Marvel Announces Marvel Press Prose Division

[lighthouse]

Hot off the press... pardon the pun...

 

Marvel Announces Marvel Press Prose Division

Lead Stories, Diamond Daily, Friday, May 28, 2004

 

Marvel Comics has announced plans to enhance its growing listing of trade paperbacks and graphic novels with the creation of its first prose imprint -- Marvel Press.

 

Featuring characters from the Marvel Universe, the new line of fiction will broaden Marvel's reach in the fast-growing graphic novel market by appealing to traditional and new markets. Marvel has hired Ruwan Jayatilleke, a seven-year veteran of Scholastic, to head Marvel Press and oversee its aggressive launch list, with three prose novels scheduled for 2004 and a minimum of 12 for 2005.

 

"The primary purpose of Marvel Publishing is to create great fiction," said Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley. "Marvel Press is an exciting new way for us to do this, and we are enormously happy to have Ruwan on board to lead the way."

 

With the 2003 release of the Mary Jane HC and TP (NOV035035D), and the upcoming Mary Jane 2 HC (APR041736D), prose novels are not new territory for Marvel, but the creation of Marvel Press takes the initiative to the next level. The new imprint will focus on three regular lines of prose: grade school, young adult, and adult.

 

"Marvel Press is an important milestone for our publishing division, as it is a new tool for expanding the world of our characters and stories, while also bringing them to new audiences," said Marvel President of Publishing Gui Karyo.

 

The Mary Jane 2 HC is scheduled to ship in June, followed by a fantasy Wolverine title for adults in October, and then a middle-grade Spider-Man title in November.

[chromium]

screw that, I'm holding our for Marvel to start releasing new Vinyl records like the late great Spider-man ROCK REFLECTIONS OF A SUPERHERO...now there's an untapped market.