Marvel Press is the prose novel imprint for

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Comics'' in ...

jointly published with

Disney Books The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October 1 ...

Background

Marvel first licensed two prose novels to

Bantam Books Bantam Books is an American publishing house owned entirely by parent company Random House, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House; it is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group. It was formed in 1945 by Walter B. Pitkin, Jr., Sidney B. ...

, which published '' The Avengers Battle the Earth Wrecker'' by

Otto Binder Otto Oscar Binder (; August 26, 1911 – October 13, 1974) was an American author of science fiction and non-fiction books and stories, and comic books. He is best known as the co-creator of Supergirl and for his many scripts for '' Captain Ma ...

(1967) and ''Captain America: The Great Gold Steal'' by Ted White (1968).

Pocket Books Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books. History Pocket Books produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in the United States in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing ...

pick up the license in 1978, publishing nine books.

History

Marvel Books

Marvel Books division was set up in 1982 to initially published

coloring books A coloring book (British English: colouring-in book, colouring book, or colouring page) is a type of book containing line art to which people are intended to add color using crayons, colored pencils, marker pens, paint or other artistic media ...

and sticker sets, and was intended to also publish prose novels. Harry Flynn was hired as

vice president A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...

of Marvel Books. In 1986, Marvel agreed with Fisher Price to launch a Fisher Price line with 15 books in 1986 and 32 books in 1987. Beginning in 1994, Berkley Boulevard and the since-defunct Byron Preiss Multimedia Company joined to publish Marvel prose novels until Preiss' legal troubles caused a temporary halt to the line in June 1999. Berkley completed the line in 2000 with a total of 45 novels and seven anthologies.

The Preiss Company The Preiss Company is a privately held student housing owner-operator based in Raleigh, North Carolina. The company engages in the acquisition, development, and management of off-campus student housing. It is one of the largest providers of off-c ...

also teamed with Pocket Books from 1996 to 1997 for a young adult books line, including two choose-your-own-adventure books. In 2000 Preiss' BP Books/iBooks launched a new book line, distributed by

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publi ...

, that ended in 2002.

Marvel Press

In 2003, following publication of the prose

young adult novel Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is primarily targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults. The subject matter and genres of YA correlate ...

''Mary Jane'', starring

Mary Jane Watson Mary Jane "MJ" Watson is a Character (arts), fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by Stan Lee and John Romita Sr., and made her first appearance in ''The Amazing Spider-Man' ...

from the

Spider-Man Spider-Man is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appeared in the anthology comic book ''Amazing Fantasy'' #15 (August 1962) in the Si ...

mythos, Marvel Entertainment announced the formation of the publishing

imprint Imprint or imprinting may refer to: Entertainment * ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series * "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror'' * ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film ...

Marvel Press, saying in a

press release A press release is an official statement delivered to members of the news media for the purpose of providing information, creating an official statement, or making an announcement directed for public release. Press releases are also considere ...

it planned to launch with three prose novels, aimed at various ages, in 2004, and publish at least 12 in 2005. With few books issued under the imprint, Marvel and Disney Books Group relaunched the Marvel Press imprint in 2011 with the Marvel Origin Storybooks line. Near the end of 2012, Marvel launched a line of prose novels based on adapting popular storylines in a loosely shared universe. Hyperion Books announced in February 2013 a partnership with Marvel to publish in June two prose novels, She-Hulk Diaries and Rogue Touch. In March 2013, Marvel and GraphicAudio will release a 6 hours audio version of the "Civil War" prose novel with sound effects, cinematic music and narration.

Marvel Entertainment Marvel Entertainment, LLC (formerly Marvel Enterprises) is an American entertainment company founded in June 1998 and based in New York City, New York, formed by the merger of Marvel Entertainment Group and Toy Biz. The company is a wholly ow ...

announced a new pre-school franchise,

Marvel Super Hero Adventures ''Marvel Super Hero Adventures'' is an animated series based on characters created by Marvel Comics. Aimed at a preschool audience, the shorts first air on Disney Channel's Disney Junior block, followed by the Disney Junior channel and later the M ...

, in September 2017 consisting of a short-form

animated series An animated series is a set of animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can have eith ...

along with publishing and merchandise during "Marvel Mania" October. In the publishing field, Marvel Press issued chapter books beginning in September. The first early reader chapter books was ''Deck the Malls!'' teamed Spider-Man with

Spider-Gwen ''Spider-Gwen'' (also titled ''Ghost-Spider'') is an ongoing comic book series published by Marvel Comics that began February 2015. The series revolves around Gwen Stacy of Earth-65, an alternate universe version of Gwen Stacy that debuted in ...

written by MacKenzie Cadenhead and Sean Ryan and art by Derek Laufman. Three additional chapter books were planned continuing into 2018. John Nee was appointed in January 2018 as publisher of

and Marvel Press. In addition to its Marvel Press division efforts,

in 2019 agreed to two prose publishing licensing agreements. In September 2019, Scholastic signed a young reader agreement with the first two books to be published in 2020. The following month,

Asmodee Asmodee is a French publisher of board games, card games and role-playing games (RPGs). Founded in 1995 to develop their own games and to publish and distribute for other smaller game developers, they have since acquired numerous other board game ...

games company agreed to a multi-year novel publishing deal for its new fiction imprint, Aconyte, to debut in the fall 2020 in three formats: trade paperback, ebook and audio and distributed by Simon & Schuster in North America.

References

{{Disney Marvel Comics imprints Novels based on comics Disney Publishing Worldwide Marvel Entertainment

Background

History

Marvel Books

Marvel Press

See also

References