Disney might have accidentally dropped some damning news for the mainstream comic industry in the form of a job listing. Comic shops have been struggling at all-time lows for sales heading into the second half of 2024, and now, it appears as if Marvel Comics may be on the chopping block.
It seems every other week, comic stores are closing, and most of the lines of mainstream comics are being met with indifference while alternatives are funded on platforms like Kickstarter regularly.
For a long time, the mainstream comic industry media would cover for the situation, with outlets like ComicBeat from Heidi MacDonald outright lying to consumers and saying that sales were fine for Marvel and DC. In recent months, however, mainstream comic professionals like Chip Zdarsky, the writer of the current line-wide Marvel Comics event, admit there’s a “myriad of problems” with the comic industry.
Writers and editors at the company still haven’t admitted the main problem: an industry that doesn’t give the fans what they want but relentlessly pushes race and gender-swapped characters while turning other beloved characters into LGBTQ lectures to their audiences.
The recent success of Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man by Jonathan Hickman shows that just giving the fans a kernel of hope—such as a Peter Parker married to Mary Jane, is enough to get people in on Wednesdays, but those kind of books are few and far between.
Now a job posting has surfaced which appears like Marvel Comics might be folding into Marvel Studios.
Marvel Studios went through a recent round of layoffs after the MCU’s underperformance, and Disney+ numbers are reaching new lows to pair with their comic book partners. It seems that Disney might be seeing redundancy in having a Hollywood apparatus for these properties and a comic publisher as well.
The job posting, listed on May 20th, is looking for a Publishing Operations Analyst. The duties of this position follow the weekly schedules of production of monthly books—much like Marvel Comics does with its regular publishing schedule.
The job is clearly listed as being a part of Marvel Studios, which marks a change from being involved with Marvel Comics.
Fans and industry insiders are speculating that this might be the cancelation of Marvel Comics as an autonomous publishing line, which would fold the operation into Marvel Studios as a whole.
As the comic industry continues its death throes, Marvel Editor-in-Chief CB Cebulski has been quiet about the problems in the industry. With very little sign of any course correction in the content to appeal to a wider audience, perhaps Disney is mandating that Marvel Studios try to turn it around.
The good news is that this position appears to be looking for someone from the outside, not someone within Marvel already. This would make for a set of fresh eyes that might actually make substantive changes to the comic publishing operation.
What do you think of Marvel Comics folding into Marvel Studios? Leave a comment and let us know.
Sadly I don’t think so but it would be great if this happened to all of them DC, IDW, Oni, Dark Horse, Dynamite, Image, BoomX Archie, Valiant, and Titan
“Sadly I don’t think so but it would be great if this happened to all of them “‘
How would it be “Great” if this happened…whatever you guys think will happen?
First off, as long as they are printing, they will follow the norms and the trends of
the publishing market which is mostly the ESG/ DEI stuff you guys detest so much.
The corporate culture is not going to change.
The March Through the Institutions isn’t going to stop.
Wishful thinking is not meaningful action.
I hope both Marvel and DC do it this year both Iger and Zaslav need to finally make cuts and they’re running out of things and they keep making costly decisions. Robert Kirkman is interested in the licenses for both just negotiate a price with him for both.
You can’t apply fantasy baseball point of view to the comics industry. Do you really think Robert Kirkham s going to do anything different than the Big Two?
Not only is Robert progressive on most things, he won’t actually make the changes you want. Disney and the talent pool is not going to let a fan make changes that appeal to an older male audience. The Transformers/G.I. Joe revival hired industry insiders, and is being applauded by the people who are against you.
In short, Robert is not on your side and nor is Daniel Warren Johnson. If they make anything you like that is by accident.
I genuinely hope this is true.