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SEQUENTIAL CULTURE #16 26 Oct 03 |
Bill Jemas Autopsy |
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JULIAN DARIUS |
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The comics obituary for a titanic
figure of the last few years is being written. |
Bill Jemas was for a few years the man
everyone loved to hate. He played the
bad guy to Joe Quesada, who more effectively cultivated himself as the
“people’s man” in Marvel Comics’ administration. Now that Jemas is out as Publisher, a few commentators have
rallied to his side and more have softened their rhetoric. Now comes the time of evaluations, of
recriminations, of reversals praising the fallen soldier. The comics obituary for a titanic figure
of the last few years is being written. A bit of flashback, shall we? Coming from the Marvel-owned company Fleer
(specializing in trading cards), Bill Jemas took the title of Publisher at
Marvel during the company’s bankruptcy reorganizations. Jemas presided over the launch of the
highly successful Ultimate Marvel universe, his contributions to Ultimate
Spider-Man being strong enough to warrant a co-writing credit on the
first storyline. (Jemas would
continue in this role; his contributions to Ultimate Venom years later can be
seen in the back of the hardcover Ultimate Spider-Man Vol. 3.) Jemas was key in getting Joe Quesada the
job as Editor-in-Chief, replacing then-Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras. Jemas and Quesada courted controversy,
becoming the public face of Marvel as they pushed -- and sometimes publicly
disagreed over -- new projects. Among
these projects was the MAX line of mature readers books, the first time
Marvel had published such material since its Epic division in the 1980s. Marvel also expanded and entrenched the
Marvel Knights line of slightly edgier books -- a line Quesada had originally
helmed. The duo also supervised the
Tsunami line of new launches: these
ongoing titles -- starring Marvel villains, secondary characters, or new
characters -- were supposedly linked by their manga influence, though
sometimes this took the form of the artwork, the title’s setting or themes,
or no form at all. Among the Tsunami
titles was Namor, cowritten by Jemas and somehow selected out of all
the new titles to receive a loss-leading 25-cent promotional first issue. Jemas, Quesada, and writer Peter David
publicly fought over the cancellation of David’s Captain Marvel
series, and the three launched “U-Decide”:
three six-issue mini-series, only one of which would continue as an
ongoing series. (The ostensible
winner was David’s relaunched Captain Marvel; Quesada’s representative
-- the quite interesting Ultimate Adventures, by Ron Zimmerman and
Duncan Fegredo -- still has yet to publish its sixth and final issue.) For the event, Jemas scripted Marville,
a comedic series mocking DC Comics and its parent company, AOL /
Time-Warner. While critics detested
the series, it was not without amusement.
Most importantly, it led Jemas -- apparently by his thinking about how
indulgent Marville had been and how few opportunities others had -- to
spearhead a new line to use the old name of Epic Comics: this new line of books would be published
with little overhead and was designed to create opportunities for unknown
creators. The line is now, with
Jemas’s exit, widely rumored and even reported to be cancelled, the various
works running down its pipeline to press stopped somewhere near the point of
press -- the exact spot of cut-off, between announced books and new
solicitations (no longer being read), depends on whose reporting one reads. |
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The duo of
Jemas and Quesada also changed the way Marvel published comics. |
The duo of Jemas and Quesada also changed
the way Marvel published comics. The
company that had long publicly asserted that its characters were more important
than its creators now began aggressively recruiting talent, seemingly
snatching everyone they could from DC’s Vertigo line of mature readers
books. Marvel had long suffered from
the lack of a coherent trade paperback program while DC raked in titanic
sales from its classics in trade paperback form; under Jemas, an aggressive
Marvel trade paperback program was launched and continued -- not without
hiccups -- to place back into print, in reasonably-priced editions with good
reproduction values, many of the company’s classics that had gone unseen for
years, sometimes for decades. The
program even included thick, oversized hardcovers that are just about the
best in the business. Concomitant
with this emphasis on trade paperbacks, while Marvel movies began doing big
box office, Marvel began ordering decompressed storytelling designed for
trade paperbacks, with the first storyline of any title written like the
character’s first movie (and ready to sell to Hollywood). To some, the philosophy seemed to be to
use comics, given their the cheaper production costs, as a shop to germinate
and tweak ideas that could later be funneled into movie ventures. At the same time, Marvel instituted a
policy of not allowing stores to order additional copies of its titles after
a certain date prior to publication, a policy designed to get retailers to
order more Marvel comics, speculating success, rather than relying on Marvel
to overprint and fill augmented orders.
Breaking the rule of monthly production as routine, a rule established
under a newsstand market that no longer dominated, Marvel began experimenting
with stepping up production of its most popular titles (hypothetically
replacing production of poorer-selling and less memorable mini-series). A line of newsstand magazines compiling
several titles was launched (though it failed after about six months). Hell, Marvel even switched to lower-case
type for most of its books: capital
letters had only been used because the cheap printing process used for
decades screwed up details so frequently.
