Highway 62

When asked about 2003 in review, Mr. Quesada replies:

Well, let's look at Marvel in 2003. Marvel in 2003 to me evolved into one of the great growth companies, a true American success story. What did we have, three movies last year? And all the while we remained a hotbed of incredible creative activity and incredibly fun and exciting place to work! If that's bumpy, I'll take it every year!

Let’s look at this. Not one place in here did he talk about the comics, which is why we’re here, right? Mr. Quesada talks about the movies (which did pretty well, ‘cept for that Hulk thing, but they can make it up in DVD sales or something.) Let’s be clear here. Marvel is not about comics anymore. It stopped being about comics when Ron Perlman bought it out before the crash. It was even less about comics after ToyBiz bought shares in it to bypass the licensing fees they paid to make little plastic Wolverines. Marvel Enterprises might be a great growth company as an intellectual property holding company, but as a comic company it was treading water (and hemmoraging a lot of its talent, though solidifying the hold they had on some of their big names.)

Marvel is an American success story because of toothbrushes and Hulk Hands, not because it’s doing great things every month on the stands. Let’s just keep that in mind. Movies might make Marvel money, but they don’t get any readers. DVDs of said movies might make Marvel money, but has it increased subscriptions at all? Has there been any effort, on the part of Marvel, to expand into readership that doesn’t already read comics? Not really, but they’re still making money because they’re licensing stuff for other people to sell.

When asked about highlights of the last year, Mr. Quesada replies:

There were a lot of them this year. I think what was most encouraging among the high points was the fact that we were able to continue launching new franchises basically out of thin air like 1602 and Supreme Power.

All due respect to Mr. Gaiman, whose Sandman and other works have given me many hours of reading pleasure (and continue to do so), 1602 isn’t really anything new. It’s entertaining enough (though a little unsatisfying to me so far) but it’s nothing earthshattering. Nor is it a new franchise. It’s a reinvention of existing Marvel characters in a fantasy millieu. That’s it. No new franchise there. Same for Supreme Power, which is basically Ultimate Squadron Supreme, that in and of itself being Marvel’s JLA. But then these are the same guys who seem to think that the Ultimate universe isn’t populated with Marvel characters, so it’s to be expected. Marvel hasn’t been creating new franchise characters in some time. It isn’t worth it to them. There’s far more risk in trying to develop new characters and making them stick than there is in giving us eighteen flavors of mutant every month.

Dan Buckley adds:

I really think you and the team should take a bit more credit for being able to maintain the quality from the Ultimate line, including the launch of Ultimate FF, as well as X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man and Marvel Knights. This accomplishment should not be overlooked because this maintenance is generally much better than anybody else's focused launch efforts.

I’d argue that maintaining quality isn’t that hard, when you’re not shooting for the stars on a regular basis. Of course they’re going to maintain the Ultimate Universe, it’s their big cash cow. The R&D dollars are already sunk, the company owns the characters outright and the fan base is there. It’s their job to simply not screw things up. And would someone please explain why Marvel Knights is seen as something independent of Marvel’s mainstream line? I know it has something to do with how Mr. Quesada was brought on board a couple of years back, but nobody’s every made the reasons for that differentiation clear to me.

Very little, well nothing, is said about the low points of last year. Mr. Quesada has his reasons to do so, apparently. My heart goes out to him, as I deal with my aunt’s deteriorating health and that of other family members.

That’s a little more than you wanted to know, eh?

When, inevitably, Mr. Quesada is asked about the departure of Bill Jemas, he replies:

Well, first of all, Bill is still here so I can't speak about what life is like without Bill here at Marvel. As a matter of fact he was just in my office a short while ago to discuss some ideas.

That’s more than a little disingenuous. I’m not going to pretend that I’m a Marvel insider and see how much Mr. Jemas actually does. However, in my experience, when someone is moved from a position of Mr. Jemas’ stature to another, less public position, they’re on their way out. Their star has fallen and won’t be getting up anytime soon. So, please, let’s be adults here.

Mr. Quesada goes on to say that others in the publishing industry are busy emulating the initiatives that Mr. Jemas started at Marvel, but, oddly, he manages to pass up the opportunity to name a single example of that. Anyone care to clear that one up for me?

There’s a hopeful note, indicating that Mr. Jemas was content-oriented, and that Mr. Buckley is marketing-oriented, but I suppose time will be the only thing that bears that judgemet out. At this point, given Marvel’s track record in expanding the market as a whole, I’m colored unimpressed.

Discussing the ongoing, perception of DeJemasification, Mr Buckley had this to say:

Perhaps more importantly, it again focused on the question of what to do with content that hits a younger demographic and is not necessarily Spider-Man.

