JEMAS OUT OF MARVEL BY JANUARY

[awe4one]

I'm enjoying your efforts to bash the President of Marvel PUBLISHING for the overall corporate health of Marvel and promotional tie-ins of which he had only moderate input and limited involvement.

 

From Marvel's website:

 

William E. Jemas, Jr. President of Publishing and Consumer Products and Chief Operating Officer

Held current title since: 2001 Age: 44

William Jemas, Jr. has been President of Publishing and Consumer Products since February 2000 and Chief Operating Officer since January 2002.

 

I'm confident I'm targeting the right guy.....

 

 

Jim

 

[joe_collector]

I'm confident I'm targeting the right guy.....

 

No way, Arad is the main man where movies are concerned. He's at all the parties, he takes the meetings with interested tie-in companies, and he signs the big deals with large corporate sponsors.

 

You're mis-reading the duties, as that "Publishing and Consumer Products" is more an ode to his overall duties in both areas.

 

Then again, if you're an anti-Jemas fanboy, then it really doesn't matter what I say.

[OldGuy]

it really doesn't matter what I say.

 

[fantastic_four]

Also where are the TV properties? DC has been very successful with Smallville and Justice League. You can also find multitudes of product other than the comics in the toy stores and teen readers book shelves based on these properties. Hell they can even make a successful Teen Titans cartoon work (and coming to a store near you; the figurines). Other than the MTV Spider-Man, where are the other TV properties?

 

X-Men: Evolution has had a lot of success and is somewhat fun to watch.

 

How long was Jemas there? I was thinking it's been over a decade and that he was responsible for the holo-foil cover madness from the early 90s, but I can't remember exactly and could be wrong. If that's accurate, then he might also be responsible for the large number of Marvel cartoons from the 90s like X-Men, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Hulk, and possibly others I misssed.

[minutekev@50]

Personally, I wish they would bring in Jim Shooter....

By God those were comics in those days........

[fantastic_four]

Maybe they are, the article did say the new head would be a former Marvel employee...if memory serves, he was one of the editor-in-chief candidates back before they picked Quesada. I seem to remember reading an interview with him where he sounded positive about taking the job.

[Darthdiesel]

Too late...seems that new guy will be some card flipper from Fleer

[Kevin Boyd]

I'm confident I'm targeting the right guy.....

 

When you spend your time ranting about television product you are completely off base. Arad is your man.

 

But on that front you are absolutely correct though, Marvel COMPLETELY missed the boat by actually having hit motion pictures like Blade 2, Spider-Man, X2 and, yes, even the Hulk.

 

Still waiting for those DC blockbusters though. Really looking forwards to Keanu Reeves' interpretation of John Constantine and Halle Berry's Catwoman movie - the one where Catwoman isn't Selina Kyle and wears an S&M outfit. I thought it was really daring of them to allow another studio have some kid wear a Flash costume in Daddy Day Care. Lots of respect. Three years from now Mike Carlin has a one-shot planned to tie in with that... Flash Jr., Tales of the Tot Tornado.

 

So Marvel missed the boat on tv? I thought that X-Men Evolution was supposed to have been successful? What about Mutant X? Not a tie-in per se, but It's been on for a couple of years and keeps on ticking. It's not my cup of tea, but it exists.

 

Of course, they can't hold a candle to DC's successful interpretations of Smallville - a good show, but one that prides itself on avoiding costumes. And I see that they plan to do the same with the Flash. THAT'S SO CUTTING EDGE! Forget the source material, it's just comics, right? Do they still make them? Marvel was really insane to have their movie characters act and look like they do in their comics. I mean how sad is that?

 

And DC was so quick to tie in to the Smallville success they had a comic book series to tie in with it right away! Those bright bulbs knew exactly what to do.

 

Then again there was that amazing Birds of Prey series that was SO well done and COMPLETELY tied in with the monthly series about Black Canary's teenage daughter, Batman and Catwoman's daughter the Huntress, and Oracle who is the former Batgirl (hey! 1/3 isn't bad!). And forget that Batman is in like 59 comics a month from DC, he just hung up his cowl and "disappeared" when Catwoman kicked the bucket. If only Marvel had been so shrewd!

 

I won't knock JLA. Teen Titans is written for people with the attention spans of flies.... which is pretty much everyone these days.Somewhere Marv Wolfman is spinning in his grave... and he isn't even dead yet.

