Avatar Press Names David Marks as Marketing Director

Avatar Press has announced the addition of David Marks to the staff to begin handling press, marketing, and other communications responsibilities. The hire is the first of many announcements in a year of major new projects and evolution within the company itself. A new position at Avatar, the addition is intended to help the publisher better address the needs and concerns of audiences and the industry alike during a year which Avatar expects to be a growth period for the company.

“We have such a strong lineup of projects coming out on a continuous basis these days that we can no longer operate like the small indy company that started in 1997 with a couple guys writing and publishing their own books,” notes Avatar EIC William Christensen. “We’ve talked about doing this for a while, but I’ve always been wary of trying to force expansion — the history of the Direct Market is littered with the corpses of companies who have tried to bulk up too much. So we’re going to take some steps this year to help us change carefully and organically. We’ve put some things in place over the past few months to help us address scheduling concerns, for example. We’re going to start seeing the results of that slowly but surely. The next step is getting better at getting our message out. Bringing in David Marks as Marketing Director is the most important staffing hire we’ve made since the early days. Avatar will always have that indy-publisher heart, but we hope to build some big-publisher muscles to help us address the needs and concerns of the marketplace.”

Marks was chosen to assume these responsibilities because of his experience and knowledge of the industry, and due to his similar interests in taste and direction. He officially began his duties two weeks ago at the Fangoria Convention in San Jose, where he helped to promote Avatar’s line of horror comics.

Avatar Press is a comic book publisher that continues to push the boundaries between mainstream and independent with current or upcoming work from creators such as Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, Brian Pulido, George A. Romero, George R.R. Martin, Joe R. Lansdale, John Russo, Mike Wolfer, Juan Jose Ryp, Jacen Burrows, and numerous others. The company has published a wide range of comic books including creator-owned titles like Garth Ennis’ 303 and Brian Pulido’s Lady Death, company-owned comics such as Pandora and The Ravening, licensed hits like Frank Miller’s Robocop and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, and numerous other titles. A publisher that has established itself as one of the cornerstones of the American indy comic book scene over the past decade, Avatar has published some 500 comic books since 1997.