These books need a different model to work because they don't get the same kind of retailer support that our other titles do. The cancellation of the trades was the outward sign of our internal debate over what to do. Sometime soon, we'll explain our strategy and clarify the future of some of these properties.

In other words: “Not our fault. It’s those retailer people. They don’t know how to sell the product that we sell to them. How can we be held accountable for that?” Mr. Buckley, please, show some initiative and take a firmer hand in this. We can’t just be told that there’s a big plan in place and we have to be patient, particularly when we’ve been shown that there hasn’t been a plan in the past. Like the Megaforce creed: “Deeds, not words.”

I also find it…ironic that Marvel Age is hinging upon a character who happens to be Spider-Man.

Asked about the haphazard planning for Marvel’s initiatives over the last couple of years, Mr. Quesada says:

It’s much like the old adage, the most successful people in history have also failed more than anyone, it’s corny but it’s true.

He then goes on to compare Emma Frost to Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type. Okay, not exactly, but close. I think what people are arguing with, which doesn’t get addressed, is that Marvel isn’t willing to do any real work. They give books a very small window of opportunity in which do succeed or fail. Or they just bail on the initiative altogether, like Epic, before it’s been tested or proven to be a failure. This isn’t decisive planning, it’s called “wishy-washiness.”

Asked to describe their plans for expansion, the replies promise big comic events that they couldn’t talk about but would real soon. No really. They also say that Marvel “began warming the blood of the comic industry three years ago.” I’ll give them credit for lighting a fire under DC’s butt, certainly, but they were far from the sole innovators in the comics industry. If you’re talking about reviving mainstream superhero comics, then sure, I guess they did that. But that’s far from the whole enchilada.

Mr. Buckley adds:

Second, is broadening product awareness. Certainly the movies have helped grow our fan base by tens of millions worldwide, and have sent a lot of people searching for fiction that builds on the excitement of the movies. And, we have had a great time with retailers and product capitalizing on this. However, we have only scratched the surface of this fan base.

I’m gonna have to call him on the first part of this. The movies haven’t grown the fan base for anything but movies. If you asked moviegoers which comic company various Big Movie characters came from, I doubt you’d get folks able to name the company off the top of their heads. Hell, I doubt you’d get people to accurately name three members of the X-Men. But, since Marvel is an intellectual property company and not really a comics company, I guess that this is all a good thing.

The rest of this is grasping of the most obvious of truths, that kids don’t read comics and Marvel still doesn’t know how to really reach them. Mr. Buckley adds:

And, I actually give a nod of appreciation to Paul Levitz at this point. Over the holiday I saw - for the first time - a commercial for comics on the Sci Fi Channel - ok, I'm a Stargate fan. Time Warner is an incredible asset for creating product awareness and that he had the vision to make use of it is really encouraging. I think the whole industry should take notice. We certainly did.

This is encouraging, even if there’s a nice and sneaky little jab at Mr. Levitz in there. Remember folks, Marvel is just this tiny little company and DC is owned by a GIGANTIC MEDIA MONOPOPLY. Hell, it’s a surprise anyone knows who Spider-Man even is, with all the subliminal Batman advertising they’ve been slipping onto the airwaves of their GIGANTIC MEDIA MONLPOLY.

But acknowledging that marketing has to happen is kinda nice to hear. Even if it’s, y’know, a little late and all.

About Marvel Age, Mr Buckley had this to say:

Please understand that this imprint is not a universe unto itself, and that each of its titles will be selected and developed as a stand alone title that can be adapted into variety of formats that can maximize our consumer reach. Most importantly these titles, as I said, it will be kid, parent and comic fan friendly.

Ultimately, I had to work the word in somewhere, Marvel Age is about the development of new fans who will want to seek out comic shops. It will take time, but we are committed because it is paramount to our continued success.

Read: We hear that manga are selling well, so we’re going to look like manga. That and we get to strip-mine 40 years of characters we don’t have to create. Okay, that was cheap. But it’s still true. However, in the above is an acknowledgement that maybe the format of comics needs to change to expand readership. Though I’m a little troubled by the comment that he expects there to be fans who want to seek out comic shops. I love my local comic shop, don’t get me wrong. But expansion of the market will have to go outside of the Direct Market as it exists. Publishers will have to make inroads to bookstores and (gasp) evil chains like Wal-Mart and Costco if they want to reach a truly mass audience. People don’t want to have to hunt their culture down.

Wow. This is out of control. I’m barely halfway through the interview. And I’ve skipped over the Mutt and Jeff bits, which didn’t really play for me (but then they didn’t play for me when it was the Bill and Joe show, either.) I could go all half-assed on this and just peter out now, or commit to finishing this thing right next week, where the news will be even less fresh than it is now. Ah, but that’s why this isn’t a news column, but analysis (and petty vendettas fueled by my Ka-Zar in Space Epic proposal’s rejection.)

Until next week, folks.