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Disney/ Marvel and non-American superhero work

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John C:
The point that's being missed, though, is that Disney is a business.  They either have a plan to expand into the market or they're not seeing money coming in from the license.  They don't care about British kids reading comic books or the (alleged) realism that British writers bring to the books except inasmuch as it affects their bottom line.

Keep in mind that the revenue from Marvel Comics isn't even one percent of what Disney makes (about $100M vs. 38B).  You're talking about a license that contributes to the smaller number, a fraction of that 0.3%.  Given that Panini (the Italian conglomerate) competes with Disney on a number of levels, the legal and accounting costs to maintain the license may very well just outweigh the revenue it brings in.

I'm not saying it's a good or bad decision, just that the rightness of the decision isn't going to be decided by the impact on British writers or fans any more than a bank decides on policy by listening to the people who keep pocket change in their savings accounts.  It's nice when they take everybody into consideration, but also unexpected.

There's actually huge opportunity, here, in going to Disney and/or Marvel and showing the difference to be made in relaunching the books with the force of Disney's marketing behind them.  Because you might need to meet a hobo in a back alley to pick up a copy of Avengers, but I doubt you can swing a dead cartoon mouse anywhere in the world without hitting a shop that sells Mickey Mouse crud.  If someone proves the point to the right people, you get the best of both worlds.

Tony Ingram:
How do you prove that point, though? If I read you right, you're suggesting the way forward would be for Disney to relaunch Marvel UK, but when it was run from the States Marvel UK never made much of a profit. It took Stan Lee hiring Dez Skinn to run it as an actual British based business to start to turn it around-and something like that would seem to fly totally in the face of Disney's thinking.

philcom55:
Though I have sympathy with any British Artists and writers who may lose work as a result of this decision I don't really disagree with your analysis John. In many ways the situation simply echoes events from the end of 1957 when Odhams' long-running and hugely successful Mickey Mouse Weekly had to be relaunched as ZIP when the Disney Corporation pulled all their characters in order to publish Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse themselves.

The problem in that case was that both ZIP and WDMM proved to be pale shadows of the original title and folded soon after.

 - Phil Rushton

John C:
Just so you guys realize, I'm entirely sympathetic to the fans (and the artists, to a lesser extent, since they'll find work elsewhere).  But I want to emphasize that I see a lot of talk about it being a bad business move, when it's barely relevant (sadly) to Disney.

But yes, basically I'm suggesting (and it's probably worth every cent that free advice usually is, but feel free to pass it on to anybody who might be able to use it) is to look at the actual sales, the potential market, and the sales of similar Disney projects within the UK.  Those numbers (and really only those numbers) allow someone to walk into Michael Eisner's office (or Quesada's) to say that, not only are they ditching X pounds of revenue, they're leaving Y pounds on the table by not expanding the push.

More compelling would be a cost breakdown of what Panini puts in and an offer to take over the operation, the Dez Skinn analogy might not be right, here.  The Marvel Comics of the 1970s could barely afford to pay their own artists, let alone control a product thousands of miles away, whereas Disney has offices throughout Europe staffed by locals, if they wanted to do business right.  As I understand it, it took them a while, but they eventually learned the lesson of the Eurodisney debacle.

The obvious alternative, if the market is there and Disney is creepy, is to pitch a new line to Panini and let Marvel wither in the UK.

paw broon:
As I started this on DCM, I suppose I should add my own views.  One thing that seems to have been missed is that surely doesn't only affect British artists and writers as Marvel use other non American creators.
Also, I don't really see that it has much to do with British pride - doesn't hurt mine.  Most modern American comic are pretty poor stuff, no matter what the nationality of the people on them. Only my opinion, of course, but I don't spend a lot of money on them and it doesn't matter to me that Marvel's U.K. output might disappear. I wonder if younger readers will continue to more adult Marvel  (or DC, etc. ) given the proliferation of, to them, electronic temptations.
Work for hire was a great way for comics to be produced.  If a writer or artist wanted to create comics or own his own work, I've always thought he/she should have sought backers and/or got the money together to do it themselves. So, it might not have worked for them but that's business.  After all, the comics companies took all the chances and, again, it's only my opinion, produced lots of wonderful entertainment.  See the material hosted on this and other sites.
Don't like Disney and with the exception of the classic Donald Duck strips, I'd rather they weren't there, annoying me and millions of others.
I realise I might be sounding like a right old curmudgeon but this has been an interesting discussion and places like DCM give me a chance to have a tilt at windmills.

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