Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige Adds Marvel Chief Creative Officer Title

[Anthony W]

DC moved west, right?.

Yep, and i don't think the "world outside your window" bit is going to be enough to keep Marvel Comics from being moved under one roof with the rest of the departments. It won't happen right away but it will probably happen.

[MichaelC]

My understanding is that many writers already send their scripts in from wherever they live, which often isn't New York. So does it really matter if the offices are in New York?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

My understanding is that many writers already send their scripts in from wherever they live, which often isn't New York. So does it really matter if the offices are in New York?

It does feel like it does matter or should matter at the very least.

[H-E-D]

My understanding is that many writers already send their scripts in from wherever they live, which often isn't New York. So does it really matter if the offices are in New York?

It's more just a legacy thing.

[MRP]

My understanding is that many writers already send their scripts in from wherever they live, which often isn't New York. So does it really matter if the offices are in New York?

Marvel hasn't had most of it's scripts/art produced in office in New York since the mid-70s (and hasn't had them exclusively produced in New York since before Kirby left in '69). Stan even left for the west coast in the late 70s. Editorial offices have been in New York, but the books have been created wherever the freelancers have lived for the past 40+ years. Editorial has been in New York, and talent looking to break in had to go to NY to get work initially, but that hasn't been the paradigm of how Marvel has worked in decades, so there hasn't been a need for the creators to be in New York to create New York based stories for a long time, and having the editorial offices be in New York is not a requirement either.

-M

[gurkle]

Feige: All the comics that matter are from the 2000s, plus random stuff I had time to read since then.
Cebulski: All the comics that matter are from the 1980s and '90s, except Runaways, because that was my baby.

The clashes will be something to see.

Seriously, though, the fact that Feige has pulled quite a bit of stuff from the Axel Alonso era (Black Order, Tom King's Vision, Captain Falcon) suggests he isn't too wedded to the idea that the comics must only be one way and to a certain extent expects the comics to tell him what the movies should be, instead of vice versa.

I hope it stays that way but I hope the lesson of the X-Men relaunch is used to put more resources and planning into the rest of the line, and that Disney will be willing to pay for that now that their guy is in charge.

[Anthony W]

My understanding is that many writers already send their scripts in from wherever they live, which often isn't New York. So does it really matter if the offices are in New York?

Given that DC was moved and that everyone lives in fear of this happening, I'm thinking it does.

[Drops Of Venus]

My understanding is that many writers already send their scripts in from wherever they live, which often isn't New York. So does it really matter if the offices are in New York?

The answer to this might rely entirely on how much Feige will want to be involved in Marvel Comics, because they report to him now, and he's based on California. If he wants to be more involved with the day to day activities of the Marvel Comics office, it might be more practical for them to be closer to the Marvel Studios office. It would also make sense from the perspective that Disney wants Marvel to be more unified as a company.

[jackolover]

Feige: All the comics that matter are from the 2000s, plus random stuff I had time to read since then.
Cebulski: All the comics that matter are from the 1980s and '90s, except Runaways, because that was my baby.

The clashes will be something to see.

Seriously, though, the fact that Feige has pulled quite a bit of stuff from the Axel Alonso era (Black Order, Tom King's Vision, Captain Falcon) suggests he isn't too wedded to the idea that the comics must only be one way and to a certain extent expects the comics to tell him what the movies should be, instead of vice versa.

I hope it stays that way but I hope the lesson of the X-Men relaunch is used to put more resources and planning into the rest of the line, and that Disney will be willing to pay for that now that their guy is in charge.

I’m interested if Feige looks at this as the Bendis/Millar period influence, because that period held the most interest to me? Secret War 2003 to Secret Wars 2019 made me buy up big, taking in all the cross-over books of those events.

[H-E-D]

The answer to this might rely entirely on how much Feige will want to be involved in Marvel Comics, because they report to him now, and he's based on California. If he wants to be more involved with the day to day activities of the Marvel Comics office, it might be more practical for them to be closer to the Marvel Studios office. It would also make sense from the perspective that Disney wants Marvel to be more unified as a company.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/10...ges-tv-comics/
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2019/10...itor-in-chief/

I am told to expect Feige to attend the next Marvel Creative Summit, but after that to probably have a representative in the meetings, reporting back. Changes to the current comics publication schedules or content are not expected to be significant, or even noticeable, Feige’s likely attention to be concentrated elsewhere – but I have been instructed to look to the TV side for more immediate changes,

A well-placed source at Marvel tells me that Cebulski has long maintained a good relationship with Kevin Feige. Which should help if he is seen as Ike’s man by some.

