Bill Jemas

Bill Jemas is a media entrepreneur, writer, and editor. Bill is currently the head of Double Take Comics, a division of the video game company Take Two Studios. He is the former President / Publisher and head of Marvel Comics, former President of Fleer Entertainment, and founder of 360ep. The first titles from Double Take hit stores in September 2015.

After graduating college, Bill Jemas started as as a tax attorney at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York. Disappointed by this work, he left after two years to work for the National Basketball Association (NBA), which he found to be more entrepreneurial, and allowed him to focus on managing a business and working on deals, which Jemas sees as two of the things he does best. It also gave him entry into the entertainment field, which he felt would open up lucrative opportunities. While at the NBA, he helped build an almost non-existent basketball card business into a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

Jemas became president of Fleer Entertainment Group and Fleer Corp in 1993, and appointed Jemas as executive vice president of Marvel Entertainment Group that year. In January 2000, he became president of consumer products, publishing and new media — essentially Marvel Comics' publisher.

He came to prominence at Marvel Comics (which owned Fleer), during Marvel’s bankruptcy reorganizations. During his tenure, Jemas was key in replacing editor-in-chief Bob Harras with Joe Quesada. Jemas and Quesada formed the public face of Marvel, taking the roles of, said one observer, of "good cop and bad cop". Among the policies they implemented were Marvel's no-overship policy newsstand compilation magazines, adding the Marvel MAX line, entrenching Marvel Knights, and removal of the Comics Code from Marvel books. They also increased Marvel's publication of trade paperbacks, and are credited with sheparding the company from bankruptcy to profit, and with earning positive reviews from within and outside of the comics industry.

Other later initiatives includes titles such as Trouble, The Call and Marville. He spearheaded the creation of Marvel’s Ultimate Comics line, and the revival of the company's Epic line. He also wrote or co-wrote Marvel comic books including Namor and Origin.

Upon his departure from Marvel Entertainment in 2004, Jemas started 360ep, an entertainment property management firm. He developed the Freeware Bible, which translates ancient Aramaic-Hebrew words into English synonyms, for the purpose of providing an English translation of Genesis that is truer to the original Hebrew text than commonly used translations like the King James Bible, and to "show readers that widely accepted Bible translations are inherently imperfect". Jemas also managed a T-shirt line, IDtees, whose T-shirts contained positive messages.

In 2012, Jemas announced the creation of an online comics venture, the Transverse Universe. A new print comic, "Wake The F#CK Up", was released in December 2012 via Zenescope Comics. The promotion of the comic was spearheaded with a YouTube video by hip-hop artist Kilgorian Tralfamadore.

In December 2013, Jemas announced that he had joined Take-Two Interactive to start a graphic fiction imprint called Double Take Comics. The first titles from Double Take hit stores in September 2015.

Bill Jemas will be appearing Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He will be located at Booths # 500 and # 601 in the exhibition room.