As I alluded to last night, as part of Disney’s corporate layoffs, David Gabriel, SVP Print, Sales & Marketing is one of those let go, I have now confirmed from multiple sources. There are more layoffs, including in editorial, but I have not confirmed any names.
Disney purged many higher ups in marketing throughout the company, so Gabriel fits that profile.
But it’s also a seismic change for Marvel….and the direct market where Gabriel was the guru of sales, respected among retailers, even as Marvel’s sales stagnated of late.
Indeed, the question I’ve been asking everyone today “Who will replace David Gabriel?” has come back with a single answer: “I have no idea.”
Gabriel is a 23 year veteran at Marvel, rising from a small administrative job in marketing to SVP heading up all their efforts. Prior to Marvel he was best known locally, at least, as the founder of the New York City Comic Book Museum, an aspirational project that never came to fruition – but it shows that Gabriel was a comics lover first and foremost.
The 23 year ride that followed is one marked mostly by success, as Marvel was the #1 publisher for as long as there were sales charts. The publisher soared behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the biggest film franchise ever and a culture-defining moment for the ‘teens. But Gabriel also came in for criticism for relying on variant covers, endless relaunches, and ever shorter runs of comics, with the recent “Five issues and relaunch” trend showing diminishing returns. His tongue in cheek “One death a quarter” comment was a joke…but not really, and shows how he mastered the ebb and flow of fandom and sales.
Despite the criticism, Gabriel definitely had the trust of retailers. After their previous icon, DC’s Bob Wayne, retired, Gabriel became to de facto leader of the direct sales market, with retailers ordering more Marvel comics, just because….it was Marvel Comics.
But the last year showed more cracks than ever in the Marvel sales formula. DC overtook them in the Top Ten and got all the attention and new fans – even as the MCU was also showing its age. Marvel seemed unable to pivot beyond its long established and stagnating content mix. Gabriel’s presentation at this year’s ComicsPRO got low marks from retailers I spoke with, and he only stayed for a day at the conference, and Marvel did not do roundtables, unlike other publishers.
There are a lot of moving parts to this story I’m still trying to track down. Marvel Comics as an entity that survived within Disney’s larger infrastructure, has always been a tenuous thing. MCU savant Kevin Feige was a big Marvel Comics supporter, but with his reign also winding down, that protection might not exist any more.
Also who would replace Gabriel is a wide open question.
We’ll have a lot more on this, including retailer reaction, as events unfold. But for now suffice to say that we’ve lost another one of the foundational figures of the current comic book business. David and I had a very tempestuous on and off personal relationship over the years, (something i heard was common) but I wish him the very best, and hope he moves on to do something that he loves.
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