wizardry vanquished

We met when you were but months old. I was young and somewhat impressionable. You were like the tv guide- thumbing your pages meant not having to actually buy so many shite books. But as you grew you lost your focus, your composure. As I grew I became less impressionable.

Many great writers and editors contributed to your better days, all of whom have long since moved on to higher grounds, mostly by way of Robot Chicken and DC. I remember the controversy over Liefeld's Cable/Shaft cover. I remember Andy Mangels' excellent Hollywood articles, before you obsessed on the possibility of that one medium saving the other. Tom Palmer's excellent indie articles, before indie creators found their own respective voices via the wonders of the intrawebz. Bart Sears' excellent articles that taught more artists than any of the early Image tracers. And on and on.

But your stomach was always bigger than your eyes. Your comedy lost its timing long ago. You started wearing ties. You laid off so many other persons, trying to keep such actions secretive, and failing. You strangely persist in monopolizing the entire convention circuit. But your greatest fault- your increasing efforts at perpetuating the stereotypes of the comic book industry, pushing drivel down the starving throats of each and every new batch of impressionable young readers. That was the dividing line for me. You are to comic books, as mtv is to music. Hype and nonsense.

Print media is not dying, only bad print media.

You could have been so much stronger and more productive than what you ever were, but you sell Industry more than Creativity. You have no virtue. You never did, but like so many others I just wanted to believe. I now feel vindicated for not having read a complete issue in years. I hope you find whatever you're looking for. God knows I never did- not through your pages.


So I bid thee, sadly, adieu; and raise my goblet to what could have been, what should have been.