issue #1 (cover in above article) over the past 3 years the staff at wizard did there best to distance themselves from the people which made them (ie comic book fan's like myself) i was disgusted when the title changed from Wizard: the comic book magazine to Wizard the comic and pop culture magazine TO Wizard the pop culture magazine. Once the content wasnt about comic's (which more than 90% of the issues in the past few years) i was done. But not only me just about everyone at the comic shop i go to, to the point where instead of the 20 copies on the rack there was one just incase. Fuck Wizard its been dead for so long now this is just the final nail, if you need something good to replace it look at Comic Heroes Magazine it cover's everything from mainstream to indie (you know like Wizard used to) just not very regular at this point. Also try websites like comic book resources very good for info. All in all its time to move on, Wizard was great in the 90's when it was thick had a proper price guide and interview's but its even been 10 years since that wizard has existed. Im sorry for the Wizard staff, but if you did the job people would still be reading and you would still have a job. From A Very Disappointed Fan

• I am not surprised. I have had a subscription since the very early issues. I have been collecting comics since I was about 6. I am now 60. In the past, I learned an awful lot about the changing industry from my Wizard Mag. The once great magazine had changed radically into a mag that dealt with grade B superhero movies. It was not very interesting the last two years. It was also not very much concerned with comics. The price guide dropped all but the most popular from the listing. It also did not aid collectors very much in the new grading system used in pricing comics. I just renewed my subscription, but had frankly began using Heritage and the Overstreet Price Guide. The internet had a firm hand in the demise of Wizard. Goodbye to a formerly very good source.

• surprised it took wizard this long to finaly decide to get out of the old print and come into the digital age. an old dinosaur that has sadly wound up dieing . will see how well they do.on line.

• My first issue was something like #13. WildCATs cover, I believe. I read Comics Scene for a while, too, but Wizard was so much prettier. My little brother and I read it every month and shared our subscription for years. We got a Hellboy custom figure made from an old Fisto in Homemade Heroes once. When they asked me to come in for an interview, I jumped at the chance, and I thought I blew the interview. I was there for eight and a half years, albeit on the ToyFare side of things, but I got to read every issue in proof form on the bullpen wall. Kudos to Rob Bricken for recreating the anarchic spirit and love of minutiae of Wizard's heyday here at TR.

• Really? I hang out at CBR and I was always more int DC. I always found it pretty sane. I always thought Newsarama had the bad rep. I confess haven't been on CBR as frequently thought since Gail Simone went to the Jinxworld forums. Plus I've been more on Bleeding Cool now adays. Yeah, it's kinda a rag sheet... but I rather like that.

• I out grew Wizard ages ago. Even as a later teenager it seemed childish. I kept with it for a while, but it grew grating. It made Maxim seem like National Geographic. Of course in recent years there were those times when it thought it was Maxim and not a comic book magazine. That re-branding fiasco made me glad I dropped it ages ago. That was certainly a nail in the coffin. It wasn't just that people were going online for news, it was that sites like CBR, Newsarama, and Bleeding Coll all did what Wizard did originally only better. They delivered news better and more professionally than Wizard currently was doing. Hell, Topless Robot is a better at what Wizard tried to be than Wizard is.

• May I direct you to an easy replacement the crappy online rag, Comic Book Resources/Retards and their forums? You will not find a lower level of human life and pro-Marvel place. Its like hanging with the Tea Party X 1,0000.

• Wow. I can understand the sentiment. I've worked for a few terrible companies where many of the individuals [below management level] were awesome. Microsoft, Six Flags, Nordstrom, just to name a couple of them, were hideously bad at management and yet staffed with incredibly cool people. All of whom tend to leave for jobs that aren't so filled with guilt by association!

• I'm really gonna miss Wizard. It was a fun read, but the magazine did change and not for the best. It was funny, and a good way to keep up with comics that I couldn't afford. Guess I'll check out the online edition, if there is one. I bought the last issue, not knowing it, and there's a preview for the next issue, which will surely never come out, at least not in stores or newsstands. Too bad, it was a fun mag.

• It's sad. And they still owe me 2 issues on my subcription.

• What the fuck? Am I gonna get my subscription fee back?

• I think it started going downhill once they got rid of that Magic Words guy. What? Shut up. Some good people were let go today. Unfortunately, Gareb and Steven Shamus weren't two of them.

• So many study halls and afternoons reading and re-reading Wizard and Toyfare, passing around the issues we had amongst our friends and keeping up with what was going on. Just wow.

