I'm not saying he shouldn't have been in contention. He was a very important figure in the last century of magic. But there are others I think deserved it more. Without Doug Henning or Mark Wilson, I doubt anybody'd have heard of DC. Henning was the man.
And as far as I'm concerned, out of living magicians, Lance Burton is the King of Magic.

Isn't it a little early in the century to make this call?

Longhaired I think it's for the last century They founded in 1909 right?

I just find it heartbreaking that an 8 year old kid who dreams of nothing but being the Magician of the Century has to wait 90+ years for those dreams to be realized. And if he misses it on that round....

No one ever considers this dude stole Doug's act to a T and became famous
no respect here for that tea bagger.(not a political inference)

so what does this tell our future youthful magi?

it's ok to rip others hard work off?

where's the Ethic's now?

While I LOVE David Copperfield and his work...

HOUDINI should be named the King Of Magic.

Awesome news! I got to see David Copperfield one time, just on a fluke, he came to Birmingham, which was an hour away from where I lived at the time. And for my 18th birthday, my Mom and her friend who lived in Birmingham set it up. It was absolutely surreal. When he reappeared in the audience (very close to us!) after the Hawaii illusion, it was . . . well, it was truly magical. Haha.

He seems to have faded into the background a lot in recent years, and I've heard some bad press on him on the internet from time to time. I do remember seeing where on some talent show he did a few of his standard illusions (all of which I'd seen live - such a cool feeling) and easily put all the other magicians to shame. I'm so glad he is being recognized, because sometimes as far as celebrity goes, people's attention spans shift very quickly, and people are forgotten. If you look at the body of his work, it is just unreal the things he did back in the 1980's and even after doing things no other magician had done before, he kept dreaming up new illusions. My favorite will always be "Snow." Hope that if I ever get to see him again, I'll get lucky and he'll do that one. Just a tidbit, for anyone who hasn't read it, the "Snow" story he wrote in the short story collection he did in the mid 1990's (TALES OF THE IMPOSSIBLE? - he gathered a lot of great scifi/fantasy writers for that collection and then wrote that one story himself) is quite beautiful in itself, helped me get a stronger sense of his inspiration for the illusion. It's been years since I read it, from some library copy, but it always stuck with me.

Now that I'm older and have been able to attend a few magic club meetings, I've had people say to me, "You mean you only saw Copperfield ONCE?" And I've realized that to most people, maybe it's not that big a deal. For me, it was something I only vaguely wished could ever happen if by some twist of fate my family of rather limited finances were to win a trip to Las Vegas, and when it actually did . . . WOW. My reply has always been, "Yep. And I'll NEVER forget it."

Rock on, DC!

who catches and who pitches?

Haven't you heard of a Win Win Situation?