The other shoe drops at Marvel

Jan 7 04:22 UTC 1996

 cat yronwode's RACM post, reproduced here in entirety:

 Here's what i have pieced together from talking with others in the
 business today There are at least two professional sources for each item
 below and as many as five independent sources on some of these items,
 except as noted. PLEASE DO NOT E-MAIL ME. The reason i have stayed off
 this newsgroup is that my innate politeness clashes with my deadline
 commitments. I simply cannot answer e-mail. Thanks.

 --catherine yronwode
 fit to print, The Comics Buyer's Guide
 production department, Claypool Comics
 (check me out in alt.lucky.w)

 =================================================

 Marvel sent workers a memo on Tuesday basically telling them to keep their
 resumes current.

 Wednesday the first wave of layoffs occurred. They let 40 people go,
 including 17 editors and editorial assistants, giving them until Friday to
 clean out their desks. Included in this group were Carl Potts, Bob
 Budiansky, Nelson Yomtov, Marc McLaurin and Joey Cavalieri, Chris Cooper,
 Mike Lackey, Eric Fein, Sarra Mossoff, Mariano Nicieza. Of the 17, 9 had
 one-year contracts (Cavalieri's contract through Oct. 1996, for instance)
 and they will be paid for not working. The rest will be given severance
 pay.

 Thursday a second, larger wave of layoff notices went out.  An unknown
 number of people were fired at Fleer, Toy Biz, the Marvel marketing
 department, the Marvel advertising department, and the Marvel licensing
 department. According to one source, the advertising department was cut
 back to "one single guy" and so was the licensing department.

 The production department remained relatively unscathed, but -- 10
 workstations for colouring were recently bought and the remaining workers
 have been given an ultimatum" learn to do computer colouring by June or
 take a hike.

 Fleer has dismantled its returnable sales program without provision for
 dealing with product now in stores, thus leaving the stores with
 unreturnable "returnable" product -- and with no customer service
 representatives to complain to.

 The entire Malibu line -- 9-10 titles per month -- was cancelled and the
 entire Malibu staff was all fired, except for the colouring department,
 which was retained. The editors let go at Malibu were Hank Kanalz, Roland
 Mann, and their assistant editors. The last Malibu books will ship in
 March; Editor Mark Paniccia and his assistant Dan Sheehan will stay on as
 a skeleton crew only to oversee production the final issues, then they too
 will be laid off.

 The X-Men office is intact; no lay-offs there. There are plans to increase
 the number of X-books, possibly even to double the line.

 Two to three people in the Spider-Man office were kept on, among them Tom
 Breevort. There are plans to increase the number of Spider-books.

 The 2099 books were cancelled. Thor was cancelled.  The Hulk was "probably
 not" cancelled. Titles whose status is unknown to my informants:
 Daredevil, Ghost Rider, What If?

 The entire line of licensed books was cancelled, Barbie among them. Hildy
 Mesnick, the Barbie editor, "may stay until the inventory runs out and the
 licensing contract is completed." Anna Maria Cool, a Barbie artist, will
 be doing an Elvira back-up for Claypool a.s.a.p.

 Other licensed books, presumeably all cancelled: Mighty Morphin Power
 Rangers, Beavis and Butthead, Ren and Stimpy, Conan, Conan the Savage
 (yes, Conan is a licensed character), MCA Saturday Morning Cartoons, Dr.
 Who, Gargoyles, Masked Rider, Muppet Treasure Island (limited seres)
 Nightmare Circus, V. R. Troopers, Casper...

 Peter Sanderson, the official Marvel historian/librarian, was fired.

 Bobbie Chase has not been fired

 Mark Gruenwald and Ralph Macchio are still working, but there are
 virtually no titles in the old "classic Marvel heroes" line for them to
 edit, since the folks from Image will be editing those as part of their
 packaging deal with Marvel. Mark and Ralph will be "reassigned," although
 it is rumoured (unconfirmed) that DC is trying to recruit Gruenwald. (A
 side note on the Image-Marvel deal: Jim Lee and Rob Liefield have been
 given a lateness ultimatum and and sales quotas on the books they will be
 producing and Marvel will brook no violations of the rather stringent
 terms; failure to meet either the deadline or sales goals will result in
 immediate termination of the contract.)

 Total number of people laid off this week -- circa 125, say some sources.