And within Disney, it is judged that Marvel Comics has had an increased sales and creative renaissance over the last two years. And as a result, the two are expected to work together to bring greater creative synergy across Marvel’s divisions. I am [told] not to expect radical changes in direction.

If you trust BleedingCool, and I generally do, I don't think this decision was really about the comics, that was more of a side note. This is about TV.

[ARkadelphia]

The move is a last ditch effort to save what's left of the company. With Phase 4 being what it is things do not look bright for Marvel Comics in general but it could eventually be a decent move in an actual Business sense. It's been beyond obvious for several years now that the crop of C-Level Excs at Marvel know very little or are just incompetent in regards to business.

However, we wont see any real "Change" until a year or two. My current expectations are low that this will be a good move but at the same time ...it can't get much worse anyway.

Whoa! A phantom post from 1997. How’d that get in here?

[Skedatz]

How are you defining #1 publisher though? Just in the direct market as serviced and ranked by Diamond? Sure Marvel is #1 there. But if you count comics sold outside Diamond tracked by bookscan, Marvel is far from the #1 publisher (it only had 9% of the market share in 2018 ranking #7 out of the western publishers and was down some 40% in units moved and down over $5 million in annual sales from 2016), Scholastic was by far the #1 publisher with 33% of that market and Image outpaced Marvel in that market ranking #6, and since so far in 2019, more comics have been sold in the book trade than in the direct market, that's significant.

The problem is the direct market is a stagnant market with zero growth while the book trade has shown massive growth is sales over the last several years. Feige has shown a knack for getting the mass market (i.e. customers outside the hardcore comic fans who are the Diamond customers) interested in Marvel characters in other mediums while Quesada wanted to double down on the direct market, which is a shrinking market. I think the hope that Feige's hand can guide publishing to tap into that mass market appeal he has found for the characters outside publishing and find a way to capitalize in the sales growth occurring outside the direct market serviced by Diamond. Quesada and Buckley had success in dominating the shrinking niche market that was the direct market, i.e. they were good at being the big fish in a little pond, but I think the hope is that Feige can direct publishing (and TV) into success in the bigger ponds as he has done with the films.

I don't think last ditch effort is the right characterization, so much as Disney recognizing that success in the shrinking direct market should not be the primary focus moving forward when growth potential and revenue streams are more readily available in other markets and new leadership vision was necessary to guide Marvel into those areas. They didn't remove those responsible for direct market success, i.e. Quesada is still Executive VP Creative Lead, they just put someone with success in the broader mass market in a position to lead publishing into those more lucrative markets.

-M

Just wanted to throw in that Bookscan isn't always super accurate and Marvel publishes through Scholastic.

Not to say the gist of this post is wrong or off, but just to add to it.

[Anthony W]

The answer to this might rely entirely on how much Feige will want to be involved in Marvel Comics, because they report to him now, and he's based on California. If he wants to be more involved with the day to day activities of the Marvel Comics office, it might be more practical for them to be closer to the Marvel Studios office. It would also make sense from the perspective that Disney wants Marvel to be more unified as a company.

Not to mention cheaper. Speaking of cheaper, you just know that a Disney money guy is saying "Wouldn't it just be cheaper to licence the comics out? We already own decades of material that we are never going to exhaust that we can pay Hollywood talent to freshen up if we need to make a movie. We do that with all our other comics"

[gurkle]

Feige has borrowed enough from recent comics, though, that it might be cheaper in the long run to keep them in-house.

For example: Jonathan Hickman was ordered by editorial to come up with some henchmen for Thanos, who had mostly worked alone before. Then Feige used those henchmen in two of the biggest movies of all time. Now, his screenwriters could surely have also come up with new henchmen for Thanos, but I think I know who would get paid more for creating those characters, and it's not the comic book writer.

[Digifiend]

Loeb's a goner.
https://www.newsarama.com/47515-marv...ny-report.html