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DAVID GERSTEIN to PHANTOM BLOT, 14-11-2006:

>> For this year 2006, we have had 11 Uncle Scrooge issues so far.
>>
>> 8 of the 11 issues have had a reprint (in English) as the opening story.

> That initially sounds bad for fans of new stories; that's true. But let's
> turn the situation on its head and total up the pages of
> new-to-North-America stories per issue, regardless of whether the opening
> story was a reprint.

There's no need the turn the situation on its head and to play with
statistics. Already at Gladstone the collectors oriented comics were just
filled up with Barks stuff that was re-reprinted. Gladstone acted as if they
are poor people that need our support to stay alive. But Disney comics are
no charity. Disney comics are commercial products.
One reason given on DCML was that also a new audience should be able to see
Barks material which re-re-reprinting already has bored a lot of collectors.
Do collectors need to pay for the same stories twice or trice, as a
financial support to get new customers for commercial publishers like
Gladstone/Gemstone?
Isn't Gemstone chasing collectors away, rather than attracting new readers?
No matter what figures are turned around, I've had to give up being a
subscriber years ago. For me, the over-expensive products aren't worth the
money.

> In UNCLE SCROOGE 349, 38 of 62 total comics pages were new to North
> America.
> In US 350, 34 of 62 pages were new.
> In US 351, all 62 pages were new.
> In US 352, 39 of 62 pages were new.
> In US 353, 57 of 61 pages were new.
> In US 354, all 61 pages were new.
> In US 355, 32 of 60 pages were new.
> In US 356, 34 of 60 pages were new.
> In US 357, 30 of 60 pages were new.
> In US 358, 37 of 61 pages were new.
> In US 359, 33 of 60 pages are new, if you count the three pages of
> "Incredible Shrinking Tightwad" material that weren't in the previous
> American printing.
> And finally, in next month's US 360, you'll find that 56 pages of 60 will
> be new.
>
> That's a year's worth of issues, and an average of 43 new pages per book
> out of 60-62 total comics pages. I think we're doing pretty well!

Pretty well? (cough! cough!)

That's approximately 30% reprint in each Uncle Scrooge comic. And many Uncle
Scrooge comics have almost 50% reprint in them.

The very few Uncle Scrooges with 100% new pages are comics as they should
be. This means that out of 10, only 2 Uncle Scrooge comics are real, new
comics. That's only just 20%.

Dani?l

Thanks a lot for this! Too bad this jewel is not available in the disney
treasure collection!!! And the illustration with all the characters is also
beautiful, i even think i'll take Paperetta's face for my duck family tree :-)

Gilles R. Maurice
_http://goofy313g.free.fr/calisota_online/_
(http://goofy313g.free.fr/calisota_online/)

Here's a reply to a message of last week that I overlooked because it was
"scrubbed". I don't know if it just me, but mostly I skip the scrubbed
messages. Daniel Neyer also has scrubbed emails, which I also often ignore.
A reason is that the linked online scrubbed texts are often displayed in
one long unreadable sentence.
Can this problem be fixed? Either by the senders or by DCML?

RODNEY to DEANMARY, 08-11-2006:
> Since I do work in the paper industry, I feel that I can safely say that
> yes, paper prices ARE raising that much!However, I frankly have stopped
> buying the books monthly because I'm not satisfied with the quality of
> many of the newer stories. At this point, if a book is published and it
> contains a re-re-reprint, but it's of a story that I've not read (like War
> Of the Wendigo)I'm going to gladly purchase it. While I understand the
> point of your analogy to Fantastic Four, I don't think it quite works.
> Disney books are targeted more to a different audience. There are still
> plenty of comic strips being presented in papers today, but there is a
> large audience for Fantagraphics' Complete Peanuts book, even though
> much of that material is indeed re-re-reprinted. I think this is more
> along the lines of the audience that Gemstone is targeting with their
> books.Rodney

If Gemstone would decide to reprint facsimile-versions of old Barks stories,
then I would find their comics interesting. I wonder why editors want to
recolour old comics, even including rarities like 'Race to the South Seas'.
I've understood that a recent Gemstone-reprint of 'Race to the South Seas'
(in 'Disney Treasures') has been pasted together from several sources,
including art by Jippes. Personally I strongly dislike such a frauded
version. If 'Race to the South Seas' would have been colour-scanned from the
original give-away, I would have begged for a copy. In fact, I would have
ordered two or more.

So, my question is why Gemstone doesn't save costs and efforts by giving old
and new collectors the chance to read a Barks story as it has been first
published. This save costs, and it attracts readers.

Here's an example of a page scanned from an original Barks publication of
WDC 75, page 4:
http://img.mcduck.nl/strip/W+WDC++75-01_06.jpg
The colouring looks good to me. Better than a lot of recent colouring. I've
understood the give-away stories have the same clear quality.
Why would an editor want to chop this to pieces for a reprint?

