Posted in: Comics, DC Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: Comics, coronavirus, coronavirus comics, disney, furlough, marvel, Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics Furloughs Staff This Weekend

Published Fri, 24 Apr 2020 18:00:38 -0500

by Rich Johnston

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Disney has furloughed staff across divisions, even with criticism from the Disney family, and that includes Marvel Entertainment. The Guardian newspaper recently reported that Marvel was cutting its editorial staff by half as a result of such furloughs, though Bleeding Cool understands it is less than that. The affected staff have been furloughed, rather than laid off, Marvel is continuing to providing health insurance for the duration, and it's intended they would return to work. Bleeding Cool understands that the furloughing affects senior as well as junior staff. The furlough period for Disney staff as a whole began on April 19th, but for Marvel Comics it will begin this Sunday, April 26th – though for most practical office purposes, that means the end of play today.

In the UK, furloughed staff are seeing the government pay 80% of their regular salary to furloughed staff, but this is not the case in the US. Staff are able to use accrued paid time off at this time instead and there is some federal unemployment assistance. Bleeding Cool has previously reported that Marvel Comics has also put a number of titles on hold during the shutdown period. Unlike DC Comics, Marvel has chosen to not announce any alternative distribution plans. Instead, like Image Comics, Dark Horse, IDW, Boom, Dynamite and more, they are waiting for Diamond Comic Distributors to begin distributing to comic stores able to receive them again in a limited fashion from mid-May. Marvel has also suspended new digital comic book titles until that time as well and unlike DC has not chosen to issue new digital titles.

Bleeding Cool is continuing to provide coverage of the comic book industry at this difficult time. The latest reports of this type can be found bookmarking this link.