 

And those video games! Marvel didn't put out any successful games during the Jemas years did they? I mean they completely missed the boat by having successful games based on Spider-Man, the Hulk, The X-Men, Wolverine, Blade.... they're just right out to lunch. They should have more games like DC's Batman and Superman games, shouldn't they? I think I'll go downstairs and play Smallville the Game on the Xbox.

 

And when I walk into Toys'r'Us I see I am just inundated with DC merchandise up the wazoo! Oh my! Smallville cow paddies! Smallville action figures! Coloring books! Look Super.... uh, Clark Kent hands with sound effects! Jonathan and Martha Kent farm playsets! Lex Luthor wind up motorcycles! Smallville the bored board game. DC is so quick to tie in! If only Marvel were as bright.

 

Kev

 

[awe4one]

And when I walk into Toys'r'Us I see I am just inundated with DC merchandise up the wazoo! Oh my! Smallville cow paddies! Smallville action figures! Coloring books! Look Super.... uh, Clark Kent hands with sound effects! Jonathan and Martha Kent farm playsets! Lex Luthor wind up motorcycles! Smallville the bored board game. DC is so quick to tie in! If only Marvel were as bright.

 

First, unless you missed it which based on your moronic sarcastic tone you did, I was referring in my previous posts to ALL licencing, not just TV.

 

And in that vein, Smallville has multiple pulp teen reader books in the book store for example. How many does Marvel have? My kid can go into the Toy R' Us and get very cool looking Justice League figurines, coloring books, and storybooks. X-Men maybe a figurine from an old line otherwise none and DD none. The list could go on and on......

 

It silly to argue (unless of course all you want to do is argue) that Marvel didn't majorly miss the boat in taking advantage of the movies for licencing money flow. Jemas is ultimately the man to blame as President of Consumer Products. In fact I believe they have as he's on the way out.......

 

 

Jim

 

 

[Aman619]

Jemas turned Marvel's Comics division around. he has been tremendously successful as witness the resurging interest in their comics in th epast 2 - 3 years. He did it by shaking things up. And he wasnt shy about getting in peoples faces and psssing them off.

 

But the act wore thin. It was only a matter of time before he wore out his welcome.

 

One report I read stated that Avi and Ike soured on him because the only press he ever got was about a gay cowboy and a dead princess. As if ANYONE could or will ever be able to get better hype on the news about ANYTHING that happens in comics. Suerman dies. Sidet gets married. Batman and Robin come out (oh wait - -that's scheduled for next year!)

 

I just think his time was up and he didnt worjk too hard at sucking up to keep his job. And dont cry for Billy Boy: last year or so he cashed in $4,000,000 in Marvel stock. SO he had a very profitable three years and will be a valuable commodity.

 

Also, didnt Dan Buckley WORK FOR Bill at Fleer?.

I dont understand this choice. What has he been doing since the early 90s since cards stopped selling?

[Kevin Boyd]

I see that sarcasm is lost on you. "Moronic", that's not very nice is it? My point is that DC is not run by a bunch of licensing geniuses, and that IMO they have done no better (and perhaps worse) than Marvel in getting their characters out in the public eye. Superman and Batman are hardly hard sells, where are their other characters?

 

I don't know about your Toys'r'us, but the ones I go to (and ditto for WalMart) the action figures they have are Marvel Legends (although they may have been pulled after a recent story of an "adult" Daredevil story in with the Daredevil figures), Spider-Man, the Hulk movie toys, and X-Men: Evolution figures. They also have Marvel decorated cars, playsets, games, stuffed toys, etc. And I have seen books based on the X-Men, they had the "Mary Jane" novel for young people, movie adaptations, movie picture books.

 

I don't know where you live, maybe that's an ordering decision of the store you shop at not to order Marvel products? I don't know as I don't live where you do. What I do know is that there is plenty of Marvel licensed product out in the stores that I go to.

 

In fact, when I walk down the aisles four months after the Hulk movie came out there are still Hulk displays all over the place and I expect to see more of them within the next couple of weeks as the DVD comes out.

 

On the DC side of the toy section they have multiple Batman figures (all repaints with different gadgets) and a few Justice League figures. Some Justice League DVDs.

