When did this first run? 50 years ago?
Posted on 11/17/2004 3:59:36 PM PST by churchillbuff
In a deal it hopes will produce a trove of new properties to exploit across various media, Walt Disney Co. has bought the assets of CrossGen Entertainment, a comic book publisher whose fantasy and sci-fi titles include "Abadazad," "Mystic" and "Route 666."
Terms were not disclosed.
The acquisition of the more than two dozen titles comes as Disney is set to launch a TV series in the United States based on "W.I.T.C.H.," a comic magazine for tween girls that debuted in 2001 in Italy. Disney says "W.I.T.C.H." is now the fourth-largest magazine in the world in terms of international editions. Books based on the property are published in 20 countries; the animated TV show will debut on U.S. TV as part of Disney's "Jetix" block on Toon Disney and ABC Family early next year.
"Publishing is really an incubator of new content," Disney Publishing president Deborah Dugan said. "We said girls 10-12 are big readers, why not comics? That's how ('W.I.T.C.H.') started."
Disney owns about half of the nonmanga comic book business worldwide, though Dugan said that the vast majority of sales are outside the United States. But she added that low sales in the States are more a "distribution and content issue" that Disney will try to address in ways including targeting potential readers with compelling content and selling to schools by offering teachers a program to encourage reading through comic books.
Dugan said there are numerous possibilities for exploiting Tampa, Fla.-based CrossGen's 26 titles, which run the gamut from tween-oriented fantasy to edgier fare for young adults.
"We're not shying away from the more adult titles," Dugan said. "We have Miramax Books and other possible outlets for that."
One of the first ways Disney may look to use the characters is in online content that can be customized to fit users' specific interests and likes. She said CrossGen has some technology that could jump-start these efforts in conjunction with Disney's Internet group.
"With our creative teams, we're looking at each one (of the properties) and deciding the best format and the distribution to get it into the hands of kids," Dugan said.
More crap from the company that Eisner ruined. May he go soon, please God.
Listen, this problem goes away if you stop thinking of Disney as Disney. That doesn't exist anymore.
Impressive, they built a library centered around Hillary
"Publishing is really an incubator of new content," Disney Publishing president Deborah Dugan said. "We said girls 10-12 are big readers, why not comics? That's how ('W.I.T.C.H.') started."Disney owns about half of the nonmanga comic book business worldwide, though Dugan said that the vast majority of sales are outside the United States.
I'm skeptical of this boast. Not because Disney Ducks don't sell around the world but because Disney quite often just licensed the characters out. Carl Barks worked for Disney as an animator for awhile but he drew the comics for Dell (and later Gold Key), not "Disney".
"Gladstone" licensed the character in America for a number of years in the 1980s-1990s until Disney thought they could "do it better" and publish the comics themselves. They tanked. I think it went to an independent publisher again and then closed up (US).
Disney never even permitted subscription cards, let along COMICS in Disney stores. A lot of talk. They don't know crap about comics.
That said, there is more money in adapting comic characters to tv/film and selling merchandise (shirts, toys, bedsheets) than there is in the comics.
TRUE.
It is a big hit in the Philippines and other markets too. I have seen an actual copy of WITCH and read thru it. The young girls who are witches are seen as "empowered"... i.e. a mix between paganism and feminism.
"I'm skeptical of this boast."
Me, too. I don't see how Disney could be in the same league as Marvel or DC, unless they've somehow got corporate links to one of them now.
When did this first run? 50 years ago?
Diamond Comic Distributors Inc., or DCD, is the largest comic book distributor. They transport comic books from both big and small comic book makers, or suppliers, to the retailers. They distribute Marvel and DC Comics. DCD has a legal monopoly on comic book distribution. This monopoly is allowed because they don't have a monopoly on book distribution (books including non-comic books).
The monopoly is "allowed" because it consolidated under Bill Clinton's reign when his pal Ron Pearlman was busy tanking the comic industry when he bought Marvel Comics.
HAS: What is your personal opinion of the Communist Party, Mr. Disney, as to whether or not it is a political party?
WD: Well, I don't believe it is a political party. I believe it is an un-American thing. The thing that I resent the most is that they are able to get into these unions, take them over, and represent to the world that a group of people that are in my plant, that I know are good, one-hundred-percent Americans, are trapped by this group, and they are represented to the world as supporting all of those ideologies, and it is not so, and I feel that they really ought to be smoked out and shown up for what they are, so that all of the good, free causes in this country, all the liberalisms that really are American, can go out without the taint of communism. That is my sincere feeling on it.
Yep! I wonder if that has anything to do with the leftist trends in those companies over the past decade.
I think some editors were always liberal (more so the writers) but the publishers used to reign in such rhetoric.
Liberals were not respectful of Reagan-Bush, ashamed of Bill Clinton, and ready to draw blood when George W. Bush took office.
The culture war is the biggest factor in selling us "Communist Superman", "Fascist Superman", "Racist Captain America", "Gay Rawhide Kid", "I was born this way X-men"... the other is that they keep trying to find a twist to tell the same story again and again. Adding personal politics to the mix has been on the rise for 15 years.
