Thursday, April 5, 2001

MARVEL NEWS CONFERENCE

The announcement of Spider-Girl's surviving cancellation, and plans for Daredevil, Captain America, Incredible Hulk and X-Men highlighted Marvel's news conference on Wednesday.

In addition to new conference regulars, Marvel's Bill Jemas and Joe Quesada, Marvel editors Tom Brevoort and Stuart Moore also took part.

Here is an edited transcript of the news conference.

Jemas: Joe came in last August, and we all agreed that Joe's personal focus was going to be on revamps of the Spider-Man and X-Men lines with this theme that we would have the very top talent against the very top books. The initial results on those titles are really wonderful, and just unheard of in a marketplace that insists on losing five or 10 percent a month in total sales, these books have just had quantum increases in volume, so I'm publicly thanking Joe, as opposed to the private beat-ups that I give my good friend every day.

Joe has a bit of an announcement on Spider-Girl. In terms of introduction, two people who I want to introduce you to in sort of a formal Marvel way is Tom Brevoort, who's the guy who really does Marvel tick in terms of the things that we don't do nearly as much marketing and promotion, stuff that constantly gets fans happy and exicted. A new member of Marvel Knights, Stuart Moore, who has some really exciting new projects that he's breaking new grounds on.

So that's might bit of an overview. Now, Joe, I'll turn it over to you."

Quesada: Basically, the simple announcement is that Spider-Girl is alive and well. We're going to keep the book ticking for the foreseeable future. The fan reaction has been phenomenal. We had a little bit of a call to arms because the bean counters, the financial folks, here at Marvel did a breakdown - they have their formulas for this, and 99.9 percent of the time, they're generally right, which is they predicted the book would start losing money somewhere around the end of the year, so we were sort of obliged to cancel the book.

Fandom really rose on this one, and enabled us to convince those who just look at the numbers to give the book a second life. Also, Bill was swayed by a letter that was written to us, and I'm not at liberty to say the name of the person right now because we have to double-check with them to get permission to print the letter, but we had a really sweet letter from a young girl who wrote in and talked about Spider-Girl as one of her best friends, and it actually melted Bill Jemas' charcoaled heart.

So Spider-Girl is a live and well right now. Hopefully, although there is some argument as to whether it waters down the Spider-Man trademark or not, I think there's a lot to be said for what Tom DeFalco and Pat Oliffe, and Al Williamson do on that particular title. They're reaching a segment of our audience that we arere not reaching at this moment. They've been long forgotten, but we are attempting to get back to. There will be more projects on the horizon like Spider-Girl which is another reason why we decided to also stick around with the character."

Question: What is that segment that you're reaching?

Quesada: I think Spider-Girl definitely reaches a core of our younger female audience, and I think it also touches upon what we're trying to touch upon with our Ultimates, which is again, that younger audience who is just looking for very simple, super-hero adventures with the traditional, heavy Marvel soap opera. The fact that the soap opera occurs within a high school with young kids is what I think is what's really appealing.

I've always been a big advocate of the book, from day one with Marvel Knights, I always thought it was a really, really wonderful title. It's a tough title to be successful in today's market, but yet, somehow or other, it manages to keep itself afloat. I'm really hoping that we can defy the math on this one, and that the title can remain afloat.

I think Black Panther was a very good example of that. Tom and myself decided to give Black Panther a little extra online push, and the fans responded, and the sales on Black Panther picked up in the last few months.

Question: Where did the support come from?

Quesada: I have a board on the Marvel.com called Quesada Speaks. I just wrote an open letter to the fans and said, "Look, I'm as disappointed as you are that the book is being canceled." The outpouring was amazing. I also know that there were other web sites for May Day Parker that started petitions as well and those were really important because those were forwarded to the financial people as well.

Question: What made them change their minds?

Quesada: It's too soon to see if there's any increase in saless. I think it was the manner in which the fans for Spider-Girl wrote their letters. There was a general affection. Sometimes when you hear about a book getting canceled, you get a lot of hostile mail. The mail for Spider-Girl wasn't like that. It was really, for the most part, quite moving and really talked about the character in affectionate terms. I think that it had a lot to do with changing it. Plus, the editor-in-chief was on his hand and knees sort of begging them to give another shot.

