Greetings all!

I hope everyone enjoyed the latest installment of “Cinegasms”. I know that I said Wednesdays are going to be the home of Mr. Wolff’s “Hump Day Review” but I am afraid I am a bit of a liar. I have a very busy Thursday schedule for a little while, so Mr. Wolff was kind enough to move to Thursdays. Today I am going to try a new segment I am calling “Remember when…”

Today I wanted to take a look back in time to the magical year of 1998. A year when you spent more time in the airplane than in the airport. The year when Windows 98 debuted (duh) and Jesse “The Body” Ventura became Governor of the state of Minnesota. This was also the year that Marvel Comics unleashed it’s MARVEL KNIGHTS imprint. I could spend all day talking about ’98, but as I don’t have all day (and neither do you, I would imagine), I am going to focus on the MARVEL KNIGHTS imprint. “Why would you do that?” you might ask, well let me tell you: MARVEL KNIGHTS was a huge step forward in Marvel Comic’s evolution.

For those that don’t remember the comic book landscape in the late nineties (or those that choose to forget), it was a bleak and sad place. Sales were don everywhere. The product that was being produced, for the most part, sucked. Comics in general were in a bad place, but Marvel was especially hurting. Marvel had gone bankrupt a few years earlier, and a lot of their smaller titles had fallen by the wayside. The “Events” that Marvel had put together, were less event and more fiasco. “Oh, it wasn’t that bad” some might say, but I retort with this: THE CLONE SAGA. Not enough? How about ONSLAUGHT, or HEROES REBORN? Yes, Marvel was in a bad place and needed something. And “something” came in the form of Marvel Knights”.

It Hurts To Remember…

This Was Supposed To Be Cool.

Now, for big comic companies to have different imprints to appeal to different audiences was not an unheard of concept. DC comics had Vertigo (and still does), and Marvel had tried a variety of imprints as well, but all the Marvel imprints seemed to flop. Imprints like RAZORLINE, MARVEL 2099, and MALIBU were just unable to sustain themselves. Between the crud Marvel was putting out, and their spotty history with imprints, the deck was stacked against the MK line before it even started.

Malibu Comics, flying towards failure.

What helped Marvel with the MK line was the way that they approached it. While Marvel didn’t go VERTIGO status and make this a mature readers line, they did decide that the imprint would be more adult, so kids could still read, but grown-ups could enjoy as well. Second, and even more important, Marvel went outside of the company for help. Marvel went to a small comic company, Event Comics, and got two guys named Joe Quesada (who is now the editor-in-chief of Marvel) and Jimmy Palmiotti to find outsiders to give the MK line a new look. And for the most part, the MK line was a great success. The start of Marvel Knights was four titles, (two ongoing, and two mini-series) Daredevil (one of the comics that had been lost to sagging numbers), The Black Panther, The Inhumans, and The Punisher (who had just died).

The Marvel Knights line was huge. It brought writers like Kevin Smith (the movie director), Christopher Priest, and Paul Jenkins from small press to big market. The same for artists like Jae Lee (who hadn’t been at Marvel in years), Bernie Wrightson, and Mark Texiera. The success of this imprint helped to put Marvel where it is today, and showed that sometimes what the big companies need is that independent flavor.

Thanks all for stopping in, see you tomorrow!