Marvel Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada simply says that as fans we sit here time and time again and watch a movie or TV show fail and wonder why they don’t put comic book people in charge. People who actually knows what the hell is going on. Well hello 2011 because that’s what Quesada has planned. In an interview with Comic Book Resources Quesada had a lot to say;
There’s too much stuff to list, and so much of it is still in the developmental stages, so I wouldn’t be able to talk about it anyway. What I can say is that the things on my “To do” list extend way beyond 2011, just as they did on my list when it was only publishing. It’s an amazing new world here at Marvel, we have so many incredible doors that have opened up to us, but even I’m floored at how quickly and smoothly things are happening. Not a week goes by where I’m not floored by some new opportunity that has come our way. The toughest part for me is keeping it all bottled up inside.
But, the one thing I can talk about is what the future looks like for our creators. If you look down the line — and Dan Buckley’s been instrumental in this, as has been Alan Fine — you will see that more and more of our comic creators have been getting involved in the Marvel stuff outside of the comics world. And that’s as it should be. Back in the day, so many of us in the creative community would sit back and watch someone produce a TV show or a movie based on a comic book and see it flop miserably because those people didn’t understand what made those characters work. We’d sit there going, “Why didn’t they hire comic book people?” Well, that’s what Marvel is doing. Slowly but surly, you’ll be seeing names you recognize getting involved in other aspects of Marvel Entertainment. Just look at the “Ultimate Spider-Man” animated show we’re working on. The creative team consists of Brian Bendis, Paul Dini and Men of Action. We’ll be announcing some more stuff down the road, too, with more comic book folks. So stay tuned, it’s going to be fun.
It won’t be long before you’re not just reading about the Marvel Universe, you’re going to be living in it!
Quesada was also asked if Marvel would continue to be a comic book company or if it would become more of a movie company, here’s what he said;
Let me make this as perfectly clear as I can: Publishing is the life’s blood of what we do. While other areas of Marvel may make more revenue, I can’t think of a division that is more important to us right now. That’s not to say that Publishing doesn’t make a tremendous amount of revenue, it’s just that when you compare it to a major motion picture, it tends to get over shadowed. But from a consistency basis, it’s incredibly important, and from a content point of view, it is the end all, be all of what Marvel is.
Within our corporate structure, I always define Publishing as the hub. It is the “Idea Factory.” All of the great stories and ideas for Marvel are created within the hub and then spoke out to the other divisions. The stories and characters you will see in Marvel’s animation, television and movies, while altered to fit the medium they’re being presented in, will have all started in one way or another inside the pages of a Marvel Comic. Publishing is where all the ideas are generated, it’s the source & inspiration for every other aspect of Marvel. Sure, we can take ideas that were generated in Iron Man comics over the years and distill them into an Iron Man movie and generate significantly more revenue than the comic could, but ultimately that movie wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the comic book.
Quesada is thinking like a fan and a comic book guy because without the comic books Marvel doesn’t have their next big thing and they will eventually have to move on to new properties so this is a good sign Marvel will always be in the comic book biz.