• Wizard started out as black and white little prints, I've seen them, read those issues. Jump forward to 2011 and we utilize sites rather than print, which is better for the earth. RIP Wizard and Toyfare, you will be sorely missed. Every month I bought toyfare. I even got issue #0 at wizard world chicago, ATAT cover. Still have it. I prefer mags to sites, but thats just personal preference. We all know that a site is better in the long run, so far. Unless all this tech is what does us in, in 2012.

• But if Wizard is no longer in print, how will i know who would win in a fight? iron man or the x-men. or will i ever find out who the x-traitor is? oh the memories

• a majority of you and you groups twitter/facebook and messageboard posts state otherwise so yeah

• I first heard about Preacher in Wizard. They raved about it. The whole reason the TPBs are sitting on my shelf right now is the coverage that Wizard gave it. Now, to be fair, I can't recall offhand if that coverage came after Preacher was already several issues in or not. If it did, then your point still stands.

• That's pretty sad. Wizard was the first magazine I really got into as a kid.

• What was your first clue? For me it was the eloquent "They losers only write about..."

• Looking at my issue from last month they practically told us something was wrong. On the page where they highlight next month's issue they always print two release dates one for newsstands and one for comic shop release. This was not the case in issue #234. It simply says look for it next month. I guess I should've figured it out then. Very sad.

• Where the FRAK do I get a refund, I just paid for a new year, last month!?!

• Damn. It wasn't what it used to be, but I still enjoyed it. I think I had over a year left on my subscription, too.

• I remember some of the goodies that were given away by wizard. I swear I still have a giant foil card of Gambit, a never used cover to X-men Alpha and a cell from the spiderman cartoon. I have to look for those now.

• I would guess that they have one or two more coming out. But it depends on the printing schedule and if today the closing was announced to the employees or not

• This post smacks of someone from panelsonpages.com that whole third rate site is nothing but ex-wizard kids with a grudge and their untalented freelance artists friends.

• When they folded Anime Insider I also canceled my Wizard sub. At that time they returned the funds for both subs promptly. Heaven knows what will happen now, though.

• no they're just going to keep spontaneously generating issues out of thin air in the empty Wizard building. don't worry.

• Was this version first or the post on Comic Book Resources? I believe in recycling, but really! And re copy editing - the writer probably meant "monkey" but was in such a hurry to get their name on as much of the interwebs as possible, they didn't bother to proofread it. Looks like we got some picture why this person "used to" work there.

• I've got to be honest-this bums me out. I havent bought WIZARD in years,but I didnt want it to go under. I wanted it to get better. And while I continued to(occasionally)but ToyFare,it irked me when they upped the price and went to a smaller mag with less content. What would have been ideal is if they brought everything back into one magazine...comics,indy comics,anime,toys,ect. and charged a slightly higher price for that. This pretty much leaves NO nerd magazines on newsstands anymore,which leaves us all worse off. R.I.P. ToyFare-the magazine rack in my bathroom will be a much darker place without you.

• Zach Malamute (RIP) and I were no relation. He was a veteran (-arian! Ha!) when I started there.

• well...that's true, but Valiant is not really the best example. Valiant actually was really good in the early days and they had very low print runs in the beginning so the early issues got hard to find pretty quickly. it's because they became more popular afterwards that they were able to afford more printings and not run into that problem again after their first year. but of course they never got popular enough and all those first year issues became worthless when Valiant went under. and now that you mention it I remember them mentioning Preacher in Wizard quite a lot. it's actually how I heard about it and started buying it back when it was coming out. of course this was all back in the old days before it turned into a 200 page advertisement...

• It became what now?

• Wizard was great and glorious in its heyday. Unfortunately it had long been but a pale reminder of what it what it once was.

• I disagree with part of that. A four year old and his money are soon parted. All it takes are a few "I got your nose" scams.

• Anyone know if this week's release of Wizard #235 is the last one that's going to be printed?

• I won an autographed White Zombie cd due to a contest Wizard ran, so I'll always be grateful for that. Unfortunately, Wizard was one of the main culprits during the spectator era. Falsely claiming titles from Valient, etc. were more popular then they actually were. People were buying large amounts of comics, thinking they would get rich from them. When that bubble burst, I don't think they ever, truly recovered from it. For example, while DC was just as guilty as Marvel and Image, they never went as crazy for it. So at one point, DC was in 3rd place (behind Marvel & Image). They announced they were doing Vertigo and Wizard chastised them for it. So when something groundbreaking like Preacher hit, they ignored it. They got advances from publishers and anyone who read the first issue knew this was something special. Yet, they would go out of their way to promote Bloodsport or spot, whatever that book was called. Well, what's worth more? The first issue of Preacher or Bloodsport? Would you rather have Platt's first issue of Moon Knight or the first issue of 30 Days of Night? Pitt #1 or Fables #1? You might say Preacher because it's simply better, but that's the point. I don't have a problem with spectators, part of the appeal of collecting is how much something rare you own is actually worth. But, Wizard could have promoted what was hot AND shown a spotlight on something that could be huge (simply because, the books were great).

