Fandom Pulse reports that the long-anticipated collapse of a comics giant may be right around the corner.
Disney might have accidentally dropped some damning news for the mainstream comic industry in the form of a job listing. Comic shops have been struggling at all-time lows for sales heading into the second half of 2024, and now, it appears as if Marvel Comics may be on the chopping block.
Now a job posting has surfaced which appears like Marvel Comics might be folding into Marvel Studios. Marvel Studios went through a recent round of layoffs after the MCU’s underperformance, and Disney+ numbers are reaching new lows to pair with their comic book partners. It seems that Disney might be seeing redundancy in having a Hollywood apparatus for these properties and a comic publisher as well.
The job posting, listed on May 20th, is looking for a Publishing Operations Analyst. The duties of this position follow the weekly schedules of production of monthly books—much like Marvel Comics does with its regular publishing schedule.
The job is clearly listed as being a part of Marvel Studios, which marks a change from being involved with Marvel Comics. Fans and industry insiders are speculating that this might be the cancelation of Marvel Comics as an autonomous publishing line, which would fold the operation into Marvel Studios as a whole.
The fact that Disney just laid off 14 percent of its Pixar workforce yesterday tends to lend credibility to the speculation. And given that the only value to Disney is the Marvel IP, which despite the degeneration of the MCU movies remains valuable and potentially very profitable, shutting down the loss-generating comics and focusing on movies and merchandise would be a wise business move. But it will have a devastating effect on the remnants of the mainstream comics industry, which is already reeling from the collapse of the distribution channel.
And it will, of course, be great news for independent comics publishers, such as Arkhaven, and independent creators like Chuck Dixon, Razorfist, Eric July, and Ethan van Sciver.
Onward and upward, as they used to say…
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