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Author Topic: Did I miss something? - Quesada steps down (up?) as EIC of Marvel  (Read 7976 times)
Rich
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« on: January 06, 2011, 03:28:16 AM »

CBR is reporting Axel Alonso is the new EiC at Marvel.  When did Joe Quesada leave?  I'd link the article, but I'm on my iPhone and have no idea how to do it...
« Last Edit: January 06, 2011, 04:13:07 PM by Jeff » Logged
Jeff
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« Reply #1 on: January 06, 2011, 05:31:17 AM »

Here it is:  http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=30206

News to me too.  Surely he announced leaving somewhere?
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“If I could go back in time and like tell 11 year old me that like not only do you get to go to Comic Con but you go every year.  So much so that you get greeted by Stan Lee when you show up.  And 11 year old me would be like - How did we get so fat?”- Kevin Smith
Jeff
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« Reply #2 on: January 06, 2011, 05:35:44 AM »

Looks like he's staying on as Chief Creative Officer....http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=30169
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“If I could go back in time and like tell 11 year old me that like not only do you get to go to Comic Con but you go every year.  So much so that you get greeted by Stan Lee when you show up.  And 11 year old me would be like - How did we get so fat?”- Kevin Smith
Rich
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« Reply #3 on: January 06, 2011, 01:23:59 PM »

Huh.  That happened with about as little pomp as possible.  Weird.
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Jeff
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« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2011, 04:12:50 PM »

Here's the skinny from Marvel.com:

http://marvel.com/news/story/14939/joe_quesada_not_going_anywhere

Joe Quesada: Not Going Anywhere
We sat down with Joe Quesada to discuss his 10 years as Marvel EIC, his role as CCO and the state of all things Marvel.
Posted Jan 5, 2011 3:00 pm
Updated Jan 5, 2011 5:39 pm
By Ryan Penagos

Yesterday's news that Executive Editor - VP Axel Alonso was promoted to the role of Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief took the industry by storm--and surprise. Fans far and wide welcomed Axel with open arms and minds, but the big question has been "What's going to happen to Joe Quesada?"

 
Joe Quesada: Not Going Anywhere
Quesada, the superstar artist turned Marvel Knights shepherd who took over the reins of Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief over a decade ago, may be passing the EIC baton, but he's not going anywhere. In 2010, Quesada stepped up to the role of Chief Creative Officer, a position tasks him with overseeing the creative aspects of the Marvel characters and brand in all mediums. Who better to make sure the representations of Marvel characters remain true across movies, cartoons, live-action TV shows and comics than the man who helped usher in the current Marvel Comics' creative renaissance?

But with these new responsibilities, Quesada's available time for EIC duties has shrunk. Now with the mantle of Editor-in-Chief passed to Alonso, Quesada can fully dedicate himself to being CCO. What does that mean for Marvel, for the fans and for you? We sat down with Quesada to talk about his reign as EIC, his job as CCO, his history, the future and so much more.


Marvel.com: What are your favorite moments and memories as Editor-in-Chief?

Joe Quesada: There [are] tons of favorite moments and it’s hard to pick out any single one, but I think my favorite thing as Editor-in-Chief has just been all the incredible people that I’ve met. I’ve made some really, really good friends over these years, from staff members to freelancers—that’s been the real joy of the job. The fans have been incredible. That’s always been the joy of this job. I think second to that would be discovering new talent and watching those guys flourish. That’s always been a lot of fun and made me feel really good when we’ve been able to find that one person, put them through their paces, given them some career guidance and watch them become stars.

Marvel.com: Who are some guys that you would pinpoint in that regard?

Joe Quesada: There’s no greater example than a guy like Brian Bendis, having Brian come to Marvel from the [independent] ranks and watching him flourish. Even guys who have been working for other companies, who have been struggling or not getting much notoriety—bringing them here and seeing them explode in the Marvel stable, that’s always a great feeling. It’s a long list of people [and] that really makes the job worthwhile.

Marvel.com: What is your proudest achievement as far as what Marvel has accomplished under your reign?

 
Joe Quesada: I’ll give you the long answer to your short question. When I was reintroduced to reading comics around 25-26, I remember the first comics I read were [The Dark Knight Returns] and Watchmen. I’m a big believer in role modeling, setting goals for yourself and shooting for those goals, shooting for the moon. So when I broke into comics, the goal became not only did I want to be a writer, not only did I want to be an artist, but someday I wanted to do something as great as Dark Knight or Watchmen—that was the goal. I think a lot of creators have that when they start; they find that one book and say, “someday I want to create something that’s just like that.” That’s the path I tried to follow.