• Careful mortal. Do you not know you not know you are adresssing <i>the</i> Zach Oat of Malamute fame and in full mutton-chopped glory?

• RIP Wizard. Damned shame, really.

• Wizard and Toyfare Magazines, as well as the Wizard Universe Message Boards and many former Wizard staffers were responsible for the creation of PanelsOnPages.com. While we at PoP! have not agreed with the direction of the company in recent years, we can't help but mourn the loss.

• I will raise up my Image Comic foil insert cards in honor of when this magazine was the greatest of its kind. I still feel that the 5x gatefold cover issue that featured all of the Image launch characters (all drawn by their respective artists) was one of the greatest things I've ever bought. Over thenewxt few years, I got all of the artists to sign it by their characters. To this day, it is one of my favorite fanboy items.

• Yeah, I'm worried about that too.....

• Its somehow even sadder to me that we obviously wont get a final issue blow-out. Sounds like the digital version will just be an excuse for Gareb to pitch his cons, which after today will possibly be a tad more ill-recieved.

• This is a shame. I started collection Wizard around the 60th issue. When I got into comics Wizard was great for recommendations. There was always an interesting story or two that helped explain the rich history of comics to me. Wizard helped me become the nerd I am today (for better or worse.) Sadly, in recent years the economy hit the magazine hard. The page count continued to go down. The price continued to go up. What were once great, interesting, unique features went by the wayside. Even the letters page got dumped and the magazine switched to a boring, generic countdown format. Every month I would tell myself that the declining quality and quantity juxtaposed with the price made it something I shouldn't buy. Yet every month I had to buy it out of loyalty and the knowledge that I could always find a few nuggets within the pages. So it's sad to see Wizard go. You'll be missed from my monthly pile.

• I used to read the magazine back in the 1990's and I just got the Tron: Legacy issue as a Christmas gift. Sad to see it go.

• Well, this is messed up. I've been a subscriber since the 12th issue!!! AND I JUST got a renewal notice bill!! You could kinda tell the magazine was going to fold soon: from issues that were super thin, to issues that seemed to be desperately trying to find a format (a few numbers themed issues were awful), to terrible articles, to the fact that most major publishers and artists/writers were no longer talking to the magazine (I know this because 1) I know a few big named artists and 2) when was the last time you saw a Marvel or DC booth at one of their cons?). It is sad, but hopefully something else can come along to fill this void.

• Yet he's still mostly right....

• Thirded to the max.

• Double Ha!

• I miss the days when anime was popular enough here to support no less than four (may have been more, but that's how many were available around here, if memory serves) major magazines dedicated to it.

• I read Wizard as a comic-reading teenager, and then Toyfare as a toy collector. I'll be sad to see both of them go. I learned a lot about geek culture from them (Wizard first exposed me to the idea of custom figures).

• The world wide web killed it. There is no way that people were buying books about other comic books when you can get most of the information on websites like www.toplessrobot.com It was inevitable.

• Such a shame. I still picked up Toyfare on a regular basis and would often grab a copy of Wizard as well. They were often informative and amusing. I hate to see them go.

• when the letters page became Thwhippp it killed that page for me.

• Newsarama is reporting that ToyFare is also shutting down. http://blog.newsarama.com/2011/01/24/rumor-is-wizard-magazine-dead/

• Sad day. Gonna hate to break this news to my dad. He still reads and enjoys Wizard and doesn't do the internet thing. From what I hear from him, quality of writing-wise, Wizard was probably as good as it had ever been, if not at it's all-time best, and he'd been picking them up frequently since way early in the magazine's run (since somewhere between #18 and #23 I think). I find his opinion on geeky things and pop culture in general pretty reliable, so I have no reason to doubt him on this. Also, on the shrinkage of the magazine itself. Isn't it mostly due to dumping the price guide? In it's heyday, that thing made up like 30% of the content. Maybe the actual content has shrunk a little too, but from it I've seen, it's minimal and complaints are way overblown. And as far as price guides go, I don't know how more serious comic book people go about them, but if comic book price guides are anything like sports card price guides, then eBay and such made print versions all but obsolete by 2005 or '06 (I'll give you '08 at the very latest), so the only real loss would be hilarious word balloons.

• I dropped it when all they did was Top 50 lists, its a shame as I used to read it cover to cover each month.

