Keskustelujen arkisto

Hi!

Dean:
>From what I am reading on the list, the basic reason given that Disney comics
>>may not come back is that Disney doesn't feel like they could make enough
>>money from giving
>>Even if Disney doesn't make a single cent from it, wouldn't they still come out
>>"ahead" in the sense that the new Disney comics in stores would be a
>>form of free advertisement for Disney and the Disney characters?

Also, what if the publisher loses money? Disney doesn't lose anything; on the contrary, it's pure
profit: they just sell the license and let the publisher take the risks.
I really do not understand the people in charge.

Olivier

From: "Francesco Spreafico" <frspreaf at tin.it>
>>>Disney Italia sometimes publish stories in English. For example some
Barks'
ones in the "Tesori" hardcover series, but also a bunch of Italian new
stories were published in English recently on "Topolino" (to teach the
language to kids).

And that's a big difference. TOPOLINO is an Italian magazine, primarilly in
Italian, which prints a few stories side-by-side in Italian & Eglish for
instructional purposes. Or collector purposes, either way. They cannot
publish an all-English book and even if they managed to obtain a license to
do that, then they would not be allowed to distribute it in America -- it
would need to be sold via mail order to individual buyers. And even if they
obtained rights to do *both* of those things, they would sell so few copies
even compared to the measly comic-shop sales that we mentioned before that
it would be *beyond* laughable.

From: Paulo Barrez <maurepas0002 at yahoo.com>
>>From: Don Rosa
>And Egmont is the world's largest publisher
>>>>I don't know where you heard this. AFAIK the world
largest publisher is Barnes & Noble, then Groupe
Lagardere.

Of BOOKS. Egmont publishes books, magazines, comics, newspapers, coloring
books... well, they publish everything that has pages, I guess. I recall
being told they even publish all the phone books in parts of Europe. If you
just counted all the weekly comic books that Egmont publishes, I would
feel certain that alone would beat B&N's reprinting of public domain books.
Actually, I heard once that there's a bigger publisher in China, but even
though that's a big country, it's only ONE country compared to all the
dozens of countries that Egmont publishes everything in (which *includes*
China as well).

From: deanmary <msalony at mail.wvnet.edu>
>>>>Just for the sake of argument, lets imagine that Disney
grants Diamond a license and they make not even one *penny* out of it; they
just
come out even. Even if Disney doesn't make a single cent from it, wouldn't
they
still come out "ahead" in the sense that the new Disney comics in stores
would be a
form of free advertisement for Disney and the Disney characters?

Donald and Mickey are *dead* characters for Disney. They exist only as
beanie-babies and T-shirt icons in theme parks and to license to toy
manufacturers (though I see no current interest in those classic characters
by toy companies) . And as such, they need no further promotion. Disney
comics would promote nothing that would make Disney any $. There could be
comics of whatever Disney's new project is, but no one produces those
comics in a series (just one-shots), and no one will buy them, anyway.
American kids do not want comics based on movies that they can watch
repeatedly at any moment on their VCR. Comic book movie adaptations were
good in the old days when you saw a movie at the theater and then it was
gone and you could not see it again for about ten years (or, in a kid's
frame of reference, you could not see it again *ever*).

>>>I realize that to Disney having its
characters on comic books would be a drop in the bucket compared to all its
other
publicity. However, isn't a drop in the bucket better than nothing?

No, their corporate policy insists that it must be buckets and buckets full
or they will divert their efforts or attantion elsewhere.

Reply-To: "Olivier" <mouse-ducks at wanadoo.fr>
>>>>Also, what if the publisher loses money? Disney doesn't lose anything;
on the contrary, it's pure
profit: they just sell the license and let the publisher take the risks.

You're right about the publisher doing all the work and taking all the
risks, but they must also pay a huge percentage of the profits to Disney
for the privilege of doing this. That percentage must be a significant
amount of $, or there's no reason for Disney to bother. Also, as I hear it,
the success must grow year by year and the percentage also grows as time
goes on. If a publisher loses money, not only can they not meet their
promised royalty payment, but they are out of business.
Here we have a license that is very costly to obtain, and which involves a
great deal of micro-managing by the licensing corporation. The publisher
must know *everything* about the history of Disney comic stories worldwide
(as Gladstone's people did) to know *what* there is to publish and what
stories are better than others, etc., even if they just do reprints (which
is their only chance). The publisher does all the work and takes all the
risks. And it would be in a market where newsstand distributors do not want
comic books on their stands and charge extra to handle them... and where
kids do not want Disney comics, where there is only a marginal success by
small publishers (by corporate standards) in selling superhero comics to a
cult of collectors.
If you were a publisher, would you want that license?
The only hope is Steve Geppi, a successful distributor who has the
Gladstone people to help him, who loves the material and is willing to go
to all the trouble and support the project with his other businesses (or is
willing to try to). He is the only hope in the world for the future of
English language Disney comics.

