BOOM! Studios announced yesterday that Chief Creative Officer Mark Waid has decided to step down from that position in order to refocus on his writing.

Waid, who was promoted to CCO this past Summer, originally took the job of Editor In Chief at BOOM! in 2007, and leaves the company in a much stronger place than when he joined it. Under Waid’s tenure as EIC, the company expanded its presence in the comics market and launched its successful BOOM Kids! line of books featuring many characters from both Disney and Pixar. BOOM! also increased the number of licensed books published, with titles like 28 Days Later and Die Hard: Year One. Waid himself added several successful titles by writing Irredeemable and Incorruptible. Finally, the company was able to launch three titles created by Stan Lee, one of which, The Traveler, was also written by Waid. Mark Waid will continue to write the all three of the books he is currently working on: Irredeemable, Incorruptible, and The Traveler.

BOOM! is definitely in a much better place than when Waid first started. He has given the them a strong stable of original and licensed books and turned the company into one of the more successful independent publishers. Probably his biggest move was securing the Disney license just before Disney purchased Marvel, which remains one of the most surprising aspects of Disney’s purchase.

I guess my question now is will we see Waid do more work for Marvel or DC, which I guess would be cool. Waid has plenty of history at each company, and I’m sure either one would be happy to have him. Don’t be surprised when Marvel or DC makes a big announcement about him returning to one of their books.