 

When I see my nephew he usually has his, in his words - "cool" Hulk figure and his Iron Man (Marvel Legends) figure with him. He called me the other day all excited that his dad had bought him a Wolverine figure. He didn't really like the JLA figures as they are "tiny" compared to his Marvel figures and don't really "do anything" with their stiff arms and legs. He likes the JLA cartoon though and watches it with his dad.

 

Jemas is out because he pissed off to many people, not because he screwed up on any licensing deals.

 

His successes led to his further interference in Marvel's publishing division, ignoring editors, firing creative teams on hunches and whims, changing concepts to garner media interest, dismissing and ignoring the existing direct market retailers that supported Marvel through the lean years. All of those and more have led to someone (or many someones) bringing this to the attention of Ike Perlmutter. It might have been Ari, it might have been Joe, or it might have been numerous calls placed by disgruntled staff and/or retailers.

 

It's no secret why he's out and it's not for the reasons that you seem to be so bitter about. Marvel did have very solid licensing deals during the Jemas period (so much so that the revenues FROM LICENSING brought them out of Chapter 11).

 

Kev

[lighthouse]

Marvel Announces Management Team Expansion

Lead Stories, Diamond Daily, Tuesday, October 14, 2003

 

  

  

In a move designed to enhance its existing management team, Marvel Enterprises, Inc. has announced that Dan Buckley has rejoined the company in the newly created position of Publisher, while Joel M. Safir has been named Vice President - Finance.

 

Furthermore, Marvel announced that Bill Jemas, who has served as President of Publishing and Consumer Products since February 2000 and Chief Operating Officer since January 2002, has been appointed to the new, non-executive position of Chief Marketing Officer.

 

“As we continue to expand our business, leveraging new opportunities in all divisions, we acknowledge that our existing management team needs to be broadened,” said Marvel Chief Executive Office Allen Lipson. “The first step was adding Tim Rothwell as the President of Marvel's Worldwide Consumer Products Group. These refinements of our management team and structure are intended to provide greater management resources to support our long-term growth goals, which include entering new markets. Both Dan and Joel have the requisite industry experience to seamlessly integrate their expertise with the rest of our senior management team, and we expect them to begin providing valuable contributions to Marvel immediately.”

 

As Publisher, Buckley will report directly to Marvel Executive Vice President of Operations & Chief Information Officer Gui Karyo, who will take over the operational and fiscal management of the publishing business. Buckley's primary responsibility will be to oversee all aspects of Marvel's core comic book and graphic novel publishing operations, including editorial, sales, and marketing. This additional layer of management support provided by Buckley will allow Marvel to improve the quality and distribution of its primary comic products as well as for new initiatives such as Young Adult prose novels like this summer's successful launch of the Mary Jane HC (STAR18939D). Buckley has more than 12 years of publishing and marketing experience, including the last six at the Omnicom Group, Inc., where he most recently held the position of Vice President - Operations and Communications for Omnicom's Radiate Group, Inc., a network of 20-plus experiential and marketing agencies. Mr. Buckley previously spent over seven years at Marvel, where he served in diverse operations including international publishing and marketing.

 

As Vice President - Finance, Safir will report directly to Marvel Chief Financial Officer Ken West, and will focus on implementing continued improvements to Marvel's internal control structure. Prior to joining Marvel, he served for two years as Vice President Finance at ACTV, a software development firm.

 

As Chief Marketing Officer, Jemas will leverage his strong management skills, analytical abilities, and creative expertise in a new role that will be focused on expanding synergies between Marvel's three operating divisions. The Chief Operating Officer role will remain vacant at this time.

 

[fantastic_four]

That's a lot more positive than the previous rumor...create a new position for him which is designed to utilize his strengths and prevent him from f-ing up the creative calls he's weaker at. And damned if it doesn't sound like the Waid firing was one of the things on their minds when they did this.

 

This change also makes it sound like management disagreed with Avi Arad. You'd think that if the Rawhide Kid or Princess Di books were a reason to shuffle him around that they wouldn't put him in a "marketing" position to make decisions about what styles of products Marvel should bring to market.

[lighthouse]

I try to take rumors on message boards with a grain of salt... but it's easy to get caught up in the story sometimes. This does sound like a much better role for Jemas, who has undeniable talents. Writing comics just doesn't happen to be among them.