Question: All the support came from Internet sources?

Quesada: We did have regular snail mail come in, too. The most touching letter, which I wish I could read to you guys right now but I don't have permission yet, came in by snail mail. It's sort of easy for somebody to write e-mail. When you get a physical, hard copy in the e-mail, I count that as 30 e-mails.

Question: Did the majority came from the Internet?

Quesada: Yes, the majority came from the Internet because it needed an instantaneous outpouring.

Question: The majority of the fans who read the book are Internet fans? Would you be willing to say that?

Quesada: No. I wouldn't be willing to say that. I think that there are a lot of fans out there who don't necessarily have access to the Internet. That was what was impressive about it, was how many hard-copy letters that we also got. It was probably double what we get for most books being canceled.

Question: How many mails are you talking about?

Quesada: In e-mails, close to 500 e-mails on Spider-Girl. The other reason I count hard copies as a higher number than e-mails because there's always the chance of somebody duplicating their name electronically. There is the possibility of doing that through snail mail, but that's a lot of trouble to go through.

Question: If there's another move to save another book facing cancellation, this may become the strategy method.

Brevoort: Buying copies!

Quesada: Tom is right. Buying copies is the ultimate barometer. We've saved a book from cancellation as of issue #39, so we've saved it from that point, but the bottom line is that if these e-mails don't add up to sales in the long run -- we've convinced the financial people that it will add up to sales -- if it doesn't, the book will still suffer the same fate.

Question: If you made such a move for Spider-Girl, and you've said you believe in the book, why weren't similar measures for books that sold better such as X-Man or X-Men: The Hidden Years?

Jemas: The difference between those books and Spider Girl, it's not just the beans. The reason, for example, that X-Force was recast was that there was a creative team that had something significant to say that was significant to say that was significantly different than what was going on in the main line X-Men books. Generation X, as another example, started out as a wonderful, new kids concept when kids were still called Generation X. But by the time we got done with the book, it was an Academy in Connecticut, not in Westchester, and it wasn't the bald guy in the wheelchair, it was the red-haired guy with the voice. It was the same damn thing.

Most of the time that there's a borderline book, you have an analysis - you guys may not realize this all the time, but were a pretty creative company -- and it goes to the creative. When you have The Hidden Years, there was nothing to say, and it's one thing to be X-thousand copies, it's another thing to be the worst-selling X-Men book in history. So it's not just the beans, because you can get really confused counting beans, because you can lose track of the piles. If you're just diluting the interest of X-Men fans. We can do anything with an X on it. I have to tell you something: If we do an X-Men book, and we put an X on every page, and if we have Andy or Adam (Kubert) draw the X, we're going to get 25,000 units.

That's not what we do for a living here - we're the House of Ideas, and one of the reasons a book like Spider-Girl survives is because you have a proactive editor-in-chief and it's similar to why Black Panther survived, because you have a proactive Tom Brevoort who says this book is saying something important - it's not diluting the other books, and let's get after it on a marginal basis. You can't make that argument about the X-books. We don't need that kind of feedback, because we can read. We felt that Spider-Girl was saying something important, and then we heard, in a very eloquent way, an understanding that when we thought the book was saying something to a very unique demographic, they responded back in a very unique, elegant way - "Yes, we are here, we're not imaginary, the book is twinging the chords that you think it is. Keep it alive in the long haul, and watch the sales grow."

Question: Didn't you do something similar for the Black Panther and Deadpool?

Jemas: This was Tom and Joe in action.

Quesada: Deadpool was really the test case for this. Deadpool had a massive online campaign and it helped save the book to the point where Deadpool has a very, very steady following. It may wane from month to month, it's there.

(After brief introductions from Brevoort and Mooreâ¤|)

Moore: From Marvel Knights, a lot of the new material is, for various reasons, launching in the summer. A lot of it has been announced, and you already know about it.

