Late last night, while reading Jimmie Robinson’s Bomb Queen V # 1, some absolutely wretched news came my way in the form of Kiel Phegley being let go from Wizard Magazine. I was angry for much of the evening thereafter but upon waking up this morning, I reasoned that there was little to be angry about. Wizard had done the comics blogosphere a favor, by allowing the truly righteous Mr. Phegley to utilize his vast word slinging talents, as well as his great attitude and good head on his shoulders at another publishing venue. Allow me a moment to justify this.
I had met Kiel a little bit less than a year ago by way of Laura Hudson and Tim Leong, and though I learned quickly that he worked for Wizard, a magazine all the cool kids like to bash, I instantly liked him as a person. But I didn’t truly appreciate how good a guy he is until after I wrote my one-sided piece for Broken Frontier on the legitimacy of Wizard Magazine as a comic book news resource (see the “Other Writings,” page for the article). The reason for it being one sided, was that even though I had reached out to Wizard to comment on the piece, they refused resulting in a very one sided article.
At a party soon after the articles were published, I apologized to Kiel for the content in hopes that I hadn’t fallen out of his favor because I truly like the guy. Like the good guy he is he made note of how one sided the articles were, and all though he was part of something much-maligned by others in the comic book reporting business, still acted like the responsible employee and didn’t shit where he eats by saying anything that could be construed as disapproval for where he worked.
In the weeks and many months following, whatever feelings I had in regards to this situation and whether I had upset a friend by writing such a thing were quickly dispelled. Every time I ran into Kiel it was always a welcome smile, a drink and a discussion on articles we had just done and how fortunate we are to get paid to write about comic books.
So, after hearing that he had been let go last night, I couldn’t think of a good enough reason for them to let someone go who was a responsible and loyal employee, who really knows his stuff (as evidenced by his spectacular Indy Jones Blog ) and is an all around great guy. Though it wasn’t until this morning, over my Raisin Bran, that I realized that Wizard had done us all a great favor. By letting someone who was so obviously more classy than the people he worked for they let him be free of their much-maligned publication so he can bring his skills and kick-ass attitude to another venue that is far more appreciative and deserving of his talent.
So, thank you, Wizard you’ve made some lucky rival magazine or website that much better. Have a good day.
