Joe Quesada

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Joe Quesada

Quesada at Comic-Con NYC 2008.
Photo by Alex Erde.
Birth name Joseph Quesada
Born December 1, 1962 (1962-12-01) (age 45)
Nationality American
Area(s) Penciller, Writer, Editor

Joseph "Joe" Quesada (born December 1, 1962), is an American comic book editor, writer and artist. He is currently the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics.

Contents

[edit] Writer and artist

The Mucha-inspired cover to Ninjak #3 (Apr 1994).
The Mucha-inspired cover to Ninjak #3 (Apr 1994).

Quesada was born in New York City to Cuban-born parents. He studied at the School of Visual Arts, where he received a BFA in illustration in 1984. He started out as an artist in the early 1990s. His first widely distributed works were for Valiant Comics where he penciled and plotted Ninjak, X-O Manowar and others. His art was heavily influenced by Japanese manga, evidenced by large, watery eyes, long, flowing hair, and unnatural body proportions. Several of his page compositions reflect the art nouveau style of Alphonse Mucha. Later, he formed his own publishing company, Event Comics, and created Ash, a firefighter with superpowers.

In 1998, Event Comics was contracted to do several books for Marvel Comics, dubbed Marvel Knights. As editor of Marvel Knights, Quesada encouraged experimentation and used his contacts in the indie comics world to bring in new creators such as David W. Mack, Mike Oeming, Brian Michael Bendis, Garth Ennis, and Steve Dillon. Quesada also illustrated a well-received Daredevil story written by cult film director Kevin Smith. Joe Quesada became editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics in 2000. He also sits on the executive board of comic book charity A Commitment to Our Roots.

[edit] Editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics

Joe Quesada is best-known as the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He succeeded to this position in 2000, following Bob Harras's separation from the company. Joe Quesada is the first Hispanic editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics and one of the few Hispanics in the American industry to have achieved prominence for work other than his own draftsmanship. As editor-in-chief of one of the two largest publishers in the comic book business, his decisions are influential and have had, and continue to have, reverberations outside the world of comics. He has been the subject of much praise and derision from commentators both inside and outside the industry, due to his headstrong management style and far-reaching effects on Marvel books and the industry at large.

Quesada became Editor-in-chief at the same time that controversial personality Bill Jemas succeeded to the presidency of the company. The two enjoyed enormous success together and enjoyed a seemingly warm personal relationship. The fruits of that relationship culminated in the establishment of the Ultimate line of Marvel titles, which were aimed at teenagers, took place outside of the restrictive continuity of the Marvel Universe, and heralded Marvel's - and the industry's - climb back to prominence. Jemas, after a series of discussions and changes in his role as a Marvel executive, separated from the company.

House of M #1 variant cover art by Joe Quesada & Danny Miki.
House of M #1 variant cover art by Joe Quesada & Danny Miki.

Quesada, however, was retained as editor-in-chief; Jemas's separation had the unexpected result of confirming the company's, and subsequently the industry's, confidence in Quesada's stewardship. During his partnership with Jemas, and more so afterwards, Quesada became an industry mover and shaker.

Joe Quesada is credited with supervising Marvel Comics during a revival and a period of growth in which Marvel Comics recovered from the bankruptcy of the late 1990s. Throughout the 1990s, Marvel Comics relied chiefly on its large stable of popular characters and considered its creators to be replaceable, hired laborers. With Avi Arad heading up Marvel's licensing division, Quesada was free to focus on hiring capable talent and matching them with compatible titles, characters, and other creators. Examples of this among writers include J. Michael Straczynski on Amazing Spider-Man, Mark Waid on Fantastic Four and Brian Michael Bendis on Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Avengers. Quesada considered comic-making to be Marvel's core function and focused on the quality of Marvel's key titles, not allowing Marvel simply to rest on the laurels of decades-old comic creations. His tenure has seen many worn-out titles rise once again to prominence in the sales charts, due to creative team changes, changes in creative and editorial direction, and relaunches, the most successful as of August 2006 being New Avengers.

Quesada dislikes comic book deaths and, early in his editorial career, imposed a moratorium on the comic-book practice of creatively bringing back a character thought to be dead, though this ban was almost immediately done away with. Quesada changed his view, saying the continuity should not stand in the way of telling a good story. He also banned the use of editorial footnotes in comic books early in his tenure, though like the case with comic book deaths, this ban has since become relaxed.

Quesada has also banned Marvel characters from smoking, including Wolverine, the Thing, J. Jonah Jameson and Nick Fury. This stems from his own father's death from lung cancer and his feeling that these characters, whom kids look up to, should not be seen smoking.[1] Although this has been common practice in recent television shows, films, or commercials, the decision attracted criticism[citation needed] because the characters are seen as icons and Marvel is largely not child-friendly in its most well-known comics.