 Total number of books cancelled outright -- or if licensed allowed to run
 their contract courses and then to be cancelled -- circa 30-35. (This is
 out of a combined Marvel/Malbu total of circa 70 titles per month).

 The reasons for all of this:

 1) Buying HWD and handling their own distribution was the biggest mistake
 Marvel has made in years. Sales are down, down, down. (But not as down as
 DC's -- rumours (unconfirmed) have it that the Marvel X-line alone
 outsells the entire DC line. Still, DC is making great money from
 television and films, where Marvel lags...)

 2) Ronald Perlman, who owns Marvel, wants to cut costs, drive Marvel's
 stock price up, and sell the company as soon as possible.

 catherine yronwode
 cyronwode@aol.com
 alt.lucky.w -- the newsgroup of synchronicity, amulets, and talismans
 sustag-principles@ces.ncsu.edu -- e-mail list for the sacred landscape
 http://sunSITE.unc.edu/london/The_Sacred_Landscape.html

response 2 of 37:

Jan 7 04:29 UTC 1996

Of course, the reason DC has better TV and movie licensing is because
it's owned by Time-Warner.  You can't get much more support than that.
(Having Time-Warner's deep pockets doesn't hurt DC's stability,
either. Even the comics with the lousiest sales can still be
bankrolled, as long as there's some merchandising aspect for the
future.)

And I thought the corporate raiding of the 80's was over!
What did I know?  *sigh*

I'd probably care more if I still read any Marvel titles.

response 4 of 37:

Jan 7 04:53 UTC 1996

I seem to remember a comment in a Marvel editorial several years ago,
back when they were still privately owned, that they didn't have a
"Daddy Warnerbucks" to bail them out if they put out lousy comics,
which is why they were #1.  I guess it's still true. :)

response 6 of 37:

Jan 28 14:11 UTC 1996

Different Ralph Macchio. I think I might even have an old Marvel laying
around where he jokes about being confused with the Karate Kid.

And yep, they did cut back the Spiderman office, or maybe "change" is
more appropriate. Bob Budiansky, who was saddled with the "Clone"
storyline, was let go. I _think_ that plans are to hold the number
of Spidey titles steady, with perhaps one extra title.

Are you sure about the date of the Spiderman movie? The last info I
had was that the license was being sold off in the wake of the 
dissolution of Carolco, just a few months ago. That would likely
push the project off for another yeat, if not kill it outright.
There's no doubt that James Cameron would _like_ to do a Spiderman
film, though.

response 8 of 37:

Feb 14 00:56 UTC 1996

I don't have a definite list. The only one I'm certain of right now
is that even though it has low sales, the Silver Surfer comic will
survive because there will be a Silver Surfer animated series 
next season.

response 10 of 37:

Feb 1 12:31 UTC 1997

Latest news: Marvel plans to shut down Heroes World Distributors and have
Diamond carry their comics again. I guess that makes the score:
Diamond 100, Marvel 0. I don't know who's left who can compete with Diamond
now.

response 12 of 37:

Feb 3 12:49 UTC 1997

I know that Cold Cut Distributors competes with Diamond some but the only
advantage they have is that they carry more back issues for reorder. I
consider that a plus, especially for independent comics, but it isn't
enough to make any of the stores I frequent to deal with Cold Cut.

response 14 of 37:

Jul 21 03:35 UTC 1997

woo-hoo!!! and about time.. :P

response 16 of 37:

Jul 23 04:37 UTC 1997

question:  The way the characters used to be means a lot of things.. with the
X-men they change every year.  

response 18 of 37:

Jul 28 03:50 UTC 1997

Dave, whether you like it or not, Marvel is still huge in the market.  What
they do matters, period.

response 20 of 37:

Jul 29 01:14 UTC 1997

True.  Much of marketing products, such as independent comics, involves riding
the coattails of something else.  See grunge music.  The public's interest
in Nirvana and Pearl Jam allowed carefully placed bands to be brought into
the spotlight by the larger bands and labels.

response 22 of 37:

Jul 31 02:18 UTC 1997

Marvel makes people actually read all the new stuff.  And that's enough for
them.

response 24 of 37:

Aug 1 00:15 UTC 1997

The stories are moderately intriguing if you have the open pocketbook.  Marvel
gets the business, and nothing will change that by and large.  Much as Image
is superior, marvel still makes the money.