It is insulting and assumptive to believe that "all" of the readers believe the way they do. What's more, when they encounter a writer who takes the conservative view, he is immediately attacked for his politics. Free speech is a one way street to liberals.
One of the men at the top of one of these companies is gay (came out some years back) and does appear to have pushed the homosexual agenda in his comics. Why not? The press will support him and give him publicity. That is a win-win. If conservatives protest, it generates more publicity and he can play the victim "like all homosexuals, we are being persecuted". That this is written for kids matters not to them.
One of the "Alice in Wonderland" silent cartoons that Disney made in the 1920s (and can be found on the Johnny Legend's Weird Cartoons DVD) has a commie rooster coming to Alice's farm. He gets them to strike right when she has an order for 5,000 eggs.
This was not a new viewpoint from Walt by any means. He would be disgusted by those running his namesake company these days.
STERANKO WAGES WAR ON COMIX TERRORISM!
Those who know me can confirm that I've never thought of myself as one of the good guys. But the malevolence I've seen in the recent past, culminating in the WTC tragedy, has put that perception in a different perspective. Like many others, I'm repulsed by the plague of violence and death ravaging our nation and feel frustrated, even helpless, to combat it. I find it particularly disturbing that the artistic form with which I'm most closely identified has seemed to turn its back on the virtues upon which it was built. Today's comics are possessed by brutality, destruction, depravity, cynicism, and obscenity. . .
Personally, I'm sick of evil, particularly the psychotic, nihilistic garbage that's pitched as entertainment and has signalled the twilight of the comics era. All I have to do to witness evil in its highest form is to look out any window--it's FREE! I don't have to pay $2.95 to know that I'm surrounded by hatred, fear, destruction, and death. And I'll be damned if I'll endure having it thrown in my face by those who clothe their contempt for the rest of us with tragically-cool posing and bubble-gum arrogance.
Well, gang, if you fancy yourselves as terrorists, there are those among us who'll treat you as terrorists.
I felt like my creative soul was crushed as I saw the Twin Towers collapse. At that moment, most people realized the time for equivocation was over. Now, it's a MATTER OF SURVIVAL! Our families, our friends, our lives are at stake and it's time to take action, to take a stand AGAINST evil and all those who ally themselves with it.
A few years ago, I asked Stan Lee about the bleak direction comics had taken. It was easy to see that he wasn't pleased with it, but he said, "It's what the readers want." I don't believe it. I do believe we want well-developed characters, compelling dialogue, interesting plots, and our money's worth of solid entertainment--God forbid, something that suggests an atom of virtuosity or a new age of awareness.
Instead, we are confronted with an avalanche of over-priced booklets in which it's no longer possible to distinguish between the heroes and the villains because of panels choked with numbingly repetitive fangs and claws, blood and gore, fan-boy rage and T&A chaos. Instead of social mythology, the lillipop esthetic has produced a monument of intellectual and moral poverty. It would be laughable if it wasn't so damned pathetic. Am I being too subtle?
I'm alive, but I'm not all right. I'm in the same position as you and all Americans are at the moment. We've let the world around us get out of hand because we've been too complacent, too careless, too politically correct. The everyday tradition of simply civility, gratitude, courtesy, and thoughtfulness has been replaced by scowling indignation, virulent language, towering disrespect, and open hostility. Our nation is being crushed by evil. I don't know what you're doing about it, but I can no longer turn my back on what I call the Kervorkian Age of Comics. I'm ready to fight it using every resource I can muster. If there's enough of us, we can put the irresponsible bastards out of business and out of our lives with terminal efficiency--and if that doesn't work, I'll personally provide tickets to the caves of the Taliban.
Haven't seen that cartoon or DVD; will keep an eye out for it. Disney would definitely be disgusted today.
Disney ping.
Comics will never sell the way they used to but comics in general are just too expensive.
Cheap paper is the answer to getting costs down. "But it isn't archival". That's right.
The original comic books were printed on the same machines that made Sunday color supplements.
If you want to make a "book" for the ages that won't fall apart, make a "book". Who can pay $2.95-5.95 an issue when the collected edition is $8.95-19.95?
"But it is too risky produce a comic without knowing if the audience exists to support it". Build a name for youself telling shorter stories. Also, no one pays to see a movie a little bit at a time so that the rest of it can be filmed.
I personally prefer the older, cheap paper to the new slick-format stuff. The way the inks and colors come out looks more 3-dimensional on the older paper, IMO. The way some of these graphic novels I see these days are inked and colored looks really flat and formulaic to me.
Agree on shorter stories as well. On that issue I think the US industry has tried too hard lately to emulate the Japanese "arc" concept. That concept works fine if you're going to produce large manga-style collections, but to do that exclusively is to abandon the roots of the US tradition IMO, and also it's often been used here simply as an excuse to make extra money from extended sagas and cross-overs that typically aren't worth the extra wait and cost, which is a sales tactic I resent as a buyer.
Alice's Egg Plant - (Walt Disney 1925)
Some pictures here:
http://disneyshorts.toonzone.net/years/1925/aliceseggplant.html
-------
Note the critic referring to "the red scare". Communism was with us. Communism is STILL with us.
Lousy commies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.