Joe Quesada
Joseph "Joe" Quesada (born December 1, 1962 in New York City), colloquially known as Joey Q, is the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics and a comic book writer and artist.
Writer and artist
Quesada started out as an artist in the early 1990s. Later, he formed his own publishing company, Event Comics, and created Ash, a firefighter with superpowers.
Eventually, Event Comics was contracted to do several books for Marvel Comics, dubbed Marvel Knights. Due to the success of this line, Joe Quesada ended up taking a more managerial role at Marvel, and became editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics in 2000.
Since becoming editor-in-chief, his artwork or scripts have often been extremely late, especially in the cases of Daredevil: Father and NYX; Quesada cited his other responsibilities as editor-in-chief as the reason for his work being so late, but he has still been heavily criticized for lateness.
Editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics
Joe Quesada is most well known as the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. He attained this position in 2000, replacing Bob Harras and becoming the first Hispanic editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. As editor-in-chief of one of the two largest publishers in the comic book business, his decisions are very influential. He has been the subject of much praise, as well as much criticism.
Quesada became editor-in-chief at the same time as Bill Jemas became president, but when Bill Jemas was fired, Quesada stayed on.
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. He restored Marvel Comics as the comic book industry leader in market share. He aggressively cut titles which did not sell. Throughout the 1990s, Marvel Comics was known for relying on its large stable of trademarked characters instead of hiring talented creators; Quesada shifted emphasis more toward hiring capable creators.
Quesada oversaw the growth of Marvel as a major brand name in the entertainment industry outside of comics with such hit films as X-Men (2000) and Spider-Man (2002). Quesada has tried to turn Marvel Comics from being a solely comic book business to a general entertainment services business.
Joe Quesada is known for disliking comic book deaths and imposing a moratorium on the resurrection of dead characters at the beginning of his tenure as editor-in-chief. His moratorium prevented writer Chris Claremont from being immediately able to resurrect Psylocke after her death in 2001. However, over time, this moratorium has been relaxed and more characters have been resurrected — Psylocke herself was resurrected in 2005. He has made recent comments[1] disavowing the rumors of a formal restriction on deaths (the "Dead Means Dead" policy), when questioned about the recent returns of long-dead characters Colossus and Psylocke, saying instead that the rule for resurrecting dead characters was to examine the circumstances of that character's death and that such events must be story-necessitated, not simply used for higher sales numbers (i.e., as Psylocke's death was not, in his words, "a classic death," her resurrection was allowed to explore her further. Joss Whedon's return of Colossus, on the other hand, who had a very significant death - to stop the Legacy Virus - was deemed by Quesada to really "nail it," and thus be allowed under the latter reasoning).
Joe Quesada 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 been somewhat relaxed.
Joe Quesada disliked renumbered titles and restored the old numbering (implemented under Bob Harras's tenure) of Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, and Fantastic Four. However, his tenure has also seen such relaunches as New Avengers.
Joe Quesada has been centrally involved in the creation of three successful imprints:
- Marvel Knights, aimed at older readers (this was before his tenure as editor-in-chief)
- MAX, aimed at adult readers, with Brian Michael Bendis
- Ultimate Marvel, aimed at new readers, with Brian Michael Bendis, Bill Jemas, and Mark Millar
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.
During Joe Quesada's tenure, Marvel Comics has moved toward the aggressive marketing of trade paperbacks, which has been criticized by some as hurting the comic book shop business. On the other hand, it allows for new readers to quickly and easily catch up on a title and encourage purchasing the monthly. Marvel has also been a forerunner in publishing oversized hardcover collections of comics, which are praised for their quality and content.
Following the tradition of Stan Lee's "Stan's Soapbox", Joe Quesada writes a monthly column called "Cup o' Joe" that appears in most comic books published by Marvel.
Joe, himself, has admitted on several occasions that he has no idea how to run a business, let alone a comic business where he has to juggle the double edged swords of quality and pandering to emotionally stunted, socially abject morons who slavishly love Wolverine as a character. And he has a head like a pineapple. But he still doesn't suck as much as John Byrne. God, that man sucks so much.
Bibliography
Joe Quesada's art is featured on:
He was the co-creator of Azrael with Denny O'Neil.
Joe Quesada's writing is featured on: