Keskustelujen arkisto

Since Augie demanded it, here are my views... :)

I'm really sorry for Gladstone. But I'm actually
more sorry to readers who have bought Gladstone
comics on the newstands. Since the cancellation
is immediate(?) some of those readers may never know
what happened and just give up reading Disney comics
...or am I wrong?

Thanks to Gladstone for clearing up rumors.

Now, about the future:

I guess Uncle $crooge is going to be a $6.95 title
if the format is the same as with WDC&S?

I'm sorry, but my opinion is that spending $14 per
month on two Disney titles is quite a lot money.

I wonder if it would be possible to change the format
a bit? Lose the glossy paper, cardboard covers and maybe
publish some of the issues as 48 pagers (and some as 64
pagers like now). I'm not sure if it would be possible to put
a cover price like $3.95 on the cover, but I can always hope...

If I were Gladstone (company AND character) I'd also try to make
an exclusive newstand comic-book distribution deal with Wal-Mart,
K-Mart or other that kind of big "chain" of stores. (I can always
dream... :) ) Anyway, I think those kinds of stores are a lot
more interested to sell something with a $3.95 price-tag than
$1.95.

Any comments?

/Mikko

PS. Welcome back Don!

Augie De Blieck Jr. wrote:
>
> Now, can someone PLEASE explain to me why this list has been so damned quiet
> about this bombshell announcement? Sheesh

Speaking only for myself, Augie, what would you have any of us do?
Shout? Make noise? Make threats? What for? For myself, I'm
heartbroken. I'm walking around with my head hung low, like the
first time I got dumped by a girl, or when I tried my first
cigarette, or when I heard (falsely as it turned out) that James T.
Kirk would die in the picture _Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country_.

When I read Gary's statement it was for me the culmination of
of string of bad news that began two months ago with the German Customs
incident. Now it seems our worst fears have come to pass. Disney
comics in America are cutting back -- way back.

But, at least we still have _Comics & Stories_ and especially,
thank goodness, we still have _Uncle Scrooge_. And the series of Barks
Color Scrooge Albums will apparently be completed. The news
could have been much worse.

Perhaps this movement to fewer comic titles, of higher quality and
higher cost, is all part of the natural evolution of the comic
industry, not just here in America but around the world as well.

I'm just thankful for what we still have. Just my .02 cents.

- "Blasted kids must think I'm a whelcher!"
S. McDuck (US3 - OS 495)

Carey Furlong; Huntington Beach, California;
(Email removed); (Email removed)

I were so still because I was quietly weeping in my cushion and cursing a=
ll=0Athose responsible.=0ASo now it=B4s just (sometimes REAL BAD) German =
translation Don Rosa for me?=0ANope, you never will get me alive.=0AToo b=
ad I=B4m an atheist or I would pray for US-original Duck Tales.=0A=0AThom=
as Vorwerk=0A

Hello,

As said some digests ago, the International Disney Comics Market is
ready: I realized a simple application to organize a small web site
where is possible to post announcements about buying, selling and
exchanging Disney comics. It's simple to use, and IMHO can be an
helpful resource to find what we need more! ;-)
The address is:

http://www.confor.it:2222/disney/home.htm

Hoping it could be useful for you all, let's talk about something
sadder...

It is unbelievable that a country such as USA can have such a small
Disney COMICS market: a lot of Disney merchandising products are
produced and sold in USA, so WHY not comics???

I don't agree with the ones who accuse Gladstone for this failure: I
started to know USA editions of Disney comics few years ago, I don't
remember if it was with "His majesty McDuck" or some Barks reprint, but
I immediately recognised that there was something VERY GOOD in these
comics. And some years later, when I incourred in some Donald Duck
numbers edited by Disney itself, things were no more so good... there
were as at the same Rosa's or Barks' stories, but it was a publication
for a completely different target, younger and, I suppose, with a lower
product-loyalty: one of the worse thing I remember from that kind of
editions are the advertising pages in the comic itself: there wasn't
anymore respect for the reader (expecially for the long-ago ones...):
it was just a commercial operation! With Gladstone we have (had?) back
the RIGHT way to act between the editor and the reader (no more just a
customer).
The guys at Gladstone had a lot of problems during the years:
censorship, coverless comics, computer lettering, etc... But I think
they always made their best in order to edit a GOOD comic (not a
product).
Now I have a question for ours friends in the USA: here in Italy many
newspapers reported the cancellation of Donald Duck in their first page
and the national tv news edition reported the news too. I'm curious to
know if in the USA the media treated this new at the same as in Italy.
BTW, even on our newspapers there are some errors: on "Il Corriere
della Sera" there was an article about the cancellation that reported
an impression from Don Rosa, presented as an ex-Disney artist (!!!!)

