Being the Cheif Creative Officer for Marvel certainly has its perks, but the main one is getting to see everything behind the curtain from the comics, to the cartoons, to the movies, and now live-action TV shows. Joe Quesada has been the CCO for Marvel for three years and has helped shepherded many of these things into your hands and TV screens. Speaking with CBR, Quesada spoke about the new live-action series “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and even Disney’s first animated Marvel movie Big Hero 6.
“What strikes me as interesting about the world of live action television is how much it reminds me of comics publishing. Comics are weekly grind. Every Wednesday, retailers have to have product to sell, so the books have to go out. The amount of creative work and the mental energy put towards that content on a daily basis is stunning and really daunting if we had the luxury to really sit and think about the Sisyphean task for a second. Weekly episodic television is very much like that. The big difference of course is that you do get some time off to recharge a bit.”
Quesada also talked about other Marvel characters appearing in “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” in particular Dr. Franklin Hall, aka Graviton.
“There were several reasons for using Hall. If you’re a long time Marvel fan, of course you’ll recognize the name, and we knew that would pique interest. It’s always fun to throw in an established character when you can to get fans excited. Heck, it gets us excited! But he’s also a very compelling character on his own. So if you’re not a comic fan, he’s a character you’ll be introduced to who we think will appeal to folks who don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of the MU, especially this incarnation that our “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” writing team has come up with. Of course our loyal fans know that some interesting things happen to Dr. Franklin Hall in the pages of our comics, and while I’m not saying that those things happen here, the fact that perhaps someday they might is kind of cool.”
Live-action TV isn’t the last venture for Disney and Marvel either as they’re already hard at work on their first animated film Big Hero 6, which Quesada also spoke about.
“”Big Hero 6″ is really looking great. Don Hall, Kristina Reed and the entire crew are such amazingly talented people and have such a love for all things Marvel that it’s been an absolute blast working with them. They’ve really taken the BH6 property, which at the end of the day doesn’t have a lot of publishing history behind it, and built an entire world and mythology around it.”
“Being there from the very beginning, the process has been amazing to watch. The amount of research Don and his crew have done is exhaustive and beyond thorough, and I don’t just mean with respect to reading the comics. From the design of the characters and their tech to the look of the world, no stone has been left unturned and a lot of frequent flyer miles have been tallied up to get where they are at this juncture. These guys have traveled the globe to make BH6 the very best it can be.”
“Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” airs Tuesdays on ABC at 8/7c and Big Hero 6 hits theaters in 3D on November 7, 2014.
