Posted in: Recent Updates | Tagged: marvelman, miracleman

Moving Mouse – Is Marvel On The Streets?

Published Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:00:28 -0600

Last updated Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:38:16 -0500

New York is the home of the American comics industry. And the Marvel Universe from its inception was based in and around New York proper, with Spider-Man swinging down Broadway and the Fantastic Four engaged in fisticuffs across Times Square. And the companies have set up there, the talent based itself in the surrounding suburbs, and the industry culture steeped in the Irish sports bars of Manhattan. And that's how it's been for the history of the American comic book for eighty years.

But gossip is that things are changing.

One of the first signs of a Disney-fied Marvel may not be the comics it publishes, but in the buildings it puiblishes them from.

Now Disney owns significant property in Manhattan and we may see Marvel moving into the likes of the ABC Building in Columbus Circle or one of the buildings off Times Square, rather than maintain another set of Manhattan offices with Manhattan rates. Which might mean that Marvel may have to tidy a few of its famously-littered desks…

But there's also the possibility that the company will be shipped off the island to the likes of New Jersey or Queens. Disney has done this before, moving Disney Publishing Worldwide to the White Plains suburb a few years ago.

It does seem odd for a comics company that broke the rules by setting superheroes in and around the very streets that it published the comics from, to move away from the Baxter Building, Avengers Tower and the Latverian Embassy.

But for some creators and staff living in those suburbs, it might make a trip to work even easier, if a little stranger.

As for the possibility of DC Comics making a move, though the air is full of rumours and gossip, I understand that still no decision has yet been made.

Marvel Manhattan courtesy of Wizard Magazine.