Stan Lee famously wanted Marvel Comics to be the world outside your own window. For Lee and his many, many collaborators over the years, that window overlooked New York City. From Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four to Daredevil and Doctor Strange, the streets of Manhattan didn’t simply contain pedestrians and taxi cabs, but superhero adventures. Because of that, Marvel has always felt intrinsically tied to NYC, and perhaps always will within the pages. That will no longer be the case for the comics company itself. According to THR, Marvel Comics will pack its bags and head to Burbank, CA.
The news states the staff of Marvel got word via a small town hall meeting. Marvel Comics will vacate their midtown offices and head to Burbank, which Marvel Studios already calls home along with parent company, The Walt Disney Company. Along with the change of coasts, the company will also get a new Editor in Chief. Stephen Wacker, a comics editor who also received an Emmy nomination for his extensive work with Marvel’s animated offerings, will step into the role.
Outgoing EIC C.B. Cebulski, who’d been in the job since 2017, will not leave Marvel altogether. THR says he’ll move to Japan to “spearhead the company’s push into manga, among others things, as editor, Asia originals.” As a “fun” reminder, Cebulski, while working as a lower editor at Marvel, pretended to be a Japanese man named Akira Yoshida to solicit comics writing work from other companies. He didn’t just use the pseudonym, he pretended to actually be a Japanese person. And now he’s going to Japan to head Marvel’s manga push. Cool, cool cool cool.
At any rate, Disney hopes these moves will invigorate the publishing side of Marvel. Sales have dropped in the past several years. Marvel Comics cancelled its extremely popular Krakoan Era of X-Men titles after five years, and has routinely lost out to DC’s All In initiative in monthly sales and readership. About 100 Marvel staffers are being asked to move to Burbank where Marvel’s overall chief Kevin Feige can more closely monitor the comics, along with Marvel’s head of television, animation, comics and franchise Brad Winderbaum and David Abdo, newly installed as general manager, comics and franchise.
This now means neither of the Big Two comics publishers, which both began in NYC, will be there. DC moved to Burbank in 2015.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.