I found this 1998 issue of Wizard magazine from a thrift store and I wanted to share a few pages I found interesting.It's a nice look into the comic community before the wider internet and social media.
>>153178612man I had a ton of those years back. bought it for years. miss flipping through them. I think I managed to keep 1 issue maybe.
>>153178612I like how Hughes drew the Witchblade here, how it looks like hands roughly groping Sara and lifting her boobs up. Pretty hot. Not many artists drew it looking like a living thing
>>153178612Full Cover
>>153178662
>>153178612those were the fuckin days.>>153178655fuck, witchblade. that's one MORE thing I ripped off with this one character I made. i always forget, i'm like 'venom, spawn, bayonetta... who am I forgetting'it's Witchblade.
>>153178695The full ranking:1. Spider-man2. Batman3. Superman4. Wolverine
>>153178736John Bryne interview
>>153178758
>>153178662Accurate reflection of the top three DC heroines, top three Marvel heroines, and top two Image heroines in 1998?
>>153178783Top 10 Sexiest Comic Women
>>153178823forgot the pic
>>153178848
>>153178848>articles you can't have anymore
>>153178848>>153178867You now have my fullest, most-erect attention.
>>153178793Probably for Image and DC. They could probably find a more popular second mutie to use than Wanda though. Elektra was also pretty popular in those days I think. Bringing her back was worth more to them than their relationship with Frank Miller. It's kinda weird how much she's fallen off since then
>>153178736>greatest american hero>wolverine
Man, I actually had that issue. Such a silly magazine, but this was at the beginning of web, so for comic books news, this was one of the few sources for it.I do miss the days of just grabbing a magazine and reading it at one leisure.
>>153178867Go on... finish the Top 10.
>>153178867Apparently Catwoman is Queen BeeLast scanned pic for now, may post more later.
>>153178979Thanks for the fun and laughs, anon.
>>153178887I think the Elektra solo book from the 90s may have been cancelled by 1998, and you're underestimating just how popular the Avengers relaunch at the time was, and Wanda was the lead heroine in that book. You could make a stronger case for her than for Sue in 1998.>>153178979I think Adam Hughes had better choices than the Wizard staffers.
>>153178979>DawnKind of surreal knowing she was a huge deal back then
>>153178612>Rogue's not even on the fucking list, 3's (Cry for) Dawn, 2's Vampirella and 1's Catbitch
>>153178979>>153178867>>153178848>No ZatannaWas she not considered eye candy at the time?
>>153178758>>153178783Byrne drew the best Wonder Woman
https://archive.org/details/wizard-magazine-083
>>153179124She seems to have been oddly neglected by DC for a lot of the 90s, on the brink of getting sucked into the Vertigo ghetto, so by 1998 she wasn't an obvious choice. And Wizard's list is all about the obvious choices and some fetishy choices.
>>153178892It's Wizard. Wolverine being shilled on every comic book cover was their ongoing running joke, which wasn't far off from the reality.
>>153179113I remember Linsner's ads in the back of comics rags and it was abundantly obvious she was going to make Lady Death look nuanced and if it had been 10 years later she'd be primarily known for porn fanart. A great wet dream but that's it.
>>153178736Who would've guessed?>>153178867Nips out. What year was it when this started to go away? Like 2007?
>>153178612did greg land do the cover? susana hoffs-wonder womans facekyra sedgewick- roguemeg ryan- supergirl
>>153179327Linsner is a great artist but the comic itself is just air
>>153179327Darkchylde was probably worse thoughBad girls in general were mostly trash in the 90's but Darkchylde was like that local trailer trash's sex tape that got big in your city but just quietly faded into obscurity levels of trashyYou think Randy Queen freaked out when Magik came back?
>>153179623>>153179327I probably have more lenient standards when it comes to obscure small publisher and indie publisher comics than most Anons (who actually do read comics)Bad girls don't really interest me but I'm kind of thinking about reading Dawn and maybe storytiming it I know it's better that I just read it myself and make my own opinion but I just want to ask, is Dawn just "bland" outside of the art or is it like other "artist driven comics" that got flack at the time where it fundamentally fails numerous aspects of basic writing do's and don'ts?
>>153179728I don't know if I'd call it bland, it's too unusual for that, some of the setpieces are interesting and it's memorable. It just fails in plot which is vague and pretentious, you can tell Linsner just had a bunch of cool shit he wanted to draw and the story was secondary. I have a soft spot for bad girl comics (Dawn isn't really a bad girl incidentally, and has little personality one way or the other), I like Chaos! comics and Darkchylde. Dawn is the worst written of any of the popular ones of that era.