In DCML digest, Vol 1 #816 deanmary <msalony at mail.wvnet.edu> wrote:

> [...] lets imagine that Disney grants Diamond a license and they make
> not even one *penny* out of it; they just come out even.

Let us suppose that an American Disney Fan spends an X ammount of dollar$
every mount, if he use his money to buy thinks (puppets, videos, etc.) from
which Disney makes profit ... than Disney makes profit ^__^, if the same
person spend the same money in thinks from which Disney does not make
profit ... than Disney does not make profit ^__^

> Even if Disney doesn't make a single cent from it, wouldn't they
>still come out "ahead" in the sense that the new Disney comics in stores
>would be a
>form of free advertisement for Disney and the Disney characters? One
>thing Disney
>seems *very* concerned about is having its characters out in the public
>and on just
>about every type of merchandise possible. I realize that to Disney having its
>characters on comic books would be a drop in the bucket compared to all
>its other
>publicity.

Mikey, Donald or $crooge are not "virtual", their value came from the work
of lot of people, is a real value, is money ... if Disney would give it for
free, IMHO, it should have some consequences in the Stock Exchange.
If you

>However, isn't a drop in the bucket better than nothing? Disney is a
>very greedy company I will grant you, but they do not appear to be a stupid
>company. Why would they turn away from the opportunity to have a tiny bit
>more of
>Disney publicity by just granting a license? Perhaps someone on the list
>who better
>understands Disney's viewpoint on things could enlighten me about this. I
>look
>forward to hearing someone's answer to this.

If you grant a license you have to control the licensee in order he do not
cause damage to you. You have to spend money to control the licensee.

I hope you can appreciate my opinions.
Sorry for may bad "consecutio temporum! and
Ciao from the sunny Lake of Bracciano
Pietro

TIMO:

> "No new relatives for Ducks and especially no parents!"...

I can see it now: young Scrooge being raised by his single uncle, and
having two identical brothers, all three being members of the Junior
Highlanders club. It would have made for some highly original (not)
stories!

Kriton (e-mail: kyrimis at cti.gr)
(WWW: http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis)
-----
"Is it you, Time Lord?"
"Well, as far as I know, there's no one else except you and me here, so it
must be me!"
-----

DON:

> However, even if the calendar had been corrected earlier and the
> proper leap years had skipped the correct days, the day the Templars were
> disbanded would still have been a Friday. We only skip dates in leap years,
> not days of the week.

Not having read the story, I'm not quite sure to what you are referring
here, but I was under the impression that when switching from the Julian
calendar to the Gregorian calendar, both days and dates were skipped,
and that this was used as a theological argument against the adoption of
the new calendar in the east, as, supposedly, the sequence of weekdays
since the creation of the world would be broken!

Kriton (e-mail: kyrimis at cti.gr)
(WWW: http://dias.cti.gr/~kyrimis)
-----
"Is it you, Time Lord?"
"Well, as far as I know, there's no one else except you and me here, so it
must be me!"
-----

Hi,

I just read "A little something special" from Adventurous Uncle Scrooge
McDuck #2 (29 pages) and I have one question:

Page 20 : Blackheart beagle says to $crooge: "A last glass of sarsaparilla
from Coot's soda fountain! You know from old times!"

As we know $crooge prefer nutmeg tea but smurfs ("Schtroumpf" comics by the
belgian Peyo) eat sarsaparilla. That's a reference to smurf.
In some previous message, Don has said that he has read other european
comics like Lucky Luck, Asterix...
As Don like to put references to movies in his stories, I wonder if some
DCML-member can help me to find other reference to non-Di$ney comics in Don
Rosa stories.

Thanks,

Jeannot Lapin

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Kriton :
> I was under the impression that when switching
> from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar,
> both days and dates were skipped, ...

OT, but quite funny:
The Gregorian calendar was introduced 1582-1587 in the Catholic parts of
Europe.
In the Protestant parts, around year 1700 (except Great Britain (of course
:-), 1752)
And 1915-1923 in the Orthodox parts.

There might be some other exceptions,
but Sweden is a really strange exception.

In 1699 they decided to switch to the Gregorian calendar by removing one day
each year.
It started by skipping the leap day in 1700.
But in 1701 the decision was revoked and for some years we had a calendar
that wasn't used anywhere else in the world.
In 1712 we switched back to the Julian calendar, by adding a day!
So we had 30 days in February 1712.
In 1753 we finally switched to the Gregorian calendar, after Feb. 17 came
March 1.

Many people disliked this, since the goverment had stolen 11 days of their
lives.

kjell