DC Goes Back to the Classifieds

By Neal 

Less than four months after stepping into a newly created marketing director position, Nellie Kurtzman is leaving DC Comics for Hyperion. The move to Hyperion’s children’s book division, where she’ll also be a director of marketing, is in keeping with Kurtzman’s career background; before joining DC, she was an associate director of marketing at Simon & Schuster and part of the team that founded the Simon Spotlight Entertainment imprint, with earlier stints at Winslow Press and the kid’s wing of Penguin Putnam. When asked about the sudden turnaround, Kurtzman told PW Daily, “Life’s like that,” adding that Hyperion’s offer was just too good to refuse.

Newsarama adds further details on DC’s HR goals:

“Since October 25th, DC has had a listing for a Publicity Manager posted at www.wbjobs.com. Additionally, Newsarama has learned that the position of Director of Marketing Communications, which DC was seeking to fill in late summer, was closed without a new hire, despite applicants being interviewed.”

That publicity manager’s position was also posted to Publishers Marketplace in early November. Would they have found somebody by now if they’d also put the call out on mediabistro.com’s job listings? I’m just asking (and, yes, before you write in, it is rather blatant self-promotion)…

Of course, this doesn’t leave DC totally in the lurch as far as marketing goes, as former St. Martin’s exec John Cunningham, who was hired along with Kurtzman, remains in his VP chair.