Dani?l

GARY LEACH, 17-11-2006:
> Daniel, I believe David gave everyone here a fair statistical
> summation of what lies behind the perception some have expressed
> about the content of Gemstone comics. And while numbers can't
> necessarily change someone's perception, they do point out that
> statements in the nature of "Gemstone is only re-re-reprinting" are
> only perception, not fact.
I see the statement "Gemstone is only re-re-reprinting" as a valid
complaint. It expresses an emotion. I often see editors hairsplit
complaints, without looking at the message behind the complaint.
David gave a fair statistical summation. But I know an expression that says:
"if you want to be a liar, use statistics". As you can see, others can make
fair statistics too. Statistics that show that Gemstone comics are
reprinting quite a lot. Not "only", but still quite a lot. A lot of comics
contain 30% of reprints.
Do editors expect that they can teach their paying, complaining audience
lessons with statistics that praise themselves? I like David's contributions
a lot and I always look forward to what he writes, but this time was an
exception. David's statistics themselves were okay, but his conclusion ("I
think we're doing pretty well!") doesn't make much sense. There are too many
Gemstone reprints for that.

> I have to presume you haven't given us your support for quite some
> time, since the only support we have ever asked from anyone is to buy
> our comics. In that way it is a purely commercial relationship,
> always has been, always will be. You opted to stop buying our comics,
> which is what we would only expect a dissatisfied customer to do, and
> we would never expect you to buy another issue - in short, support us
> - unless and until you felt we might once again be publishing
> products to your liking.
Yes, it's a pure commercial relationship. I would have kept on buying your
products if they were good. Gladstone and then Gemstone went downhill. At
the end of the 1990s there were less reprints than now, and even those
raised complaints. The way the reprint policy is now defended by Gemstone,
as if it's just normal, is very disturbing.
Do you really think you're doing "pretty well"?

I want to emphasize the commercial relationship. Gemstone is a commercial
company. In this relation, David is a salesman and no friend. Commerce and
friendship are sometimes mixed up.

Dani?l

I might catch flak for this, but I've been listening to both sides on
this issue and I think I have to respectfully disagree with David and
Gary?at least in part.

As Daniel said, "I often see editors hairsplit complaints, without
looking at the message behind the complaint." It's called pride. Pride
leads us to dismiss a complain out-of-hand, rather than consider what
led to the complaint in the first place.

It seems that, generally speaking, Gemstone's readers and fans tend to
fall into one of two categories. Either they:
(1) love reprints of the classics and find newer stories to be lacking, or
(2) are tired of paying for reprints and want to see newer stories.

For the most part, Gemstone has published books that combine reprints
and "first time in the USA" tales. While in one sense that means
there's something for everybody, the flip-side is that there's
something for everybody *to be disappointed with.*

As a lifelong comic book fan who got his start in the 80s, I have to
say that reprints in monthly books are extremely rare for the US
market, and almost always give their publishers the appearance of
being cheap. (The exception would be a reprint which provided
necessary back-story for the book's new tale.) The last thing Gemstone
needs on a $7.50 book is to appear miserly with its production?even if
it *is* Uncle Scrooge that we're talking about. ;)

My own opinion (for whatever it's worth) is that it would be in
everyone's best interests (that is, Gemstone's and our readers') if
Gemstone were to completely separate reprints and first-run stories.
That is, I think it would be preferable to delve into more
archival-style "Carl Barks Library" projects for *all* reprints of
classic tales, while using exclusively first-run material in our
monthly books. That way, if you don't want re-re-re-prints, you won't
have to get 'em (and likewise with first-run stories).

If, as Rodney said, it's literally impossible to sell "all new" Disney
comics, then Gemstone ought to just print libraries & trade paperbacks
of "The Greats" and call it a night.

// Travis Seitler

On 11/17/06, Daniel van Eijmeren <dve at kabelfoon.nl> wrote:
> GARY LEACH, 17-11-2006:
> > Daniel, I believe David gave everyone here a fair statistical
> > summation of what lies behind the perception some have expressed
> > about the content of Gemstone comics. And while numbers can't
> > necessarily change someone's perception, they do point out that
> > statements in the nature of "Gemstone is only re-re-reprinting" are
> > only perception, not fact.
> I see the statement "Gemstone is only re-re-reprinting" as a valid
> complaint. It expresses an emotion. I often see editors hairsplit
> complaints, without looking at the message behind the complaint.
> David gave a fair statistical summation. But I know an expression that says:
> "if you want to be a liar, use statistics". As you can see, others can make
> fair statistics too. Statistics that show that Gemstone comics are
> reprinting quite a lot. Not "only", but still quite a lot. A lot of comics
> contain 30% of reprints.
> Do editors expect that they can teach their paying, complaining audience
> lessons with statistics that praise themselves? I like David's contributions
> a lot and I always look forward to what he writes, but this time was an
> exception. David's statistics themselves were okay, but his conclusion ("I
> think we're doing pretty well!") doesn't make much sense. There are too many
> Gemstone reprints for that.