Perhaps most dramatically, the company removed itself from the Comics
Code Authority, the censoring body the major comics companies established for
themselves and for the industry, a body long seen as irrelevant and
oppressive of both artistic expression and smaller publishers; Marvel created
its own line of ratings instead. |
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Jemas
reportedly micro-managed a number of Marvel’s plots. Jemas’s rhetoric, at times hostile to
continuity and Marvel characters’ history, inflamed traditionalist fans
resistant to such change. |
Jemas reportedly micro-managed a number of
Marvel’s plots, leading to some harsh feelings: some thought he was arrogant and that his changes were not
beneficial. Rumor claimed that the overused
device of the flashback had been banned altogether. Ari Arad, in charge of the lucrative work of selling Marvel
properties to Hollywood, apparently ran into trouble due to comics Jemas had
guided: for example, the MAX
mini-series Fury, depicting Nick Fury as a whore-mongering old
killgore, reportedly caused to wane interest in a more patriotic Nick Fury
movie. Jemas’s rhetoric, at times
hostile to continuity and Marvel characters’ history, inflamed traditionalist
fans resistant to such change. In
recent months, Jemas’s relationships within Marvel have visibly crumbled,
including his relationship with Quesada and with seemingly all-important
Marvel’s film people. His public
persona has ceased. And now he is
out. And so, the evaluation. The balancing of failures and scandals
with successes and glories. The
obituary. Presidential candidates love -- or hate --
to ask “are you better than you were four years ago?” It is simplistic, we know. No President utterly controls the economy,
can utterly deter violence or riots or terrorism, can utterly take the credit
or the blame for a nation. In
millennia before, it was plagues, bad seasons for crops, and unfortunate
swings in tribal warfare. But we ask
to like that question. And it is,
for all its limitations, useful. “The
buck stops here,” shouted the plaque on Truman’s desk: the man at the top, no matter how limited
his powers or what role his subordinates play, is the symbol of all that is
right or wrong with the world he controls. |
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Is Marvel Comics better than it was pre-Jemas? Yes, undeniably. |
Is Marvel Comics better than it was
pre-Jemas? Yes, undeniably. The comics are better, aimed at an older,
smarter audience. We all like the
Ultimate line. MAX represents a major
commitment to serious comics work from a major company for too long sorely
lacking such commitment. We all liked
the idea of the new Epic line.
The trade paperbacks are crucial.
The company that seemed behind DC in everything important is on a
small number of creative, format-oriented levels leading the way. On the other hand, Tsunami has been an
only slightly mitigated disaster. The
disorganized nature of this line, or non-line, hurling onto the market a
bunch of new books without so much as a shared theme, is only
symptomatic. When Jemas took his
position, Marvel needed to cut books and refocus on what was left. Marvel Knights could be used to
rehabilitate characters who might otherwise go unpublished, but the
mainstream Marvel staple needed to concentrate on quality. Now, that quality has risen, and Marvel is
in a major expansionistic phase once more.
The many Tsunami books that have plunged down the sales charts from
impressive debuts share their dubious status as questionable ongoings with
titles like Kingpin and Thanos. What seems most disturbing about this --
though I can see the logic in terms of germinating sales of characters to
movie studios -- is that it’s precisely at odds with Marvel’s other moves of
consolidation. Why another Spider-Man
mini-series when we could add its story to an existing book that gets
published more regularly? Why not
consolidate mini-series into trade paperbacks where they fit in the series?
-- as has been done with Ultimate War (into Ultimate X-Men) and
Mechanix (into X-Treme X-Men).
Why not focus on quality over quantity? Why not move towards big monthly anthologies like those created
for newsstand distribution? Why a
tsunami of new titles of questionable quality? That such a flood comes now makes sense -- the company is in
better shape. But still, why expand
into more questionable mainstream super-hero series instead of expanding the
MAX line, making the Epic line something more solid from the start, or
further solidifying Marvel Knights? In judging Jemas’s legacy, I won’t even
mention Marville because I think it’s been trashed overly much while
something like Ultimate Spider-Man gets overly praised. Not that I don’t read the latter (in
glorious hardcover collections) and that I didn’t drop the former after one
issue (only to pick up the added seventh issue that was non-fiction prose
discussing the new Epic line). But
the former wasn’t shit and the latter isn’t a gem. |
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I am left with
the sense that the good outweighed the bad, that the Ultimate universe outweighs
Tsunami, that the trade paperbacks and concern for creators outweigh
Marville, that the nobility of the MAX line and the Epic relaunch make them
worthwhile despite the much-criticized flaws in the execution. |
I guess that’s the point. Jemas presided over much improvement for
Marvel. He was controversial. He undoubtedly moved the company
forward. Perhaps he was good at that
and not the man to helm a healthier company.
But, however mixed the bag, I am left with the sense that the good
outweighed the bad, that the Ultimate universe outweighs Tsunami, that the
trade paperbacks and concern for creators outweigh Marville, that the
nobility of the MAX line and the Epic relaunch make them worthwhile despite
the much-criticized flaws in the execution. Bill Jemas, thanks for helping make comics
interesting again. Thanks for helping
make Marvel readable again. You may
be a bastard -- I’ve no idea, really -- but you did those things. The greatest are great in error as well as
accomplishments; the holiest sin too.
Whatever controversies, failings, and most-mortem acclaim, I’ll drink
a toast to you tonight, Bill. |
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