Joe Quesada's predecessor as Marvel editor in chief, Bob Harras, canceled and restarted all of Marvel's titles that were not either X-Men-related or at fewer than 100 issues already. This was an effort to shore up sagging sales with a new #1 issue for each of Marvel's popular titles, issued at a time shortly after the bust of the comic book collecting industry, and when Marvel was in the throes of bankruptcy. Quesada reversed this policy first by showing the "old", combined issue numbers beside the "new" numbers on covers (the difference between the two issue numbers shown on the cover would always be the number of issues that the series had before Harras restarted it), and then definitively restoring the "old" numbers for Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man and Avengers when they each passed the 500 mark.[2]

Joe Quesada has been involved in the creation of three successful imprints:

Quesada has advocated he is personally not a fan of comic book creators signing exclusive contracts with Marvel or DC Comics instead of freelancing, yet he understands that it is simply how the market works in this day and age, citing Jack Kirby's short stint as an oboe player and the difficulty in getting him to return to comics.[citation needed]

Under Joe Quesada's guidance, Marvel Comics became an aggressive publisher of trade paperbacks, changing Marvel's marketing of them from a quiet aftermarket to a primary means of content delivery. Before Quesada's time, Marvel comic book collections were sporadic, releasing only tried-and-true stories from ages past and presented in such a manner to hide that they were ever monthly comics, without any clear indication of the individual titles or issue numbers. Under Quesada, Marvel publishes more trade paperbacks as an alternative to the monthly series they reprint, getting comic book collections into mainstream bookstores as well as specialty comics shops, often releasing weeks after the final collected issue, and as complete as the monthly issues, covering every issue of popular titles and released with volume numbers on the spine. This allows greater ease for casual readers to collect.

Even though Quesada's policy of complete and well-presented trade paperbacks was one of the central pillars that brought Marvel back from the brink of bankruptcy following the disastrous years of the late 1990s, critics charge that trade paperbacks cannibalize monthly comic book sales, because readers may opt to forego monthly series in order to wait for the cheaper collections, not realizing that monthly sales are an indicator to publishers of interest in such collections.[3] Another criticism is that writers may be forced to extend a serialized story until it is long enough to fill a trade paperback, and that, by being in mainstream bookstores, they hurt the specialty comic shops that are Marvel's financial mainstay.

When confronted with the controversial retcon of Peter Parker's marriage to Mary Jane Watson-Parker, Quesada participated in a series of interviews on the subject to address the problems faced with the character's inevitably finite development in an infinite universe, and that the present diversity of Marvel's market allows for virtually all interpretive aspects of the character to remain stable. He also promoted and praised the MC2 title Spider-Girl for continuing to provide fans with a stable marriage and an expanded family.

"The truth of the matter is that if the fans truly want a married Peter and MJ with kids, then we have an incredible book called “Spider-Girl.” If this is truly what fandom wants, to see Peter go through the natural progressions of life, then I expect orders on “Spider-Girl” to go through the roof in the next month. I know people love Peter and want the best for him, but believe me, the best thing for the longevity of the character is for him not to be married. We knew there was going to be fallout with this decision -- it’s what we’ve come to expect with every move we make -- but it’s something that had to be eventually done. WIZARD did a very revealing article in which they interviewed past creators and editors -- all of whom agreed that the marriage was a mistake. Even Sam Raimi said that Peter Parker needs to be single and works best that way. I am not a lone voice in the woods here."

At Meagcon 2008, Quesada received the Sun award for his achievements in the industry, he also announced that he was pulling "New Joe Fridays" from Newsarama's forums and redirecting them to a Myspace account. He also took a dunking for charity.

Quesada is notorious for his propensity to publicly make fun of chief rival DC Comics. This has increased his popularity in Marvel circles, at the same time making him highly unpopular in DC circles.

[edit] Bibliography

The two page cover for X-O Manowar#0 by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti.
The two page cover for X-O Manowar#0 by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti.

Joe Quesada's art has been featured in:

With writer Dennis O'Neil, he co-created Azrael

Quesada's writing has been featured in:

[edit] References

  1. ^ In the miniseries NYX, written by Quesada, the protagonist, Kiden, does smoke.
  2. ^ In the case of Avengers, this was short-lived; at writer Brian Michael Bendis's request, the book was later restarted as New Avengers
  3. ^ http://peterdavid.malibulist.com/archives/000870.html David, Peter; "WHAT'CHA WANNA KNOW?", October 21, 2003; Writer Peter David expressed this sentiment in a question-and-answer thread on his blog, in response to an October 21, 2003 5:45 a.m. post.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Bob Harras		 Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief
2000–present		 Succeeded by
incumbent
Preceded by
Kurt Busiek & Roger Stern		 Iron Man writer
2000
(with Frank Tieri in late 2000)		 Succeeded by
Frank Tieri