Jeph Loeb Has New Job as Marvel's Head of Television

"Executive Vice-President, Head of Marvel Television" to be exact!


Huh...

This is a subtle ramification of Disney's purchasing of Marvel last year. In this video, Loeb talks about "hour-long dramatic television series" (presumably he means live-action series) soon to be in development with "ABC and ABC Family", both Disney owned channels if you didn't know. It's exciting because although there has been a 'Marvel Animation' or a 'Marvel Studios', there has never been an over-all TELEVISION division at Marvel. That is why there have been so few Marvel properties in live-action television adaptations, and why they have generally been very cheesy when done. It is also why there has never been a push toward television advertising for Marvel's comics.

"The Amazing Spider-Man" 1977 live-action series:

is a prime example of Marvel on TV gone bad.

The 70s "Incredible Hulk" live-action series is the exception to this... although it's not exactly perfect either.

What will this mean moving forward? Well, I imagine that if nothing else it means we will have one centralized force working to get Marvel's characters back on television and hopefully in high quality narrative productions, but possibly limited to channels owned by Disney.

Regardless of the quality of the comics he has been producing of late, Jeph Loeb is a damn smart man who has had a varied career in varied media for decades: film, television, and comics. This isn't Marvel putting a comics writer with no experience in moving image media in charge of their Television division. This is a shrewd move on the part of Marvel/Disney and I'm sure we'll see some nice productions come out of it but...

I hope this leads to some avenues for direct comics advertising on channels owned by Disney. Because this blog is about comics, Disney bought Marvel and Marvel is in the business of making comics goddamnit. I know, 'Again he's harping on this?' but I really do believe that good adaptations may lead people back to the comics and bad ones may steer them away from the medium, but advertising for the comics themselves can only be good for the industry. No matter how bad an advertisement for a specific pizza brand is, it gets you thinking about pizza. This is even more important for comics in the US because we are in a country where thousands or even millions of people don't even know that comics HAVEN'T died out yet.

If this new "Marvel Television" diverts even more capital away from the sequential art division and isn't also going to incorporate some advertising for the comics or at least some planned financial kickback into the comics, I'm going to be pissed. The potential here, as always, is great. Whether Marvel remembers to keep the focus on their roots remains to be seen.

~ @JonGorga