Exfanding Radar: Wizard World Digital

Well, after yesterday's full out attack on Eddie Murphy, I figured today I'd bring the positive with a post about the all-new, (kind of) different Wizard Magazine.

Or, y'know, whatever the heck it is you call a magazine that's all digital and only offered online.

Wizard has relaunched, officially, and they've been delivering shortened versions of their magazine each week, at their site.

The downloads are absolutely free, and all you need to do to access the content is give an email address and your Zip code.

You can then download the mag in either a PDF that can be read on any computer, or you can download their iPad app (again, for free) and read Wizard that way.

I wish they'd make an app for the iPhone, as I can't access the content from my phone. So I've been reading it, week to week, on my desktop. Which is fine, but because these are typically 25 pages in length, they make perfect reading for sitting in a waiting room or just checking out during lunch.

Content-wise, I think the new material they're delivering is some of their best ever, and because they can post new content every week (as opposed to monthly), the topics covered are relevant and fresh, whereas the print magazine was out of date the moment it hit stands.

We get articles on the latest films, interviews with creators, and much to my delight, quite a bit of coverage of smaller press titles--something that the print version overlooked all too often in favor of catering to (mostly) Marvel.

The other thing that annoyed me about the print version was its propensity towards covering seemingly everything but comics. They had an identity crisis when sites like Newsarama and CBR were beating them at the comics reporting game, and all of a sudden, Wizard wanted to be more like People or US Weekly.

Thankfully, that seems to be in the past, as this new incarnation of Wizard is much more comics-centric.

They've also figured out how to deliver a solid price guide in an age where eBay and auction sales change a book's value literally overnight. Instead of listing everything that's out there, Wizard (E)publishes small, dedicated chunks each week.

So, for example, one week the guide focused on Bronze Age books, and another week it focused on books with appearances by Green Lantern. A good idea, and it makes it fun to see what will be covered each week.

Plus, the potty humor, though still there, occasionally, seems to have died down. Check out the link above to give the new magazine a try. It's certainly worth taking a look, and I'm willing to bet that some of you, like me, will be reading weekly.