This morning, some of the comic-based news hitting the web make me think of some traumatic events from my younger, crazier (and healthier) days. Back then, I encountered this affect dubbed "seeing the wizard" during the indoctrination course for Air Force Combat Control and Pararescue trainees. Our lovely little OL-Hell on Earth as some of us referred to the course.
This "seeing the wizard" phenomenon occurred during our water confidence training. It’s where you’d hold your breath long enough to get tunnel vision… and maintain that tunnel vision long enough to see a tiny speck of sparkly light at the end that looked like a robed man with a cone-shaped hat. If you saw the wizard and didn’t come up for air soon after hitting that point, you’d usually find yourself lying by the side of the pool being resuscitated by one of the cadre.
I learned that lesson the hard way.
I also learned the cadre didn’t like resuscitating cone-heads like me.
Today, Wizard magazine came up for air. It had been holding on to the past and on to some of the more lucrative days of comics for quite a while, and the magazine was probably at the point where it needed some resuscitation. But I will give them credit for one thing… the employees who I met from there over the years always had a passion for comics. And after reading Agent M’s blog on his experiences there, I can see that passion was probably more widespread there than just the few people I’d met.
I might not have seen eye-to-eye with all the magazine’s reviews or all of the fanfare over certain creators, but I’d never expect that from any publication. Opinions vary from person-to-person and the only way you’re ever going to see eye-to-eye with an entire magazine or website is if you write it all yourself (and there are people I think would still hate on their own publication just because they have an overdeveloped hatin’ gland).
So, here’s to Wizard as they follow in the footsteps of the Dragon by dropping the print version and taking their articles to the digital realm. I may not have always appreciated what they had to say, but I rarely doubted the fire behind the people putting the actual words to the page.