Now nobody, myself included, has ever really had that kind of story that has redefined the genre like those two books. But when I look back at my 10 years at Marvel and everything we’ve accomplished, from Chapter 11 [bankruptcy] to now where we’re part of the Disney family; now that we’re a movie studio, a television studio, and animation studio; we’ve got all these things going on—when I look back on that, I look back on that as my Watchmen. That’s what I hope I’ve left behind as a good thing. It wasn’t a book, but it was certainly a period of time for me that I will remember very, very fondly. And when I look back at [my] early days at Marvel—in my cabinet here, I still have the very first catalogue from September of [1998] when the first Daredevil comic was solicited from Marvel Knights, and I look back at what we were putting out, how few titles we were putting out, how few top notch creators we had, to where we are today and it’s a big change. I mean hell—we didn’t even have a digital division!

Marvel.com: What’s a day in the life of the Chief Creative Officer like?

 
Joe Quesada: It’s actually not much different from being the [Editor-in-Chief], except it’s a lot more stuff, and [that is] one of the reasons I eventually had to give away the chair of the E-i-C. Every day is really different, which is really fantastic for me because I get bored very quickly. This morning I woke up, I worked on a couple of “Ultimate Spider-Man” scripts, making notes for those, making plans for my trip to [Los Angeles] in two weeks where I’ll be watching a screening of “Thor” and dealing with some other “Avengers” movie-related things. Every day is a completely different day and there’s different stuff that comes by my desk. I can’t even tell you what Wednesday or Thursday is going to be like. It’s literally a matter of who e-mails me first and that’s what I’ve got to get to next.

But I’m involved in all creative aspects of Marvel. How that differs from being E-i-C is a subtle change, but a big change; [as] E-i-C I used to have to worry about CAPTAIN AMERICA coming across my desk today, then tomorrow it will be IRON MAN, then the next day it will be DEADPOOL, oh and we’ve got a big event coming up—we’ve got three big events coming up—and talent’s visiting tomorrow; so every day was different in that respect as well. Today now as CCO, I can only handle so much of the publishing stuff. I’m spread too thin so I had to relinquish some of the responsibilities there. I’ll still be involved in publishing to some extent; probably to the same extent I’m involved in animation, television and movies.

Marvel.com: How involved do you get and will you continue to get in all these properties, specifically comics?

Joe Quesada: Pretty involved. It’s the same level of involvement I had as Editor-in-Chief where, if you were privy to our big story meetings, we sit there and hammer out story—and I never ran editorial or used my position in a ham-fisted manner. There’s only one [time] I’ve ever said “It’s my way or the highway” and that [was] cigarette smoking; I just didn’t want any of it in the books. But aside from that, everything is really run through collaboration and through committee, and I’ve relied very heavily on my senior editors, in particular Tom Brevoort and Axel Alonso. We would collaborate with editorial and our creators to come up with the best product. It’s the same thing.

 
Take animation for example: We’re working feverishly now on this incredible “Ultimate Spider-Man” cartoon, which is just going to knock people’s socks off. We sit there in a room full of writers, very much like our creative summits [for comics] and we hammer out stories. It’s me, Brian Bendis, Jeph Loeb, the Men of Action, Paul Dini, and we’re sitting there batting around ideas and it’s really no different than putting together a comic book. The only difference is that instead of dealing with 22 pages, you’re dealing with 22 to 24 minutes. So that doesn’t change, it’s the same process. Same thing now as we’re trying to develop television ideas, batting around ideas for shows and projects. It’s all collaborative. There’s nobody who says “It’s that project or nothing at all.” It’s the same thing when we work with [Marvel Studios]. As we [developed] “Thor” from inception of idea to outline to screenplay and now becoming a fully-realized movie—we’re sitting at a screening in about 10 days, and at that screening we’ll do exactly what we do when we look at an almost finished outline for a big Marvel crossover where we’ll sit there and say “that’s working, that’s not working, how about this” and throw around ideas and try to get it into the best possible shape it can be before it hits the eyeballs of fans everywhere.

 
Marvel.com: Do you get to draw at all anymore?

Joe Quesada: I’m still drawing here and there. I have no more or less time than I did when I was E-i-C. That hasn’t changed at all. Whether I have the time or not I try to force myself to do at least a cover a month, maybe two or three a month if the time is allotted. Right now I’m actually working on a piece for Hasbro. For the last few years I’ve done a couple of Hasbro toy packages, so they’re giving me an opportunity to do another couple package designs, and that’s fun; getting to draw Marvel characters that appear on toys is always cool. I need to keep drawing. It’s important to me to keep my hand involved because I feel like if I stop, I’m going to lose touch with everything, and I just don’t want that to happen.

 
Marvel.com: Jumping back, what was it like for you to be named E-i-C?

