Early Retirement: Ed Brubaker Leaving Marvel Comics

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It’s been an eventful week at the big two this week when it comes to high profile creators stepping away. Earlier this week, Rob Liefeld left DC in what could be called “colorful circumstances”… but which most people would call a petulant display of “Fuck you, Mom! You’re not the boss of me!” via Twitter. And while an argument could be made, given similar (albeit lower-keyed) sentiments about post-New 52 practices by DC Editorial have been voiced by creators like John Rozum and Gail Simone, that maybe there is a logic behind a public airing of grievances, all I can say is, that as a guy who recently changed jobs, I find the airing of dirty laundry in public, and the burning of bridges, to be incomprehensible to me. Don’t get me wrong, I did it – once – and it basically guaranteed that I could never work in that particular industry again. But then again, I was never a particular name in that industry, so there was no reason for anyone to try to keep me, despite the fact that, drunken snit or no, at least I never drew tits on Captain America. But I digress.

Turns out Liefeld isn’t the only high profile creator walking away from a high-profile assignment: yesterday, also via Twitter, Winter Soldier and Captain America writer, and Marvel Architect Ed Brubaker, announced that his current tenure at Marvel is drawing to a close:

So what’s the reasoning behind the move, Ed?

“Well, originally, [Winter Soldier] was going to end around #14 or #15, because sales weren’t as good as we’d hoped they’d be,” the writer explained. “I’d been planning for that end for about three or four months. Then I guess sales stabilized, and the Cap movie [sequel] was announced, and everyone really likes the book and likes the character, so they want to keep it going. But in the meantime, I’d taken on outside comic work that was making my schedule harder and harder to keep up with, and so when Tom [Brevoort] told me they were keeping it going instead, I just felt like I needed to let it go. I struggled with it, and Tom and I discussed several possibilities of me staying, some of which I can’t really discuss openly, because they concern internal workings of the company, but in no way was this an easy decision, and I feel bad if my readers think I’m bailing, because that wasn’t the case.”

 
After making the initial announcement, Brubaker engaged in a short Twitter dialogue with another user indicating that sales on Winter Soldier may have played a factor… and that the decision to leave Marvel might not have been entirely in his hands:

Looking at this one way, this is good news, because Brubaker’s been doing really excellent creator owned work, most recently on Fatale, which means we should see some more stuff in the vein. However, considering Brubaker’s been front and center as one of the primary driving forces behind Marvel’s entire direction over the past few years, it’s disconcerting, to me at least, to hear that a deal couldn’t be made to help him stay due to “internal workings of the company.” I don’t know about you, but the last time I got laid off, it was due to “internal workings of the company.”

Still and all, no matter what, Ed Brubaker did awesome work for Marvel – the guy singlehandedly got me to subscribe to Captain America for the first time since I was twelve years old – and most importantly, he’s leaving with some class and discretion. Here’s looking forward to more creator owned stuff, and hopefully some more big, fun superhero comics a some point in the future… not to mention the books that we can still look forward to in the coming few months:

Categories: Comic Book News Tags:
August 25, 2012 by Rob
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