Disney /Marvel deal...

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Permalink Reply by Rick Bradford on August 31, 2009 at 1:32pm

"nothing about the way we do business will change"

Well, that is what any boss would say under the circumstances. This is pretty big news, should be interesting to watch.

Tom Spurgeon has some good coverage here:
http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/disney_to_acquire_marvel_en...

[note: moved this thread from "Please read this first!" to "Everything Else Comics"]

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Nauenburg. on September 1, 2009 at 5:29pm

If I understand the costs involved Disney is taking a 4 billion dollar hit in the early stages of the worst recession since 1929. This is a gamble, and one I suspect will not pan out well for Disney since their core business is family entertainment not niche super heroics for young to middle aged men. I ask myself how long it would take to make up 4 billion in regular comics and comic spin offs in good times. I'm thinking it would be about a decade (best guess) In bad times this could take twice that long to pay for itself.

Of course all of this assumes that Disney and or Marvel don't screw up badly in the near future and kill off any real potential this takeover would offer.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Bradford on September 1, 2009 at 5:47pm

I don't know, one market Disney doesn't cover that well is boys and Marvel's got that in spades...

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Permalink Reply by Matt Blair on September 2, 2009 at 9:56am

I don't want to pull the "elitist card" on you guys, but I'll admit that I'm not a big Marvel fan. I guess I'm just not that into superheroes (except, of course, "The Tick").

I am, however, something of a Disney comics fan. Like everybody, I'm a huge Carl Barks fan. I still don't know what the relationship between Disney and Gemstone Comics is exactly, but they at least keep republishing Barks, which is fun for me.

I can't imagine Disney really shaking things up at Marvel. Marvel's movies have done very well at the box office, it seems, so Disney can only help that. As far as publishing goes, I imagine Disney will stay away.

--Matt

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Permalink Reply by Nic Carcieri on September 2, 2009 at 12:42pm

I was talking to the owner of my LCBS on Monday about this subject, and he thought that one of the losers in this scenario was going to be Boom Studios. Apparently they had just got a contract with Disney to produce $2.99 Disney comics. Rob (the LCBS owner) was saying that the all-ages comic book genre has been becoming more and more popular, so he anticipated that the Boom Studios Disney books would do well. Now having Marvel in the fold, you have to wonder what Disney will do about Boom Studios.

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Permalink Reply by Matt Blair on September 2, 2009 at 4:34pm

Nic, I wasn't sure exactly what Boom Studios was until I looked it up after reading your post. It seems like they have a pretty diverse line of non-Disney comics. If they were planning on a nice all-ages line-up, it looks like that will probably be nixed, as you suggested. --Matt

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Permalink Reply by Rick Bradford on September 2, 2009 at 6:49pm

Didn't Disney just recently pull the licensing from SLG too? Maybe their goal is to destroy comics and they're doing it one license-hungry publisher at a time!

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Nauenburg. on September 4, 2009 at 1:13pm

Didn't Disney just recently pull the licensing from SLG too? Maybe their goal is to destroy comics and they're doing it one license-hungry publisher at a time!

Fortunately us small pressers are not likely to be courted by a multi billion dollar giant waving buckets of money in our faces in exchange for creative control. Otherwise we'd also $uffer the $ame fate. ;)

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