A post from my Marvel blog of years gone by, in which I shared a video and a story about how Steve Wacker and I inadvertently brought an end to the Wizard Awards Ceremonies at the yearly Wizard World convention. Unfortunately, I no longer have the video that we shot, so I can’t embed it here again–you’ll need to use your imaginations!
Wizard Awards Ceremony No More!
July 2, 2008 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General There was no Wizard Awards Ceremony at the Wizard World Convention this year—and I’m told that me and mine are responsible for that.
You see, last year, editor Steve Wacker won the award for Best Editor, primarily for his work on the weekly series 52. By the time the awards were being given out, Steve had switched companies, and was working down here at Marvel. Neither he nor I were slated to be in Chicago for the convention, but Marvel had begun dabbling with doing online videos. So we hit upon the idea of filming Steve’s acceptance speech, and having the Wizard folks play it during the ceremony.
The video we sent is embedded below. And we didn’t hear anything about it at the time, but apparently there were some people over at Steve’s former company who didn’t find it funny (I’m told they actually walked out of the awards ceremony after it played) and who made a big stink about it afterwards. Large enough of a stink that the Wizard folks decided to forego the awards ceremony entirely this year.
Me, I don’t think it’s so bad (but then, I’m not someone like poor Scott Allie, who may feel differently.) Anyway, I’ve asked our skilled technical staff to include it below.
Also, Steve Wacker wanted to express his actual appreciation in receiving the award in question. He writes:
The only reason I got that award was because Jeph….er..Jef..umm…Geoff Johns and “Greg” Rucka pitched the idea of me editing the weekly 52 book to Dan Didio who went along with it (a decision he possibly regrets). I really appreciated the faith from all three of those guys, though.
That got my funny sounding name in front of a lot of the book’s publicity which apparently helped with Wizard readers who like voting for names that sound vaguely dirty.
Unfortunately, my plan to tank the book by leaving halfway through fell apart when Michael Siglain took over the book and practically no one noticed I left. (Thanks a lot, Mike.)
Anyway when the results of the Wizard voting came in Tom and I did this video and I thought it was kinda funny poking fun at both him and me. I had no idea until last week that they even showed the thing or that anyone even watched it. Personally, given Tom’s performance I can see why folks may have gotten mad. I haven’t seen anyone sway on camera so much outside of Eddie Murphy’s Stevie Wonder impression.
More later.
Tom B
I like forgetting Wizard ever existed.
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Wasn’t it the only magazine about comics for a while?
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I think CBG ended before Wizard, if not by much. But Wizard was just hype and not reporting.
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I preferred Wizard because of the excitement they shared. All the others I sampled to me seemed to be trying to be so academic and serious and that implied that they wanted to deny the outrageousness and the fun of the medium I love. Of course, me reading comics to this day for a general hit of heroic fiction means I’ve long been mostly about the Big Two, only occasionally visiting other publishers when bloggers I trust make it sound like I’d like it or Big Two creators (except those at Image) branch out.
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I’m surprised you liked Wizard if you’re mostly about the Big Two as they were all about Image, Valiant, and any other indy company crossed their palm… er, I mean path. I could always “smell the sell” with Wizard. That “excitement they shared” was IMHO just hype worded like the Cool Kids talk. Full disclosure, working in a comic store throughout the run of the magazine, their Top 10 list, totally made up price guide, and endless pimping of books with zero staying power made my professional life a living hell.
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