Anybody who’s read my thoughts about what’s going on at Marvel knows what I think of Joe Quesada. Unfortunately, that list only includes the people who write for eatsleepgeek.com and the three people who have it bookmarked. So in a nutshell I’d summarize it like this: I like his art but don’t love it, I admire the fact that he wasn’t afraid to reverse all the bad decisions that Bob Harras made before him, I think it’s important that an artist have a run at the Editor-in-Chief job, and I think that the marketing segmentation 101 approach he brought to the editorial process gets way more attention than it deserves. That in a nutshell was my opinion on Joe Q, before he stopped writing Cup O’Joe on Myspace.

Let me elaborate on my last bullet point on Joe Q before I start talking about his Myspace article though, because they are sort of related. In case any of you are unfamiliar with Joe Quesada’s editorial handprint on the Marvel Universe, it’s pretty simple. First he started the Marvel Knights brand, and in his own words had the following reasoning behind it.

is the showcase for ‘evergreen events’ — self-contained limited series that think outside the box, that challenge readers to re-think their favorite Marvel characters and re-evaluate the legends that surround them. In other words, Marvel Knights will be a place for top talent to work without constraints, and deliver the kind of product fans deserve!

To which I offer up a resounding Meh…it’s cool, there has been some good reading, but it’s hardly an earth shattering concept. The idea of creating some stuff that happens outside continuity so fans can enjoy the full creative efforts of writers and artists who aren’t bound by continuity isn’t exactly the thinking outside the box idea that everybody said it was. I’d go so far as to say any undergrad business school marketing major who wasn’t ensnared in the paradigm of continuity could have told you that this would have sold more books to existing customers.

Then there was the creation of MAX comics with Brian Michael Bendis. Joe decided to take a break from the traditional rating system for comics and come up with his own unrated books that would feature mature themes not intended for kids. Again, a good idea but you don’t need a rocket scientist to tell you that it will sell comics, and, if marketed properly would probably get some fringe fans to pick up some comics too. In my educated opinion, the idea was good, but the execution of marketing the books outside comic stores was very poor, and aside from putting out some good reading material, I think it was a flop, but the material was solid so I suppose we can’t really blame Joe for MAX not fully delivering on it’s potential.

Finally Joe brought us The Marvel Ultimate Universe along with his buddy Bendis and Mark Millar.  A new imprint that “restarted” Marvel for a whole new generation of teen readers. Once again (are you noticing a recurring theme here), the idea was good, the execution had moments of brilliance, but the strategy was a half baked kaca-mimi plan that fell flat and while it made Marvel money, didn’t live up to it’s potential.

Now why the Joe Q history lesson in a blog entry about his weekly mySpace column being cancelled? Simple, Joe has consistently made basic common sense decisions and for whatever reason been unable to (in my opinion) fully capitalize on them. So when he announces that he’s too busy to write the column that the fans deserve. I say, “Good” I don’t need to hear about his goofy text book marketing approach to creating content. Go do something important that will grow readership, don’t worry about comic fans, we will be there no matter what; we’ve got too much invested to bail now. What comic fans need more than listening to your boring thoughts is more fans, so go and deliver on one of your ideas, they’re not earthshattering, but they are decent and will work if you could ever fully pull them off. Go make one work and find us some new people to talk to at comic stores across the country.

In case you’re interested Joe Q had this to say about the cancellation of the column:

Yeah. This will be our last week here. We didn’t really give any advance warning, ’cause we wanted to go out business-as-usual, and hopefully with a bang as well. The big thing is, right now my schedule is just in…sane with work, and I find myself not being able to find the time and devote myself to this column as I’d like to…

We’ve had a lot of fill-ins that have been great, but it’s more than I’d like in a column we call MyCup o’ “Joe.” Someday I’d like to come back to this—hopefully sooner rather than later—but I’d like to come back to it in a way that I can really devote the proper time to it. So really, I need to thank all the editors and creators that helped and filled in. They were great. And the editors have really, really helped me with the fan questions. I’m still hands-on with all the macro-, more global planning of the Marvel U, but not so much in the fine detail. I usually don’t know specifically what villain will be appearing in issue #87 of a title, so they’ve helped me fill in all the blanks. Kudos to the guys and gals, they’re the best team of editors in the world and I’ll kick anybodies ass who says otherwise.