Congratulations to John Nee for his high-profile hire as the leader of Marvel’s comic-book pack, where he’s taking over as publisher in the wake of Dan Buckley’s promotion to president of Marvel Entertainment. “As the Marvel publisher,” writes ComicBook.com (which got the exclusive), “Nee will oversee the health of the comics line both print and digital [and] be tasked with ensuring the quality of the line, managing budgets [and] guiding marketing.”
John has been a legend in the comics world for decades. He ascended to president of WildStorm Productions, then joined the executive team at DC Comics when DC bought WildStorm in 1999. John rose to Senior Vice President of Business Development at DC before staking an independent claim as co-founder of Cryptozoic Entertainment in 2010.
Like the rest of the heroes portrayed on this blog, John Nee arrives at his new job with his own Che Underground origin story.
A friend of Kevin Ring and a supporter of the Manual Scan guitarist’s band, John was instrumental in getting Scan gigs at UCSD, including at the hitherto undiscovered Che Cafe. As our bands coalesced at the Che, John was employing his business acumen to make sure we were equipped with a sound system and the nominal blessing of the university.
To make the magic happen, John hit upon a scheme long employed by bands with college students in the lineup, including the Beatles and the Pink Floyd: He registered the UCSD Musicians’ Club as an official school organization, which gave us access to on-campus gear, support and venues.
Besides funding the PA (and the services of sound man Phillip Detchmendy, now executive producer at RSA Films), John’s efforts brought the Pandoras, the Three O’Clock and the Unclaimed to the UCSD Rec Gym. He followed up with a string of other appearances that shook up the campus, including Social Distortion and the Jesus and Mary Chain.
N.b.: Although it certainly wouldn’t have been too much to ask, I don’t believe John ever profited financially from these escapades. He did it because he liked us and because he liked exercising his talents in interesting ways — a trait that has led him to all sorts of collaborations over the years, including a project we’ll discuss soon that he recently completed with Kevin Ring.
I just ventured onto Google and discovered that there’s currently a Musicians’ Club at UCSD. Whether this organization can trace its lineage back to John Nee’s efforts in 1983 remains a mystery — for now.
Hahahaha!! I remember going with John the very first time to the Che cafe and spending a good hour or so meeting with all the food co-op people there and telling them how much punk rockers were like hippies so they should let us put on shows there. We split the door I think and gave the Che any money from food, etc. What started as a $1 on thursday nights at the Che grew massively quite quickly. Fun times in the woods…