First off, I want to *again* thank David and Gary for sharing their thoughts on this mailing list. It is so nice that people who work for Gemstone take the time to answer our questions, complaints, etc., on this mailing list. They already have full time jobs and do not have the slightest obligation to contribute to this mailing list at all. Yet they do. Do I agree with all of David and Gary's views? No. However that does not diminish *in the least* my gratitude that they take the time and effort to contribute to this list.

I was *very* interested to read Travis Seitler's thoughts in the latest DCML digest. I must admit that I totally agree with him about the way Gemstone should handle the re-reprints versus "first time in the USA stories": completely separating the reprints and first run stories. This way people like me and others who want to primarily read new stories could skip the reprint titles. (Having said that though, I am *really* hoping there are Barks, Rosa, etc. archival libraries in the future!) On the other hand, people like Rodney and others could focus on reprint stories and not have to buy titles that have new stories that they do not like in them.

So my big question for David and/or Gary is why aren't they following Travis's idea? Of course neither of you have to answer this, but boy would I love to hear your thoughts! :) If there are reasons why Gemstone does not want to split titles between reprints and new titles, *or* if this is not possible economically for some reason, could you please explain why? I'm sure it is more complicated and complex than I probably can fully grasp, but I would really like to try to understand why Gemstone can't and/or won't choose this "solution". And if someone who actually works for Gemstone (Travis) sees a problem with the current situation, then I don't feel near as bad about myself seeing a problem! :)

Onto another subject. I have a question for people on this list who are knowledgeable about paper and paper prices. Does the price of paper fluctuate a lot? Could in a year or two paper prices be significantly lower than the are today? They reason I ask is it affects the future of parts of Gemstone to my way of thinking. If paper prices really go up and down, then having MM&F, MMA, DD&F, and DDA back in the next couple years is a real possibility. However, if the price of paper goes up, *and* just keeps going up, then while these titles *might* come back some day, it is much more improbable.

Thanks in advance for the upcoming comments and ideas that we will (hopefully) hear about on the DCML in the upcoming days. I just hope that everyone can keep their feelings in perspective and realize that everyone on this list shares a love of Disney comics! While we may have differences in how Gemstone should go about printing things, our commonality in loving Disney comics is much greater than any differences we may have! If in any way my initial posts about my concerns and worries about reprints and other issues came across as mean-spirited, too negative, etc., I sincerely apologize.

Dean Rekich

Hi everyone,

I've been watching this discussion with interest.
Just thought I'd throw my two cents in, for what it is
worth.

First, as has been said, the reprint issue seems
mainly to be divided between those who would prefer to
see reprints (of varying percentages up to 100%) in
the monthly titles and those who would prefer to see
new stories (of varying percentages up to 100%) in the
monthly titles.

Personally, I do not mind seeing a certain percentage
of reprints in the monthlies. I accept it is as a way
to introduce classic stories to a new audience. The
reprint is the way I discovered Barks stories in the
late 60's. Even at 6 years old I inherently realized
that a Donald and Scrooge story that looked like that
was one I was going to want to read. I would love to
think that this is still happening. However, the
reality of American childhood in the opening decade of
the 21st Century make it unlikely. But it is still
possible.

Daniel offered:
> Gladstone acted as if they are poor people that
> need our support to stay alive. But Disney comics
> are no charity. Disney comics are commercial
> products.

This is true enough; Disney comics *are* commercial
products. And I would guess that no one ever accused
Bruce Hamilton or Steve Geppi of being poor. However,
another reality of the US is that Disney comics here
have been a marginal business by all accounts for the
past 30+ years. The only reason they have survived at
all is that there are individuals who had both the
devotion to Disney comics and the financial ability to
pursue the license from Disney. Disney, the corporate
entity, has made it clear by their absence that they
do not care to promote such a marginal licensee, while
that does not seem to be the case overseas (please
correct me if I'm wrong). So in a way, purchasing
Gladstone and/or Gemstone Disneys has been an act of
charity. You are showing that you want them to be
continued to be published. Naive perhaps, but you can
bet with the sales numbers for Disney comics here, it
is a darn good thing that Steve Geppi is not depending
on those sales to keep his businesses profitable! I'm
not trying to say that we should be refraining from
voicing our opinions regarding Gemstone or any of its
predecessors, but I respectfully request our friends
overseas to remember the fragility of the business
endeavour called US Disney comics.

Take care everyone,
Chuck Munson
Herndon, Virginia, USA

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