>>153178612I actually owned this back in the day, I definitely spanked it to the hot ladies top ten before, as a wee lad.Wizard magazine was so fucking great. I lived in a shitty rural part of Washington and all the little convenience stores near me didn't get regular, sequential comics, but they would always have new issues of wizard. I lost the collect I had but I must have had thirty or forty issues at some point, plus a bunch of the specials.
>>153178848I have an odd nostalgia for the late-90's "bad girl" era of comics, I got a catalog randomly in the mail in 1998 for Anotheruniverse.com , and they were really pushing those books at the time. Fathom was on the cover, Red Monika had the biggest tits I'd ever seen in a comic, Danger Girl had three sexy girls for the price of one, it was basically porn to me.
>>153178612>>153178662Can you imagine the sheer ammount of hot glue 90s gooners sprayed all over this cover?I wonder if any of these cheescake artist like Huges, J Scott Campbell or Michael Turner ever receive disturbing fan mail detailing how much people enjoyed jerking off to their drawings.
>>153178662great art
>>153181101I had an issue focusing on Frank Miller's The Spirit. My mom found it and thought it was too much. Took every single issue I had and threw them away.
>>153179113Really wish they'd do a reprint of Akiko
>>153178655Another cover he drew with her
i only started reading comics in like 2010 so I don't give a shit about wizard
To anyone interested, archive.org has old issues of Wizard:https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Wizard+Magazine%22also issues of "Comic Scene" magazine:https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22comics+scene+magazine%22&page=2
>>153178662Cool pic for a wallpaper. Would be possible for someone to clean it?
>>153183514it has interviews, which are important to document bts details especially a lot of interviews were deleted by sites like newsarama. for example there's details of infinite crisis and morrison's batman rip that I think were only in Wizard like Hurt originally being the Devil.
These are the last scans I took. It was fun going through the magazine and thread, it makes me wonder what the closest thing to Wizard today is, or what it could be?>>153183558Like this anon said you can read the rest of magazine on Archive
>>153185582
>>153185582>it makes me wonder what the closest thing to Wizard today is, or what it could be?This new magazine just started last month, seems pretty good so far, though less focus on fan-service than Wizard had.
>>153185612Some Ironman fan designs
>>153183558Ha I still have this issue in a box
>>153185650
>>153185671>>153178736Here's the grading system for how they decide the best superhero.
>>153185698It's been long decided, Spider-man is best superhero of all-time. Never to be disputed again!And that's all
I stopped trusting Wizard after they made Dan Slott's She-Hulk the book of the month.
>>153183558>Toyfare 01-11, 45, 49, 76-78, 96, 98, >Wizard 01-120, 125, 130-150, 162, 169, 233-235>Wizard Edge 01-03Thats quit a good selection.
>>153186392It was always a biased look at comics. They chilled certain comics like Vampirella and other eye candy things.
>>153178979I was alive back then and I have no idea who this Dawn character is>Created by Joseph Michael LinsnerOh, the same guy who provided the art this article, that would explain it.
>>153185582>>153185612The Basic Training and Fan Casting were always my favorite part of Wizard
>>153179113Are there lewds of Akiko? Asking for a friend
>>153178612I miss the costume contest they had every Halloween. I didn’t get into cosplay until 2006, so I missed out on it.
Pre & Post 2000's Wizard is so different.
Man I miss Toyfare...
>>153188378Hollywood ruined them the same way it ruined all of comics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkmnbEJJrQ0
>>153178612why doesn't diana know what to do with her arms
>>153188452when the first X-Men cameout they just threw all the comic stuff to the side and solely focused on movies.
I miss comic books
>>153186501You had to suck-up to them because they could make or break your career. Wizard was like being on The Tonight Show for comic creators.
>>153178612I really should go back to Witchblade one of these days
>>153178612manjaws
>>153178612That's Meg Ryan as Supergirl.
>>153189266And Joanie "Chyna" Laurer as Wonder Woman.
>>153178867>paw padsbruh
>>153178867Oh God is this where Slott got the idea for his run?
tfw it will never be 1998 again
>>153178979In a world of badgirls, coming off Batman Returns, Catwoman was THE badgirl. the Balent comic really made her a star in the 90's. Wild to think DC would basically figuratively(and literally) throw that whole era away because it was misogynistic according to some guy who had Selina fuck old men.
>>153191936A bunch of female characters became boring in the 2000's.
>>153179124>>153179214Zatanna didn't really get featured again until Dini pushed for her in the 2000's when he was doing comics more regularly. This list is largely based off characters who were getting sexy art at the time and she really wasn't.