Joe Quesada: It was a complete and utter shock, because I was not an insider. When Marvel was looking for an E-i-C, you were certain it was going to be somebody from the inside. As it turned out, I was lucky and blessed enough that Bill Jemas was crazy enough to give it to me. I remember when he offered me the job I took two weeks to think about it, did a lot of soul searching and discussed it with my wife—“Is this the job I want? Is this where I want to go?”—I wasn’t sure. I knew I wanted to do something in comics that would hopefully control the destiny of the industry in some way shape or form, but I wasn’t sure of Marvel as a company; it was new ownership and I wasn’t sure who these guys were or where they were going. All I knew was that what happened in the past wasn’t great. It was really my wife (Nanci) who said, “Look, you know you want this job, you know you can do it, go for it. At the end of the day, the industry is either going to live or die by what Marvel does, and if Marvel goes under, there’s no industry anyway, so you might as well give it a shot and see what you can do.” So I said yes and started to take the bull by the horns.

Marvel.com: What does Nanci say now about all these changes and with you becoming CCO?

Joe Quesada: My wife is very, very funny in that sense; she’s very cut and dry. She sees how hard I work every day, so it doesn’t matter at the end of the day. It’s kind of bittersweet, I have to admit; Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics is a great title to have on a business card because it’s the title Stan Lee had—then Stan Lee went out to L.A. and did Marvel L.A. stuff. I’m not leaving for L.A.—I will be in L.A. a lot, but I am not leaving for L.A. I will still be landlocked in New York, as I like it. But we’re cool with it, because again, nothing changes; I’ve been doing the CCO job now for a year, so the only thing that changes now is I have a shorter title on my business card.

 
CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE FOR THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW....
« Last Edit: January 06, 2011, 04:16:34 PM by Jeff » Logged

“If I could go back in time and like tell 11 year old me that like not only do you get to go to Comic Con but you go every year.  So much so that you get greeted by Stan Lee when you show up.  And 11 year old me would be like - How did we get so fat?”- Kevin Smith
Mitch
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« Reply #5 on: January 06, 2011, 05:56:34 PM »

In 2010, Quesada stepped up to the role of Chief Creative Officer, a position tasks him with overseeing the creative aspects of the Marvel characters and brand in all mediums. Who better to make sure the representations of Marvel characters remain true across movies, cartoons, live-action TV shows and comics than the man who helped usher in the current Marvel Comics' creative renaissance?

I just choked on my sandwich.  I actually choked.  That is probably the saddest and most hilarious thing I've read in a long time.
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"I need a day when there aren't twenty crises to deal with, but I don't see that coming any time soon."  - Iron Man (Captain America #29)
Wringer
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« Reply #6 on: January 06, 2011, 07:30:20 PM »

I actually got this via email directly from Marvel on the 4th...then saw plenty of coverage on CBR, including discussions with Alanso as well the announcement of Tom B's promotion.  I've just been so buried at work I haven't had time to post anything in what seems like months.

anyway, i thinks its a good move and interested in seeing what happens now...I'm thinking there will not be too much change I only hope the really downplay the events or at least stop calling every other 6 issue storyline an Event (ie: the recent Hulk stuff)

Not sure I get Mitch's comment as I believe Joe has done far more good for Marvel and the inductry than bad in a very uncertain time.  Certainly better than Bob Harris' run in the 90's that nearly destroyed the company.
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Mitch
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« Reply #7 on: January 06, 2011, 08:31:19 PM »

I'm just not a fan of Joe's vision for Marvel's characters.  I can't argue with the financial success he's brought; it's the "making sure the representations of Marvel characters remain true" that I find laughable.  Some (I dare say many) fans will disagree with Joe on what the "true" representations of these characters are.  And to a Marvel fan who has turned away from comics in order to enjoy the Quesada-free version of these characters in games and in movies, this news is particularly distressing.

However, I'm not trying to pee in anyone's cereal here.  If you guys like what he's doing, that's good.  Really.  I'm not criticizing any of you guys for reading his stuff or anything.  It's just that based on all of the interviews with Quesada I've ever read, I think the guy's full of $#!t.
Quote
...It’s the same level of involvement I had as Editor-in-Chief where, if you were privy to our big story meetings, we sit there and hammer out story—and I never ran editorial or used my position in a ham-fisted manner.
  Roll Eyes  (I'm glad I finished that sandwich before reading this part...)
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Jimmy T
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« Reply #8 on: January 08, 2011, 02:57:23 PM »

Gotta agree with Mitch. That man arm-barred his Spider-man to where he wanted it to go!

That said, well, let's see.

Right now, I'm only getting 3 Marvel books. The progression of their universe has gotten to an area that I find bland and unappealling.
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Perry
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« Reply #9 on: January 08, 2011, 03:45:59 PM »

Now this is going to sound like an angry rant,  Grin but I am not trying to make it that way and though I understand, and certainly agree, with your anger towards JoeQ's decision on Peter and how it was handled, you guys act like he was the worst EIC in the history of comics.

