Keskustelujen arkisto

Well, I think the problem is the Company. They are outdated, they insist with these sweet, dull, nonsense look for the merchandising of his characters. If they would use the tools of the Carl Barks like Don Rosa make in his comics, I am sure they could obtain too much profit (that's the goal, isn't? dollahs?)...

So what happens? you want give a Donald comic to the kids and they said: "oh, Donald, that babbling character of these ol' cartoons. I don't like" Go and have an argument with a kid about Barks an Rosa. Ha!

FABIO

bonvolu postu al longtom at oeste.com.ar

Thanks,

Rich
(Email removed)

Hello everyone,

I've been following this thread with interest, but I think there is a very
important element that is overlooked.

Firstly, I'm not so sure the problem is international in it's scope, as, it
appears that a variety Disney Comics are still readily available in other
countries (maybe to a lesser degree than in the past, but still to a greater
degree than in the USA).

Secondly, and probably more important (as pertaining to DISNEY COMICS in the USA)
the REAL problem is "EXPOSURE!"

I am going to jump to another conclusion (the first being that the discussion is
primarily about DISNEY COMICS being considered "out-dated" in the USA), that the
discussion is primarily concerned with specific DISNEY COMICS "characters", namely
Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge and those that might be considered the
more "traditional" Disney Characters... the ones we typically think of when we say
Disney Characters.

O.K., with that in mind, it's very easy for me, as a bonifide Disney FAN, to see
why it could be inferred that Disney Comics might be thought to be out-dated, or,
more precisely, a product whose time has passed.

The evidence is everywhere, or I should say, the LACK of evidence is everywhere...
except, perhaps within the confines of a local DISNEY STORE. Even there, though,
the emphasis is NOT on the "traditional" characters, but rather on those that are
currently "hot" or have been known to be good sellers, such as Winnie the Pooh,
Tinker Bell, The Little Mermaid, Buzz Lightyear, the Lion King and, currently,
Lilo & Stitch. Otherwise, there is very little in the way of Mickey, Minnie,
Donald, Goofy & Pluto. Every now and again, I sense the Disney marketeers dream
up a new gamble and start pushing something they believe will be popular among a
certain segment of influencial buyers, such as marketing Marie (the girl kitten
from THE ARISTOCATS).

Back to the subject of EXPOSURE. As I said, if I go to a Disney Store, I can find
plenty of Disney Merchandise, but the vast majority will be for non-Traditional
characters. However, if I go to a Comic Book store I'm extremely lucky if I find
back issues of WALT DISNEY COMICS & STORIES or UNCLE SCROOGE, etc. Rarely ever
any "current" issues, since most shops only order enough to fill requests by the
few (like me) who they KNOW will buy them. There are some very exclusive shops I
have found, where they actually have back issues of THE ARISTOKITTENS or MOBY
DUCK! That, however, is EXTREMELY RARE. Mostly, if I find such gems, they are
stuffed into the $.25 boxes mixed in with RICHIE RICH and ARCHIES. These have
been flipped through and crumpled, torn, cut-up, and are often missing covers,
etc. They are treated like left-over trash that the owner believes have very
little value.

Next, if I was to go to a WALLMART, TARGET, TOYS-R-US or KAY-BEE TOYS stores, I
will find aisles and aisles of SHREK, SPIDER-MAN, YU-GI-OH, TEEN TITANS, JUSTICE
LEAGUE, G.I. JOE, HARRY POTTER, SPONGEBOB, MUTANT TURTLES, POWER RANGERS, BARBIE,
CARE BEARS, RAINBOW BRITE, MUPPET BABIES and DISNEY PRICESSES, and even many, many
more obscure characters flooding the shelves. O.K., there are DISNEY PRINCESSES,
but that seems to be Disney's only answer to Mattel's BARBIE. If I go to the push
aisles, I will certainly find a larger variety of Disney characters, but, still
not that much.

Alright, Disney has placed a great emphasis on marketting to little girls with
their DISNEY PRINCESS line, but if I wanted to find the DISNEY PRINCESS
comic/crafts magazine, I have to go to a multi-media store (where they sell DVDs
and CDs along with magazines) or BARNES & NOBLE bookstores. This is also true of
the DISNEY COMIC ZONE spin-off from DISNEY ADVENTURES, and, surprisingly, the
WINNIE THE POOH magazine, but these are often out-of-stock, thus rare to find, and
back-issues just don't exist. I recently discovered the much acclaimed W.I.T.C.H.
books at BARNES & NOBLE, but those can only be found under the girls "Young
Reader" section of the store. Plus, the way it is presented in the USA is tragic
(mostly a text book).

