It’s time for another edition of Comics Disassembled, where I look at the things I liked or didn’t like from the week of comics, and unfortunately, we must once again start with where this column has started far too often of late.

Marvel, Making Major Changes

Marvel has been in full on main character mode lately, and not just because I recently wrote a giant feature about the troubles they’re facing and the fixes that could help. They’ve just been electrically newsworthy of late, both from an actual publishing comics standpoint and a “things are changing either because of what’s happening there or at their parent company, Disney” one. Those wheels kept on turning this week, and it was a seismic shift, something multiple people positioned to me as the biggest news to hit the publisher since Axel Alonso was out as Marvel’s Editor in Chief and C.B. Cebulski was in.

The simplest explanation is long, long time Marvel executive — someone who has either been labeled its President or head of Comics & Franchise, a title that I never saw before it appeared in Marvel’s article about the changes — Dan Buckley is out at the top after 30 or so years, and Marvel Studios exec Brad Winderbaum (as Head of Marvel Television, Animation, Comics & Franchise) and Disney Music veteran David Adbo (as General Manager, Comics & Franchise) are in. There will be a deliberate transition period, as Buckley is evidently sticking around until mid-2027, but one of the ongoing questions was whether it was Buckley’s choice or not. Most suggest not, which might sound odd to folks given that Buckley’s sticking around to help. I agreed, until I also heard that some of the folks who were recently laid off at Marvel only just completed their run weeks after that happened. So, it’s a real unknown.

Regardless, this is a massive deal. While his run had its own problems, as would any over such a lengthy period in one place, it’s undeniable that Buckley has been an institution at Marvel and someone who has stood up for some of the biggest stories in recent memory. As noted in my Secret Wars (2015) oral history, he was the person who effectively said “We are making this happen” when Jonathan Hickman pitched that larger idea, and Hickman’s been on the record about Buckley’s impact on House of X/Powers of X thanks to his mandate to the writer of just doing things that effectively felt right to him. Chip Zdarsky has talked about his key presence in our Chip Chats this year, and it’s for good reason. From what I’ve heard, he’s an advocate for good story, and when he believes in something — no matter how wild it is — he’s going to get behind it and make sure it happens in a way that works. While recency bias might lead some to believe Buckley wasn’t good at his job, most of what I’ve heard suggests quite the opposite.

To read all that and to think that a comic guy is being replaced by “a TV guy” and “a music guy” might, and has, inspired fear amongst outsiders. I’ve seen it all, from Marvel licensing out their comics to going fully digital (although Adbo does have a lot of digital roots!) to any number of other enormous changes. But boiling two individuals down to their roles as I did above with those quotes, and in an email to someone, is actually pretty unfair, especially considering the fact that Buckley himself was not always a comic guy. Would you believe he once worked somewhere besides Marvel? Insane, right? While I’ve heard little about Adbo, it seems that Winderbaum is at least somewhat a known commodity at Marvel, and a well-liked one at that. More than that, he’s said to genuinely care about comics, for those who were worried he might not pass that essential test.

I know it’s a boring take, but the truth is, we don’t know what’s going to happen from here. Could everything at the publisher change forever, like in Marvel’s event comics? Sure. Could it stay largely the same but see subtle improvements, ones almost everyone admits they need to take on? Absolutely. It’s been strange to see the doom and gloom after this news hit while so many were openly advocating for changes at the top of the publisher (and I’ve heard it’s possible these won’t be the last ones). That’s happened! Now it’s time to see how it plays out. There are certainly things that could be improved, both from a qualitative standpoint and a simple process one (like, can maybe Marvel keep its best selling collections in print, please?). I suspect whatever changes will come from this won’t be seen for some time, though. Publishers like Marvel often operate on an 18+ month timeline, which means Winderbaum and Adbo’s impacts might not hit for a while.

But we’ll see. It’s a new era for Marvel, one that will soon enough no longer include stalwarts in Buckley and long-time Senior Vice President of Print, Sales and Marketing David Gabriel. Will it be better? Will it be worse? It’s uncertain for now, so until we find out more, I’m going to file this one under “to be continued.”

The Eisner Awards and Kickstarter, Walking Things Back

In follow up to two of last week’s biggest news items, it seems that the Eisner Awards and Kickstarter have already both flipped it and reversed it after a pair of rather unpopular decisions (or “decisions” in the case of the Eisner Awards, as the judges didn’t know what they were getting themselves into).

Let’s start with the Eisner Awards which, as you may recall, featured one nominee amongst its number that included a single page created by AI. It was Stardust the Super Wizard Anthology, a comic that was, as you might guess, nominated for the Best Anthology category, and the page was by Michael Todasco under his pseudonym Alex Irons. Very quickly people were upset about this, understandably, and I’d heard that pretty much immediately things were trending in a direction of maybe this won’t last. It did not, as by Monday a statement was released by San Diego Comic Con that this nominee was out. Crucially, it included a note from the judges that if they knew AI was used in the production, it would not have been nominated, and the fact that the editor of the anthology (presumably Van Jensen) had rescinded the submission in the wake of this all coming out. Not only that, but it sounds like the Eisner Awards team is trending towards creating a policy to better reflect where the world is headed. So, that’s good!

Speaking of good things, Kickstarter looked at the response people had to its new guidelines for mature content and instead of digging their heels in while saying, “No, it’s the children who are wrong,” they…actually changed. Well, that’s not exactly true. They reverted. In in a post titled “An Apology: Rethinking Our Mature Content Guidelines,” Kickstarter COO Sean Leow said they’re going back to their previous guidelines straightaway. He also revealed that this primarily happened because of requirements from Stripe, its payment processor, something that was already believed to be true but now is known. He also basically admitted that it was an overcorrection in response to those requirements. So, at least for now, things are back to the way they were at Kickstarter when it comes to mature content.

Some will say these things shouldn’t have happened to begin with. In an ideal world, sure, I agree. But I believe it’s better to change when you realize something is wrong than to not change at all, and all this is a good example of the importance of standing up against things you believe are wrong, even if the Kickstarter one was probably motivated by the response more than the Eisner one. It’s a good result, though, and hopefully ones that lead to neither being a problem again in the future.