Ciao,

Paolo Castagno alias Luna Storta

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

--------------------------------
End of Disney comics Digest V97 Issue #270
******************************************

There is a mysterious change in one publication of WDC 161 in Sweden,
and I wonder where else this version has been published and if anyone
has a clue to why this change was made. This is something I thought
I've asked about before, several years ago, but I can't find that now,
so maybe I never got around to it.

The last panel on page 5 of the Barks story in WDC 161 (Donald's
Fix-It Shop) shows

Donald holding his hands over his eyes, saying "What happened? I'm
afraid to look!"

HDL answering "You've just put Mrs Welty's glass menagerie through
butcher McCann's meat chopper", as that is what happened.

In one of the publications of that story in Sweden (in KA 8/1973)
Donald is removed from that panel, and HDL are enlarged instead.
It is well done, that is the lines don't look thicker because of the
enlargement. (As this is the version I've grown up with I tend to
think that the "intrusion" of Donald is unnecessary, and that he
doesn't look quite right in that panel! :-)

I see no reason for this change though. Does anyone have a clue?
Where did this change originate? Was it done by Egmont? (Was this
version published in other Egmont countries as well?) If not, maybe
it's from the reprint in WDC 490 (which I don't have)? Sometimes
Egmont has used US reprint versions of stories.

The only reason I can think of for removing Donald there is that the
page was damaged somehow, but that sounds like a boring explanation. :-)

--
Per Starback <(Email removed)> <http://www.update.uu.se/~starback/>
"Bend radius `B' to touch `D' at point `P'! Push `K' through `J'
and join `X' to `A'!"

Hi!

SHAUN:
> But do the kids care? No. They head almost *directly* for
> titles like X-men, Batman, or even SPAWN! And great guns, Sonic the
> Hedgehog is incredibly popular (in my area) and tends to be the title the
> kiddies buy most.

Ofcourse, because Spawn is much COOLER than Donald Duck! That's why
the American Disney comics SHOULD become more like the European ones,
with articles on the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys! Disney comics have
such high printruns in Europe because lots of KIDS read them! That's why
Gladstone should make their comics more attractive for kids. Obviously, most
people on this mailing list are collectors and we all just love titles like WDC&S,
The Carl Barks Library and Italian I Maestri Disney, but it is still all the
*young people* that read them, thus an editorial on music and moviestars
here and there, can make the difference between high and low sales! Children
are not interested in who Al Taliaferro is or that 1937 featured the first appearance
of Huey, Duey and Louie! You won't see articles like that in a summer edition
of the Italian Topolino, when one millions copies are sold in one week!

I honestly think that Disney comics targeted at a younger public with the right
editorials, premiums and low prices have a high chance of success in the U.S.!

PAOLO:
> Now I have a question for ours friends in the USA: here in Italy many
> newspapers reported the cancellation of Donald Duck in their first page
> and the national tv news edition reported the news too.

Mmm, I haven't seen it on CNN International yet! Maybe they're just late? ;-)

Bye!

Arthur de Wolf
Disney Comics Worldwide: http://www.pi.net/~wolfman
(Email removed)

LUNA STORTA:
>I don't agree with the ones who accuse Gladstone for this failure:

As I said previously, I think the fault belongs more to Disney itself,
considering it pretty intense restrictions and sensoring rules. If Disney
could lighten up and allow Gladstone to produce comics outside of the
tiny corner they've allotted I think it would greatly help.

>Now I have a question for ours friends in the USA: here in Italy many
>newspapers reported the cancellation of Donald Duck in their first page
>and the national tv news edition reported the news too. I'm curious to
>know if in the USA the media treated this new

You probably won't be surprised, but I haven't heard a peep from the media
at all. I'm sure I'll eventually hear from the comic book store I go to
regularly,
and their remarks will probably be similar to Augie's experience. American
Media and the public in general is pretty insensitive about comics. Sure,
ocassionally we hear it's Superman's 250th Anniversary and that now he'll
fly via a kryptonite powered wheelchair or something, but those notices
are very rare. $crooge apparently doesn't qualify for a "sound-byte." I
fear Disney comics aregoing to recieve the same reception through-out the
nation here. Perhaps some "local" markets will comment, but it problably
wont rate.