Now, where is the exposure for Disney's traditional characters? Back in the 1980s
there was a fantastic cartoon called DUCKTALES! At this time young readers were
clamouring for more and more Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge & Huey, Dewey & Louie
comics. Disney was marketing a limited amount of toys based on these popular
characters... but nowhere NEAR the level which MARVEL or DC/Warner Bros. or
McFarlane or other, even more obscure names, marketed their character lines. As
for Mickey, it was very rare to find maybe a Plush or a Key-ring with him or his
sweetheart. I know 'cause I looked. Then GOOF TROOP came out and very very
little merchandise came out... I know of some plush and some bendable figures and
that's about it. Then DarkWing Duck... a cool line of action figures, but then
everything related to these characters disappeared, only to be found in Garage
Sells or Comics/Sci-Fi Conventions "dealer's rooms." Finally MICKEY MOUSEWORKS
came out, but did Disney Marketing create a line of COMICS or even a line of TOYS
to help promote it? NO. Then the show evolved into HOUSE OF MOUSE. Did Disney
Marketing take up the cause to bring exposure to this show? NO... well, yes, some
little plush figures were promoted through McDonalds, then it went away. As for
the TV cartoon itself, it was constantly pre-empted by Sports (especially
GOLF!!!), or moved to 4am or some other obscure timeslot that no one could find.
Now where is it? The Disney Chanel or Toon Disney, along with all the other great
programs go to die, since the vast majority of Americans are not so rich as to be
able to afford more than BASIC cable, while DIS or TOON is usually a more premium
channel.

Meanwhile, as a fan, I must seek my "traditional" Disney toys on E-Bay where I can
find lots of cool stuff being produced in Japan and Italy.

I apologize for the length of this rant, but, I just wanted to share my personal
experience with everyone concerning the topic of Disney Comics and whether or not
they are "out-dated." In my personal opinion, I believe they are NOT out-dated,
but that they are UNDER-exposed. The truth about Marketing is "Shelf-Space." The
more your product is exposed to the Public, at large, the better it is to sell.
Unfortunately, Disney Marketing tries way too hard to play things "safe." Only
giving the public what they believe will sell, hence we only get Disney Princesses
and Winnie the Pooh, with some Lion King, Lilo & Stitch and Buzz Lightyear, with
the occasional re-issue of some plush Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Pluto.
Every now and again, I will see a rare toy featuring Goofy or Mickey, but, it is
truly rare indeed.

Disney has, for the most part, withheld their "traditional" characters from the
public, preferring to sell ONLY to those who show a strong interest in buying
them, and only after an EXHAUSTIVE search for some rare item. I lay the fault of
Disney's perceived interest in their "traditional characters" demise squarely in
the lap of Disney Marketing! They refuse to license the rights except to those
companies who can afford their OUTRAGEOUSLY HIGH fees, and, even when they do
license them, the micro-manage the product to death so that ONLY what they think
will be profitable can be made. Thus, we have VERY little to find, comics or
otherwise. :-(

Thanks for listening,

Rich
(Email removed)

---- Msg sent via CWNet - http://www.cwnet.com/

Todd Klein wrote "...freelance letterers are fast becoming extinct,
there are very few left, now that both Marvel and
DC are doing most of their lettering in-house."

Todd, I'd be very interested in learning more about:
1. What do you think is the reason you keep winning? What is
unique about your particular style?
2. What tools do you use, and do you have any special
techniques you like?

Everyone else - I'd like to hear your opinions too about what makes
Todd's work stand out from the pack -

Thanks,
Sonia

Dean:

> I will be thrilled if it turns out to be true that the Carl Barks
> library will be coming back. That is the kind of thing I hoped
> Gemstone would do earlier on, but better late than never! Gary, I
> like Olivier *plead* for you to tell us any details you can about
> this! If nothing else, can you confirm or deny this story?
> Pleeeeeaaaasssseeeeee! (Sounding like Roger Rabbit! :)))

Roger Rabbit? Who dat? (Kidding!) ((Almost...))

There is no new edition of the Carl Barks Library scheduled, for now or
in the near future. What I can say with certainty is that a new CBL is
now in production. Egmont initiated and is spearheading this, with
Byron Erickson, Susan Daigle-Leach, and Geoffrey Blum involved.

This is a large undertaking. In spite of Another Rainbow's original
CBL, Gladstone's color album version, and editions published in other
countries, the various materials needed to put together a new edition
have not been at all easy to gather up. The years have not been kind to
anyone's production archives, physical or electronic, and much lost
ground has to be made up. A desire for quality has also required a
considerable effort to come up with the best and closest-to-original
source materials possible - an effort that continues.

Why doesn't Gemstone go ahead with a CBL of its own? It would be
possible, but it would also be an expensive and largely pointless
duplication of effort. What Egmont's going for is, in many ways, an
improved and updated Another Rainbow CBL in full color, and that's the
sort of CBL Steve Geppi would like to put on the market in the US.

So the question is, when will Egmont have its new CBL in hand? With all
the bumps in the road, it's been difficult for them to pin that down,
and I wouldn't even hazard an educated - or, for that matter,
instinctive - guess.

Gary

Rich wrote:

> Firstly, I'm not so sure the problem is international in it's
> scope, as, it appears that a variety Disney Comics are still readily
> available in other countries (maybe to a lesser degree than in the
> past, but still to a greater degree than in the USA).