We have the new Punisher monthly that launches in June with Garth Ennis, Steve Dillon and Jimmy Palmiotti back on the book. Daredevil: Yellow, as I think you all know, we've rescheduled for June. That was a very tough decision whether to pick up, resolicit and reschedule. We really do want to do something about the late shipping and give readers and retailers much more notices and really announce a book when we honestly can get it out. The books is coming out beautifully. That's one that was worth waiting for.

Ghost Rider is also coming in June. That's a really interesting book because I think it's the best thing Devin Grayson has written. It's almost like a straight action movie. Trent Kaniuga and Danny Miki's art is phenomenal. It's just beautiful. When Joe brought Trent in, I had only seen his work from Creed, which is his own book. This is a quantum leap past it; it's just gorgeous.

In July, we have Fantastic Four: 1, 2, 3, 4, by Grant Morrison and Jae Lee, which we've been working on for a long time. That's just kind of their take on the ultimate FF story. It's got a lot of those Grant Morrison touches, but it's also just a real nice, straightforward, solid story.

Elektra is also in July and it's a really special book. The thing I'll say about Elektra is that in every stage â¤| we brought (Brian Michael) Bendis in to do it, and he really came through on the scripts, which he always does. Chuck Austen's art is phenomenal. I know Brian was showing it around at a convention recently and got some terrific response. Nathan Eyring, who colors Transmetropolitan, is in the process of coloring it now, and he's transforming it into something that almost looks like a watercolor painted piece of art. It's just gorgeous. So, this is one that at every stage has just gotten better.

Question: Could you tell us a little more about the Fantastic Four mini-series?

Moore: Each issue focuses on one member of the team, although they're all in each issue - it's not a series of spotlights. Grant is approaching each issue as being told from the point of view of one of the characters. The first issue focuses on the Thing, and the whole story is very hard and cold. The Invisible Woman issue is a little more oblique and vague. But they do add up to a continuing story involving a lot of the FF's core villains. It's somewhat timeless too - we've avoided placing it at any particular time in the FF's history.

Question: How has the retailer reaction been to your no-overprint policy and do you regard it as a success?

Jemas: It was sort of an IQ test for comic retailers - you can count the digits in their IQ based on their enthusiastic response to the no-overprint. The smart guys who like to make money are very happy with the increased overall consumer interest and with the just general increase in Marvel's quality that's really directly related to the additional dough that we have to spend on top creators. And then you have the other end of the spectrum, and they speak for themselves pretty constantly, so I'll just leave it at that.

Question: Any more information on the Marvel Mature line?

Quesada: We're limiting information about the mature line right now because we're still a ways way. The initial launch looks like a very strong September for us. Yes, there will be some hero-type related titles. But I don't want to give it away. Again, it won't be what you generally expect from Marvel.

Moore: There will be characters way on the fringes of the Marvel Universe.

Quesada: What I can say, and I haven't cleared this with anyone, there is a very good possibility, that come September, we'll be experimenting with a particular format for the adult imprint, and there's a very good chance that one of these books will be a weekly comic. That being said, it will probably be a weekly comic that we'll probably experiment with for three months and see how the market reacts to it. We've got a team that can produce this kind of material of the absolute highest quality, caliber. I guess we can say it's manga influenced.

Moore: Yeah, this is something that was pitched to us this way. This is not something we came up with. It's a creator who has a vision to do this, and has a team working with him that looks like it will be terrific.

Quesada: I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those surprise hits for the year, but we'll experiment with the format, and see how it works and see if customers are receptive to going to the shop once a week. And the other thing with the weekly comics is that we're going to try to keep the price point down as low as possible. I don't have a price point for you yet."

Question: Are there any other books on the bubble that sales need to go up, Captain Marvel perhaps?

Brevoort: Captain Marvel is on the sales bubble. The numbers on any book can always be better, but Captain Marvel's sales continue to be solids, with a trade paperback in July, which collects the first six and the Wizard #0, which some people had a hard time tracking down. The response in the last couple of months - everything from the Maximum Security crossover issues to the Jim Starlin job on #11 to the current issues with Thanos and Thor - the response has been pretty positive. I don't think that anybody here is worried that the book is going to go away any time soon. But certainly if people want to go out and talk it up, tell their friends and get enthused about it, I'm all for that. But it's not a case where we're leading a funeral procession on this by any means.

