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Thanks again, Robb!

Meanwhile, most of the art done for Hachette (France) comes from the Comicup Studio in Barcelona, while the writers are from France. In Holland, a large part of the art is also done by Comicup I think, sometimes by the same artists. I think that most French artists nowadays prefer to work on non-Disney comic.

In contrast to that, the two large producers (Egmont and Disney Italia) don't rely much on studios. Disney Italia has a long tradition of skilled artists, whereas for the art, Egmont has many Spanish (and South American) artists working as freelancers. Many were previously working for a Studio, some now have their own studio.

To give an idea, here are the number of stories and number of pages for 2007 (2008 data may not be complete)

Disney Italia: 486 stories, 7702 pages
Egmont: 370 stories, 3351 pages
Sanoma-Netherlands: 251 stories, 663 pages
Hachette: 188 stories, 414 pages

As you may or may not know, over the past year (2008) in Italy every monday we would go to the newstand and buy a volume containing Barks stories (La Grande Dinastia dei Paperi). At the end of the year I have one body of 48 books (200 pages each) containing all Barks production including stories derived from Barks work (stories such "Horsing around with History", two versions of "The Pied Piper..." [but not your inked one, by the way] etc). Few thing are of course missing. For example the one story based on an old cartoon was not published ("Powerplay on Killmotor Hill"). Also few other things. But the point is that your Golden Apples is totally and wrongfully missing! Because of the last year little-Barks-enciclopedia, many fans in Italy are now probaly pushing for having more Barks and Barks-derived stories published (including me bugging Luca Boschi). I knew of your work before but many didn't. Do you think you could take advantage of this and propose its publication to Disney Italia?
Thanks for the insights into the business.
Andrea

Quote from user: Robb_KOnce an author sells a story to a Disney Franchise, Disney owns the rights. We can only get paid for a story once. Then, any Disney franchise can get any Disney-owned story that another franchise has for a "token payment" (supposedly related to handling costs of labour and photography-in the old days). They "trade" stories, in the sense that ALL of those franchises that have their own production, print a fair percentage of pages from other producers (by their contracts with The Walt Disney Company), and to hold down costs. But, Egmont produces more that the others use, than they use from those others.

Writers and artists normally work for one or the other Disney franchises, not usually more than one at the same time. Only "stars" like Don Rosa have done that. Daan Jippes stopped working for Dutch Disney when he started with Egmont. The only exceptions to that are the sales of a few individual stories being bought from Americans or Northern Europeans by Disney Italia, under special circumstances (Pat Block's Carl Barks Studio story, a couple Freddy Milton stories). If I sell a story to Disney Italia (such as My Golden Apple story), it would just be a one-time situation, because neither Egmont or Sanoma want that story, and I want badly, for it to be published). I wouldn't start a regular big production with them.

Robb, could you give us some insight how much Disney writers and artists get paid? BTW, thanks for your interesting posts in this thread so far!

Quote from user: Will BarksRobb, could you give us some insight how much Disney writers and artists get paid? BTW, thanks for your interesting posts in this thread so far!
I really don't know what the artists are getting for finished penciled or inked pages, now. But, penciled pages used to be roughly double what was paid for the inking, per page. Writing received about half of what inking did, per page ultimately used by the editorship. Sometimes they cut writers' stories down. I can't really tell you what is paid out now, other than what I get, and I'd rather not quote that. I suspect that different artists and writers get different rates from different firms. There is probably a general (standard) per page used rate for most writers for each company, but I'm not sure that it's my place to quote it on a public forum.

Let me just say that artists can earn a decent living just drawing Disney comics, IF they are very efficient and productive. But those same artists can get substantially higher rates of pay for similar hours of work, working for other clients in animation and illustration (IF they can get that work). The same is true for writers (IF they can get work for other clients in other fields of writing). It's difficult to make a full living writing stories only for Disney Comic books. One would have to be very productive (like Jan Kruse, Evert Geradts, Frank Jonker (although the latter two have other clients), The British Egmont crew, Gorm Transgaard, and some other Egmont writers). Most of the non-European (US, Canadian, Australian) Disney Comics writers, I know anything about, write for other clients as well as Disney Comics.

Most of the artists I know (Jan Gulbransson, Freddy Milton, Daan Jippes, Santiago Scalabroni, and others have had other clients in other fields (comic strips, animation, computer games, general books, children's books, etc.)

Hello, Robb.
How is it working? What's the process please? Suppose, I wrote a Disney story and would like to sell it and I think it's good enough to turn into a real comic for publishing. What do I do next? Someone will then evaluate the story? If so, who and how? Where do I send the story? Do I send a complete text story (with all quotation (balloon) text and stuff) or just a summary?
Thank you!

Quote from user: ArtemiHello, Robb.

How is it working? What's the process please? Suppose, I wrote a Disney story and would like to sell it and I think it's good enough to turn into a real comic for publishing. What do I do next? Someone will then evaluate the story? If so, who and how? Where do I send the story? Do I send a complete text story (with all quotation (balloon) text and stuff) or just a summary?

Thank you!
I'm not the one to ask about a new writer submitting a non-commissioned unsolicited story to a Disney Comics franchise. I don't know what their current policies are. Perhaps David Gerstein, who is still a writer and part-time project consultant for Egmont, can answer for Egmont's current policy. In answer to Indiana Goof's last question, I DID state that Sanoma Uitgevers (Dutch Disney Comics) is generally not buying almost any scripts from writers outside their own country (unless there is a very special reason-e.g. they want a special project done by a certain artist, and THAT SAME ARTIST also wants to write the story, OR, IF a writer has written a FANTASTICALLY GOOD story, Sanoma may well want to buy it. But, generally, due to their limited production, they, for the most part, want to buy mainly stories from the young local Dutch writers, to ensure that they'll have a staff of Dutch writers in the future. I can't speak for Egmont or Hachette or Disney Italia. I think that Disney Italia has such a large production, that they can buy special stories from foreign writers without "hurting" their own regular writing staff. But, I doubt that an American would become a regular (high-volume) story writer for them, as they are very happy with their current staff of writers (and, from what I remember, their rate of pay per page of written story is lower than what American writers would generally want). I have heard that Egmont has been cutting down their staff of writers over the past several years. There are seveeral talented young Dutch artists and writings coming up now, and there will be tough competition among them for work with Sanoma. So, I doubt that there is much room (IF ANY) for foreign writers.

As most of the Disney Comics franchises have been cutting down (rather than increasing) production in recent years, I would imagine that it would be difficult to start up as a new Disney Comic Book story/script writer, if your foot is not already "in the door".

Most of the story writers at Egmont send in stories written in script form, with writing description of panels and dialogue, but no drawings. At Sanoma Uitgevers (Dutch Disney Comics) all scripts must be drawn (storyboarded). I would say you have to be somewhat of an artist to sell a written story. You must set the staging well, and position things well enough for the final artist to know what you had in mind.

I assume that Disney Italia and Egmont accept either storyboarded OR word-scripted stories, but, generally a written story scenario must be sent first (and accepted). I don't know how Hachette or Abril work.

The way interactive computer-related storytelling and Internet copyrighting legal issues are progressing, and sales of ALL printed material are declining, I'm wondering if comic book story writing will even be a viable supplemental income for writers in the near future.