Can any list member report from his or her country that the sales figures
of Disney comics have *not* declined slowly but steadily? Here in Germany
the print run of the "Micky Maus" has declined from 1.500.000 to 'only'
500.000 currently.

> (...) the REAL problem is "EXPOSURE!"
> (...) However, if I go to a Comic Book store I'm extremely lucky if
> I find back issues of WALT DISNEY COMICS & STORIES or UNCLE SCROOGE, etc.

Is a company actively *creating* a demand for its products - or just reacting
and fulfilling an existing demand? Would people buy more Disney comics if they
were readily available? Probably yes. But certainly not enough to justify
the enormous costs of pushing them into the market. Let's make a thought
experiment: We create a marketing campain for Disney comics in the league
of Nintendo's "Pokemon". Would this result in a Disney comics craze among
kids? Most probably not.

The strength and at the same time the handicap of Disney comics is their
long tradition: They offer reliably good and clean entertainment. But at
the same time they tend to become predictable and therefore do not catch
interest.

Fabio wrote:
> Well, I think the problem is the Company. They are outdated,
> they insist with these sweet, dull, nonsense look for the
> merchandising of his characters.

But then the comics are not created by Disney but by contractors like Egmont.
And would they really start producing innovative stuff if let loose? Would
this even be desirable? Would not the members of this group be the first to
cry out if they should feel that their heroes could be damaged by any new
kid on the block? "Donald Spawn" created by Todd McFarlane? "The Snotty Duck
Returns" created by Frank Miller?

The most daring digressions from the Duck mainstream are produced in Italy,
as far as I know. "PK" for example has some pretty wild stuff. But this does
not seem to spread on to other countries.

In some way Disney comics are frozen in time. Let's make another thought
experiment: Take any comic from today's newsstand (Spider-Man, Superman,
even The Simpsons) and move it back with a time machine to the Sixties. How
would people back then react to this comic? I think they would be thrilled.
They would not necessarily like it, but they would notice that it is very
different from their comics. Now move back any current Disney comic back
to the Sixties. Would people even notice that it is different? Even Don Rosa
(who IMO always kept a slightly subversive (in a good way!) Underground's
style) would probably be taken as a contemporary comics creator.

Dean Rekich wrote:
> One reason I think it will be hard to get kids to read Disney
> comics is that it seems kids "grow up" somuch faster that they used
> to. For example, I have read that where as 20 or 30 years ago girls
> played with Barbie dolls until the ages of say 10 or 11, that today
> girls think they are too old for Barbie dolls after they are 5 or 6
> years old! In that case perhaps it was acceptable in the 1950s for
> kids 10 to 12 to read comics about Donald and Mickey, but today kids
> that same age would look on reading Disney comics as something for
> "babies".

You named the core of the problem here, I believe! Twenty years ago
Neil Postman wrote the book "The Disappearance of Childhood". Postman
describes how the concept of "childhood" is a cultural achievement
created by the rise of literacy. And how it is steadily declining
since the invention of the telegraph up to modern mass media.
Children grow up faster today. Even small children have schedules
like a manager. They dress like adults.

No child wants to be judged as "childish". The want to be taken seriously
and try to act like they are older. And Disney comics are kids' stuff,
of course. So once a child can read (at the age of seven) he could read
Disney comics. But when all his classmates are already into "Dragonball Z" so
he will probably keep away from the Disney's.

Think about the childhood of Huey, Dewey and Louie as described by Barks
and others: They freely run around the neighborhood. They try dangerous
stunts. they talk to strangers. They play with their friends without
any grown-ups watching. They get dirty.

Is this the life today's kids can identify with? Or is it a lifestyle
which is now extinct?

Kriton wrote:
> I think that this is simply the usual difference between generations,
> where parents tend to be critical of their children for daring to be
> different.

You are right that each new generation has its own style, needs and
feeling. And the previous generation has mostly just a limited
understanding for the new trends. But with some current trends
like "Pokemon" I would not call it "daring to be different".
Many of these are medida hypes pushed into the children just to make
money, without any real substance or content. But then of course there
are also truly innovative new ideas which conquer new grounds -
like "The Simpsons" did in the 90s.

To sum it up I must admit that the current discussion so far has rather
strengthened my belief that Disney comics have nearly reached the status
of "certified classics", which means:

+ they are generally accepted (= nobody feels that they threateed by them)
+ they are no longer of great commercial importance
+ they will be here to stay (= reprints will always be available)
+ children will shun them and prefer current forms of entertainment

This also means that some dozens of years into the future, once the
generation which grew up with them is gone, Disney comics will probably
share the fate of other comics classics (like Pogo), literary classics
(like Jane Austen) or movie classics (like Fritz Lang): A few people
will still love and read/watch them, but for the general audience they
will be lost.

It might sound a little bit sad, but then ... so is life. And I for my part
am looking forward to the things to come. Which reminds me to look up
this Spongebob Squarepants :-)

Cord