Question: The sideways book, is just a one-time test?

Quesada: We're only going to experiment with one or two annuals this year. Let me give you the origin of the idea. It's called Marvelscope. Jim Krueger came into my office about four months ago and showed me the independent book that he was doing, and said he had pitched the idea to Marvel at one time or another about doing these panoramic-type books. I thought it a great idea, and couldn't believe that we'd never thought about doing it.

So we priced it out, and it is a little more expensive to print that way, so basically, it's going to have to be a creator-specific experiment or a title-specific experiment. A book like an X-Men annual can carry a little bit of a higher price point, just based on the fact that X-Men readers are X-Men readers, but it's a tougher thing to pull off with, let's say, a Hulk or Thor annual, unless we have a slam-dunk creative team that we know would be able to carry the price point.

So for right now, it looks like the New X-Men Annual, and possibly the Uncanny Annual will be done in this format. But we're still in the basic, infant steps of getting this together, but I think it will be a very cool-looking book.

Question: Do you have a replacement for Paul Jenkins on the Hulk yet, or is new editor Axel Alonso handling that?

Brevoort: Paul and myself are basically going out at the same time, and that will be Axel's bailiwick to deal with. I can tell you a couple of things. Paul's last story arc, which runs through Hulk #32, sort of wraps up all the story elements that he had sent into motion. Those are going to be co-written by Sean McKeever, who wrote the current issue, #26. Also, along the way, mostly for our own scheduling purposes, there's one issue, #29, that's a fill-in by Fabian Nicieza and Kyle Hotz. My very last issue, #33, will be written by Christopher Priest.

Thereafter, there will be a new regular creative team on the book and a new editorial team on the book. Those are the guys who will be able to tell you more as the Hulk heads into 2002.

Question: What can you tell us about Captain America under the Marvel Knights banner?

Moore: The week I was handed Captain America, I think I got a phone call from everyone who had ever worked on the book, or who had wanted to work on the book, and I still don't have some of those to return. I don't have anything to announce yet, but the writer looks pretty solid, and the artist looks likely, but I'm not at a point of being able to announce either one yet.

Question: Will there be an X-Men: Evolution comic book?

Quesada: We have two creative teams right now actively pitching on X-Men: Evolution. The answer is yes, we're looking to do something with it. But we want to make sure that it's not just a pale sort of imitation of the cartoon. We've got some very interesting artistic teams working on it. We're looking for something that's going to complement the cartoon, but also do something special on its own as a comic book. So the answer is yes.

Question: The Ultimate Spider-Man collection 1-3 has given us the mini-reprint policy. How available was that to the direct market and is it an ongoing policy?

Jemas: The 1, 2, 3, I guess, was Joe's idea and it worked out great. It does dovetail with the policy of not overprinting or reprinting single copies. The issue is responding as quickly as we can. If you're doing 1, 2, 3 and you want them to read 4, you have to get them collected. We think that we are going to see that phenomenon happen with a whole bunch of the new stuff that's coming out. As aggressively as retailers have ordered the new X- and Spider-Man books, the content is spectacular. Our sense is that the books are not going to last on the shelves, so we're going to gear up to do the 1, 2, 3s.

The 1, 2, 3s don't even make it to the newsstand. As far as I know, we never sent any of the 1, 2, 3s to anyplace but the direct market. It was kind of customed for comic shops.

Question: On Daredevil, are you going to a regular writer instead rotating writers?

Moore: The situation with Daredevil is this. We have the four-part story that's written by Brian Bendis and painted by David Mack coming up. The first issue of that ships soon, either this week or next week. After that, we're doing the Bob Gale story line, which is drawn partly by Phil Winslade and partly by Dave Ross, bi-weekly for the months of July, August and September - six issues.

After that, a new regular team will take over. Unfortunately, it's a little early for me to reveal who that is yet.

Daredevil has worked for a long time, because the steady force on it was Joe Quesada, and when he had to leave the art chores, I really felt that it needed a regular write to chart its course. We're working through some really good stories that were already commissioned and in the works, but after that, it will have a regular team.

