DC Comics President and Publisher Paul Levitz has promoted John Nee to Senior Vice President of Business Development for the company.
Complete press release after the jump.
Sepetmber 24th, 2007 – New York, NY —John Nee has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Business Development, DC Comics. It was announced today by Paul Levitz, DC Comics President & Publisher. Nee will continue to report directly to Levitz.
Nee, who joined DC Comics in 1998 as VP, General Manager WildStorm, oversees Business Development, the WildStorm studio, and the CMX manga imprint. In his new role, Nee will continue to provide leadership for DC Comics in potential opportunities for expanding the company’s core businesses areas, including in international publishing, videogame production and new media initiatives with sister divisions Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment and Warner Bros Digital Distribution.
Levitz commented, “John has a wide-ranging and entrepreneurial approach to our business, and has been able to expand DC’s activities through relationships he’s built across the world and inside our affiliated companies. It’s my pleasure to recognize his contributions with this promotion, and to count on his continued effect on DC’s growth.”
As VP, Business Development, Nee supervised Business Development during a time of substantial growth for the graphic novel category worldwide, expanding DC’s relationships with international publishers, and increasing the range of DC publications domestically through licensed publishing programs. In recent years, Nee has guided DC’s venture into publishing manga. In 2004, he spearheaded the launch of CMX, DC’s manga imprint; in 2007, he was instrumental in securing DC’s investment in Flex Comix, a newly established company for manga production and digital/print distribution in Japan. Nee is also a Director and sits on the Board of Flex Comix.
Before joining DC Comics, Nee served as President of WildStorm Productions (legendary comic artist Jim Lee’s studio which published through Image Comics). WildStorm was sold to DC Comics in 1998. As stand alone company, WildStorm Productions published bestselling comics such as WildCATs, Gen13, Danger Girl, Battlechasers, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and WetWorks. Nee diversified WildStorm’s publishing business into merchandise, film and television deals. During this time, CBS aired the cartoon program WildCATS and Buena Vista Home Entertainment produced a Gen13 animated feature. Nee was also responsible for the company’s successful trading card division, which included many of the top-selling entertainment cards of the ’90s and the long-running super-hero trading card games, WildStorms and Marvel OverPower.
Previous to that, Nee held various positions as a Product Manager and
Marketing Manager in the emergent electronic publishing world, where he
developed high end imaging tools for printing, including the world’s first comic book colorization tool.