Though, I too find the price for two titles at $7.00 each to be outrageous,
I'll probably still buy them. I'm addicted and I want to continue collecting
Disney comics (especially one I can read in English). I'm just sad.

-Rich (xephyr)
http://www.jps.net/xephyr/rich/disney.html

GLADSTONE

The article's too long for me to translate in its entirety, here's some

Excerpts from article on "La Repubblica" , 12/12/97, by Vittorio
Zucconi.

=========================================
Scrooge Retires

Old ducks, like old soldiers, don't die. They just fade away, as times
change.
The Old Tightwad, though, is the first to understand the situation.
Business is business, and business was bad.
Therefore, retiring was the right thing to do, retire from American
newsstands, spare him the impossible competition with all the gory
stuff, with lady Diana's death and stars' gossip.
It's his 50th birthday... [omissis]

Some people in Prescott, AZ, say that Scrooge himself joined the
administrative council and proposed his retirement, after examining the
books... [omissis]

But his help wasn't really needed, to realize that selling only 10.000
copies out of 50.000 couldn't justify the distribution costs.
When the council and chairman Bruce Hamilton informed him of the
decision, he just dived into his money bin without uttering a single
word of protest, without even griping about where the people that bought
2.000.000 copies of his adventures 40 years ago have all gone...
[omissis]

I talked to him [Scrooge] on the phone, yesterday, from his publishing
house in the Arizona desert, where he had dwelt since, in 1984, he'd
been thrown out from Disney's offices in Los Angeles.
He confirmed he's financially solid as rock for the rest of his life,
and convinced that the new prestige title would sell very good, having
now avoided the booby-traps and arrogance of commercial distribution,
and newssellers that kept hiding him beneath bare bottoms and bosoms...
[omissis]

I'm not old, he [Scrooge] says, they draw me old.
Before he hung up the phone, I distinctly heard the tinkling of coins,
in the distance, far away like the memories of the pleasure he gave us
with his reading.
============================================

Well, the rest of the article deals with well-known concepts, really,
about the comics industry being slowly destroyed by the competition of
the telly (better known as the Idiot Box), video tapes, computer games
and such, and all the usual stuff about the Great Depression, Roosvelt's
New Deal and the American Dream that Europeans love so dearly...
Scrooge is, as usual, compared to Mellon, Carnegie and Rockfeller, and
so on.

I preferred to insist more on the emotional side of the article, since
that's still the way I feel about all this, myself.
The article is topped by a 4 columns wide image of Donald, weeping
bitter tears and punching his fists on the floor... that's me, mate!

Good luck, to us all.

ARTHUR

> What would happen if Gladstone would do it the 'Egmont way'? With a
weekly
> title, lots of editorials for kids, themed magazines for girls and
toddlers and so > on?
> Would that be a better idea?

AAARGH !
I'm prepared to spend $20 every month (including the air-mail extra)
just to avoid all that. It's one of the reasons I joined the ranks of
Gladstone's subscribers in the first place, although I don't like my
peg-leg very much, and typing with a pirate hook is rather tricky ;-)
We have, in Italy, to paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, "59 titles with
nothing on".
Well, a bit less, perhaps, but themed titles are just an excuse to raise
the number of advertising pages and stupid gadgets you end up with...
and there's not enough quality stuff to fill the remaining pages, so you
get either re-re-re-reprints or plain #%@*.
I cannot even skim through "Topolino" to check whether there's any new
Scarpa's story anymore, since it's nearly every week wrapped up with
model boats, caps, or some sticky lollipops (yeech!).

And, anyway, kids don't buy that stuff.
Does anyone remember Carl Barks telling that HE'd never seen a kid
buying a Disney comic? They'd go for Superman, then, as they go for
Mangas now.

I reckon parents don't care very much, nowadays. *They* don't read
comics, in the first place. I remember putting up serious fights with my
dad about who had the rights to read "Topolino" the first, and he'd done
the same with his father, before... gee, that's a long time... I have a
couple of comics that belonged to my granddad...
Well, I'm getting sentimental again... time to stop.

Eta Beta (Franco Bellazzi)

E-mail to : Eta Beta <(Email removed)>