Do you guys not remember ANY of the past EIC's and the choices they made? What about DC's EICs?

I will take JoeyQ and his crazy obsession with no smoking (which while I don't agree with, I can understand) and ofcourse, the aforementioned Spidey travesty over many ... no ... most all other EIC's in the history of comics.

How about the great DeFalco who pretty much made me quit comics all together a few years back? You think JoeQ is worse than him? No. You can't mean that.

DiDio? (Yes not really a EIC, as they had no-one during his tenure) Was he an amazing "head"?

What about Shooter, whom as a fan I loved, but he treated almost every writer/artist that ever worked at Marvel like shit and and not only lost most of them, he kept new talent from joining as a result ... until he was finally fired?

I know one thing, no way in hell can you please everyone, and JoeyQ hardly ever tried  Grin, but he was a great EIC for Marvel ... even if not for the fans of Marvel.

Bob Harris is the only one I feel that comes close to what JoeQ has done .... and I wonder to this day what would have happened if Harris would not have gotten the bad end of ... well ... nevermind (sour grapes). He is doing fine over at DC now.
 Smiley

I think I will love Alonzo coming in however.
 Smiley




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Sith_Chimera
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« Reply #10 on: January 08, 2011, 09:23:16 PM »

Meh. I honestly don't care who the EIC's are because I have no say so in who gets promoted to that position in the company. It's not like we vote for them.

However, if they dip their oily tentacles into the books I read, then I get concerned. It takes a hell of a lot to make me quit a character, but I quit Spider-Man after what he did to it. This was after me not missing a single issue of any Spidey book since the "Lifetheft" arc back in 1993.

As news, I don't care about it. They can make whomever they want as the EIC. Just make good books.
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Mitch
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« Reply #11 on: January 09, 2011, 07:41:15 PM »

I'm not saying Quesada is the worst EIC.  I'm just saying he's just a very bad one for Marvel, at least from an editorial/creative aspect. 

I'm certain there have been other bad ones for all of the companies, including Marvel, but that doesn't make him any better.  I've never worked for a comics company, but I consider an editor or creative director's job is to guide writers in a way that develops interesting new concepts that will sell comics yet respect the fundamental concepts of a character or characters.  Replacing those concepts with your own personal fan fiction and having writers find ways to shoehorn them into your new continuty is an abuse.  Quesada's not the first to do it, but it does not excuse it in my opinion.
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Perry
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« Reply #12 on: January 09, 2011, 09:07:33 PM »

Mich, I respect your opinion and your right to have it
 Smiley

But what has JoeQ done other than take Marvel to prominence? From when he took over the reigns to the day he left he constantly bettered the value of the company. How can you even remotely say that is not a fact? And if you agree with that, then he has done a fantastic job as EIC.

The EIC is not around to make every fan happy, he is there to promote the sales of the company. He has done that.

He was responsible for bringing in the best talent on the market and turning that talent into profit. What other company has done that? DC? Hell no. I don't care if you are a DC fan, you can't think that the overall talent at DC, currently, is on par with the talent that is in the Marvel stable.

I honestly think you are letting your personal feelings on a few matters cloud the results of the job he has actually done. Your hatred of his "fan fiction" .. let's just call it for what it is ... your hatred for his Spidey moves  Wink does not come close to negating the accomplishments he has ... accomplished  Grin

Look, like I said, I was/am furious at the "Married-nevermore" crap and a few others as well, but you are not looking at the big picture.

Who started the Marvel summits to allow creators to pitch new ideas to try and incorporate Marvel into a more cohesive universe? He did.

Who sold those damn big events to the masses, even though the "internet" wanted nothing to do with them? He did.

Who started (green lit) the ULTIMATE line, one of comics biggest success stories ... for awhile? He did.

MAX comics? A brand I LOOOVE.  Grin He did.

Who increased market share of a stock that was basically heading to bankruptcy? He did ... partly.

He has held that position for what ... 10 years? ... and in that time frame has Marvel risen?

Yes.

He succeeded in his job. I say he excelled in it.  Smiley

*************************

On a side note to clarify my Marvel has the better talent remark ...
DC has done better, recently, getting some new artistic talent, but their writers? Johns is pretty good, Morrison is ... well ... Morrison (you either love or hate him ... to me he is "eh") and then Bedard is one of my personal favs and Gail is okay. JMS was a huge draw ... and now he is off monthlies, but really DiDio has had to step in and write books? Krul? Put a list together of the talent Marvel has and the talent DC has and you can see it is pretty lop-sided.
 Undecided

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