>>153179438>did greg land do the cover?if you can't tell the difference between Adam Hughes and Greg Land you're hopeless.
Wizards' writers always came off like losers.
>>153192276Wizard were exactly that kind of smug gen x cynical fag that hated their own hobby that caused every problem we face today
>>153191936I don't think Brubaker ever called it misogynistic, he just wanted to write adult crime fiction and not fun heists for teen boys. Balent's Catwoman was a divergence from the one Miller established and that Mindy Newell followed up on in Her Sister's Keeper.
>>153178695This is an awsome ad. I miss these.
>>153178736Superbulge
>>153178793I can't remember the image but I remember seeing some poll Marvel ran in maybe the mid or mid-late '90s and one of them was most popular heroine or something and Rogue was far and away number 1. She's pretty much always been the most popular female X-Men member and arguably their most popular heroine in spite of how much they'd try and push Storm or someone like that.
>>153179113Her being there makes sense when you see that the guy drawing the images for the article is her creator so he was probably allowed to throw her in there as a form of advertising.
>>153192034To be fair they both suck.
>>153178612>1998Comic books were already heavily online in that year, but print media still had a semblance of prestige and importance so people still took its reports seriously.
>>153194918To be fair you're still hopeless.
>>153194944Adam Hughes always looked like an inferior Terry Dodson to me.
>>153178758>Haunting images taken moments before disaster I think that Spider-man: Chapter One really buried Byrne's career for good in mainstream comics.
>>153178793>>153194826Storm is more popular than Rogue. Even Psylocke was more popular than her in the late 90's.
>>153194997Other way around for me. Dodson got to a certain Adam Hughes-tier in the late 90s- early 00s. But Hughes had already surpassed that phase and Dodson devolved from there.
>>153195086Nope. Storm always good pushed because she was black and because Claremont was sexually attracted to her. Psylocke got pushed because she was the closest thing Marvel had to a sexy warrior bad girl. But Rogue was always the one fans actually gravitated to.Gambit and Rogue have always been extremely popular and it's not hard to see why. For boys, Rogue is pretty but she has the vulnerable "Ah can't touch anyone even though ah wanna!" thing so they can imagine being the one to save her and be her first while Gambit is a cool handsome chad. Girls loved them because Rogue is basically the shoujo heroine they could self-insert as and she was tied to the rogueish and charming bad boy with a heart that they thought was hot.
>>153195190nta, but you are wrong.Gambit and Rogue are popular because they were featured prominently in the 90's cartoon. When Gambit started to being removed from high landmark projects like the X trilogy, the Evolution cartoon and such, his popularity plummeted to the ground.
>>153185650>>153185671Jeez, these are gooood.Also very, VERY 90s.
>>153195327No, Gambit they tried removing Gambit and intentionally tanking his popularity presumably because a lot of creatives at Mavel viewed him as emblematic of the icky '90s dark ages. It never actually worked though and he's never stopped being popular. Being in the '90s cartoons helped and was likely how a lot of kids were first exposed ot them but it was the tragic romance aspect that kept people into them. They were cool, they were hot and Rogue's nature meant their relationship always had sexual tension where they wanted intimacy but were unable to find fulfillment which is something teenagers of both genders would be able to relate to.Kind of like how Kitty was popular because she was a cute girl with similar interests to the teenagers reading and her popularity fell off once that went away and she grew up. I'd say being stuck in Excalibur didn't help but it did nothing to kill Nightcrawler's popularity because he never lost the core of what readers found appealing, same as Rogue and Gambit. Kitty did when she left the X-Men so peoples' interest left as well.
>>153194997My thoughts exactly
>>153185635What it look like inside?
>>153195123Dodson can at least draw an interior. Hughes hasn't drawn one in 35 years.
>>153195616Rogue first romance was with Magneto, then she had a crush with Longshot and then another romance with Joseph. Gambit love life wasn't even tied to her until the 90's and then after he became a no show in the other X-men media, their romance sunked like the Titanic with Gambit popularity.At this point Gambit is probably not even a top 5 more popular X-man.
>>153195190You can't use popularity polls to judge anything other than whose fans care the most to vote.
>>153195935He did that Hellboy Christmas special.
>>153195935AH did interiors for a couple Hellboy stories a few years ago.
>autisms show up and ruin it seething and sperging over characters popularity as if it matters what your version of it is in your head you remember.
>>153188580It really was. There were some Image or Indy comics that sold alot of #1 but than were forgotten. Just thanks to Wizard reporting on the series start.
>>153193071This is a very accurate take.