Question: Any truth to the rumor that Kevin Smith is returning as the regular writer?

Moore: No comment on that one.

Question: On Avengers, who will replace Rick Leonardi after his run as artist?

Breevoort: Alan Davis has three issues to come out, and Rick Leonardi will do three more, so it's not something we have to talk about for another couple of months. We pretty much know who it's going to be, but we're not quite ready yet to say who it is or make an announcement on that. But you'll hear about it soon.

Question: Why is Marvel Knight still out there as its own imprint?

Quesada: Marvel Knights still offers creators a certain comfort level. I've heard people compare Marvel Knights to Vertigo, and I don't think there's a really accurate comparison. I think it's more of a comparison between Wildstorm to DC. It's a separate company unto itself, and there are some creators who are sensitive to who signs their checks, and the other thing is that there are certain things that Marvel Knights does where certain books are enhanced by being a part of the imprint, because the imprint does skirt certain lines that even I think the adult imprint won't be able to do.

It's the middle step in the Marvel Universe. If you begin reading Marvel Comics with the young print and then maybe you graduate to the heroes line, which is sort of Tom's end of the universe, before you kind of get to the adult imprint, there's also sort of this edgy super-hero stuff, which is sort of what Marvel Knights does.

A lot of what's going to be happening in the mature readers' line, if it's super-hero-oriented, it may not necessarily be set in regular continuity, just because it would be very tough to keep the archetypes of the characters held together in that kind of a world.

So, Marvel Knights to me is incredibly viable, if not moreso than in the past. In a lot of ways, it helped define the new direction that Marvel is going.

Moore: To me, the way Marvel Knights works is completely different from Vertigo. I approach the books totally differently. To me, what it is - there was a period in the late '80s when DC did a lot of superhero stuff that was in continuity but was a little more adult, and a little more edgy. Marvel flirted with it a little bit with some books, like Elektra: Assassin, but backed away from it pretty fast. And I think that's something that fans really like. And that's what really have room to do in Marvel Knights. We can take a slightly harder approach to certain characters, and that can mean taking a character like Daredevil or the Punisher and doing it on a regular basis, or it can mean, just doing a great little Fantastic Four mini-series that's there, and is collected and is a wonderful little read and then is over. That's the niche it fills for me.

Question: Is Joe Quesada still the head of Marvel Knights?

Quesada: I had to resign from Marvel Knights as a company. That was part of the deal here. I really had to separate church and state here. It was a weird balance when I took over the balance. People would just assume, that as new artists come into Marvel, Joe's just going to shift them all over to Marvel Knights. And, I think Tom can attest to this, as new artists come here, we pretty much spread the wealth through all of Marvel.

Brevoort: It's first come, first served on a lot of this stuff. Everybody gets to see and everybody gets their track.

Quesada: With respect to where we were talking about who signes there checks, if you work for Marvel Knights, you don't get a check from Marvel - you get a check from Event Comics. And yes, without citing names, there are people who've said they'd swore they'd never work for Marvel, so this is a way for me to work for Marvel, but not work for Marvel. It's a loophole, but it works for some.

Question: Is there interest in expanding the Ultimates beyond X-Men and Spider-Man?

Quesada: If we expand, I would like to see it go no further than one more book. We're thinking about that fourth title very, very carefully. Every day, we debate whether we want to do it or not. So, we're going to wait and see it a little bit. I think there's plenty of Ultimate material out there. I think that one more book would be about as much we wanted to stretch our customers' pockets out. One, at the most. A year or two down the road, we could expand a little more. Right now, we're looking at one more title before the end of the year.

Question: Where will Mike Deodato's new book, Witches, be placed?

Quesada: Right now, we're looking at this as a Marvel Universe book. We're still debating whether it's going to be code or not. But we're setting it firmly in the Marvel Universe. Associate editor Lysa Hawkins is spearheading his book, and it's absolutely gorgeous. I saw Mike Deodato's work on this book, and I was sold from the minute that we saw the first artwork come from the door.

I think it's a book that plays better in the Marvel Universe and doesn't have a need to go to the harder edges right now.