• Sadly, I had just pitched about a dozen awesome ideas to Wizard about two weeks ago. I'm sad to know that none of them will see the light of day.

• Here in Brazil, we had two incarnations of Wizard magazine. One in the late 90s, lasted about two years, and another from 2003 to 2009 - but then it was called "Wizmania", because Wizard is a trademark of an English school from Sao Paulo...

• I had subscriptions to Wizard and then when it came out Toyfare for years. When Jim McLaughlin left the magazine my interest started waning, because his letter column was the funniest thing I've ever read. The guy who took over for him wasn't bad but it just wasn't the same. Really though, as a magazine Wizard hasn't been Wizard in a long time.

• Shitty, but not surprising. I started reading Wizard in the mid-Nineties and quit around 2000 when the quality started to decline. Still, for a few years I absolutely loved that mag and it got me through some tough times. I've heard mention of some crazy shit behind the scenes there, but I'm sure there were plenty of good people working there, too. I hope they're all going to pull through this okay. They certainly entertained the hell out of me for a good few years.

• god I miss Anime Insider.

• I read Hero and Wizard back in the 90s. Loved them both. Wizards comic 1/2 specials like Maxx were great back when. But I stopped reading them due to price and repetitiveness. oh well RIP.

• I picked up one Wizard magazine when I was in the 3rd or 4th grade, must've been '98 or '99. Maybe '00. Basically told me "Hey, you know all those awesome cartoons you watch? Yeah. They're Japanese." And that is when I became a... "Anime fan" So, I only read the one issue, but it spawned the primary form of nerd I would take.

• Ha!

• I still have an active subscription to Wizard magazine and just received the newest issue recently. Wonder what will happen to active subscribers like me?

• Wizard came out around the same time I got into comics, and I still remember picking up my first issue (#8) at a grocery store back then. Even after I stopped collecting, I'd still pick it up whenever I got the chance, and I remember looking all over Tokyo for it one time. It was a great magazine and it will be missed

• It has been posted on Wikipedia that they will be switching to a "digital magazine" format online sometime this year. So while Wizard the paper mag is dead (may it rest in peace), Wizard itself will continue. Now if they would only bring back the "Casting Call" segment.....

• If this aint a mercy kill...I don't know what is.

• It's funny, I really figured they'd just fold all the other mags into Wizard and rebrand/relaunch as a comic nerd Starlog wannabe. It's funny that Toyfare is the survivor. At least so far. speaking of which, did anybody see Toyfare #162 in a bookstore? I don't mean comic shop, I mean like a newsstand or a B&N or something? Because here in Grand Rapids Michigan it never showed up. There's still issue #161 (TRRROOONN) sitting out there. And now #163 has shipped (at least to the comic trade). Yeah, I'm dumb and somewhat OCD and am going to go nuts until I fill that gap. :(

• welcome to the 876th major magazine to die thanks to the internet. i started reading Wizard with issue #36 (fantastic Spider-Man cover that caught my nerdy teenage eye), and loved it well into the 2000s. used to laugh until i cried w/ that magazine, and i learned so much about comics thanks to them. started actually caring about the industry, rather than just who Wolverine was fighting in his latest issue. too bad. but i mean, i guess i had to do with its demise. used to read it, then i stopped.

• Clearly, whoever RokURFace is, he wasn't an editor.

• "That you could take things like comics more seriously than regular people, but less seriously than insane fanboys. " Well said. Those of us who grew up pre-internet didn't realise that this type of mid-range fandom existed; we knew we cared more about comics than the average person on the street, but we weren't going to be one of those psycho fans that you saw on the news when they did a condescending comic book story. Wizard (along with video game magazines like EGM) lived for that middle ground.

• Seconded. Very seconded.

• I kind of figured they were in trouble when I looked at one of the newer issues and it was about 10 pages thick...I figured that wasn't a good sign for the magazine. Sad to see it go but it was kind of inevitable.

• It's probably for the best. Wizard was WAAAAAY past it's prime, and did not die with glory.

• I recently found myself wondering how long Wizard could stay relevant in this digital age. I didn't think it would have happened this fast. Rest in Peace.

• Well, crap.

• Thank the gods. A 4 year old and a money could put out a better product. I had worked for Wizard/Toyfare several years ago and I must say that I am more shocked they were around as long as they were then them actually closing. They are a poorly run company led by a rich over grown child (looking at u shamus's) who has no idea how to keep relationships with the comic companies they are writing about. Word is they haven't run any Marvel coverage because they owe Marvel some 40k but would rather sever ties with the largest comic book publisher then pay what they owe. Shady characters and shady buissness practices. They losers only write about what they find funny and even then it seems like pointless wannabe fanboy drivel.

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