lots of stuff

Mark Mayerson mayerson at sidefx.sidefx.com
Wed Dec 29 15:24:30 CET 1993


Don Rosa:
Your history of Disney distribution and the rise of the direct market was
very good.  I'd like to add a couple of points if I may.

The direct market was born precisely because newsstand distribution was
so spotty.  If you cared about comics, you often had to go to two or three
stores on a regular basis to find what you wanted.

The major difference between newsstand and comic shops has to do with
the issue of returns.  If a newsstand orders 10 copies of something and 
only sells 2, it sends back the other 8 (or just the covers or logos) and 
gets credit for them.  A comic shop buys 10 and is stuck with whatever it 
doesn't sell.  The comics companies love this because they have a more 
predictable print run and income from every issue.  It's tough on the 
comics shops because it takes money that they need to run the operation
and ties it up in inventory.  If a comics shop buys too many titles that
don't sell, their cash flow disappears and they're out of business.  

This creates a never-ending cycle where shops only buy what will sell and
people can only buy what shops have in stock.  It re-inforces the status
quo and it's very difficult for any title to grow significantly.

Newsstand distribution has deteriorated since the invention of comics shops.
Comics were always a low-profit item under the best of circumstances.  Now,
newsstands know that comic shops exist and some portion of their business
in comics is lost to the shops.  They have less incentive than ever to stock
comics.  Also, comics publishers are concentrating more effort on the shops,
since those copies are non-returnable.

The challenge for comics is now to get out of the shops.  Disney Adventures
Digest (or whatever the heck it's called) is sold on newsstands and at
supermarket check-outs.  I'm sure it's profitable or Disney would have 
turned it over to Gladstone with the rest of the comic book line.  It has
the benefit of being where families go for other reasons (like food shopping)
and so the digest can be picked up as an impulse item.  You don't have to
make a special trip to buy it in a particular store the way you do most comic
books.

For the record, lots of alternative comics publishers (like Fantagraphics)
are in the same boat as Disney.  Their main market is shops, and the shops
and their clientele only want super-heroes.  Fantagraphics is experimenting
with getting sold in record stores, hoping that music fans will pick up the
comics on impulse.  Gladstone needs to find someplace where kids are
already going and display the comics there.

Tryg:
>I listened to an interview with 
>Annette Funicello recently; she said that they (the Mouseketeers) never 
>knew of the fan mail sent to them.  Years later when she learned about the 
>tons of mail, she was told it was kept secret to protect the kids from 
>being envious of the one with the the most mail...

Cynical me says that it was probably to stop the kids from asking for
more money.  Same reason that Carl Barks never got his fan mail.

Geir:
Thanks for the fascinating info on Grandma's car.

William:
I'm introducing my 7 year old daughter to Barks right now.  I was
able to afford some volumes of the Carl Barks library, so I've been giving
my daughter a lot of the comic reprints that I've got.  I don't care how
much they get messed up if she reads them.  She started on Lost in the Andes
and then read The Mystery of the Swamp.  She enjoyed them both and I've
made it a point to tell her that the comics are by Carl Barks.

I didn't really become aware of Barks until I was in my late teens.
I read Funnyworld magazine by Mike Barrier because of my interest in animation.
I respected Barrier's writing on animation quite a bit, and since he had a 
high opinion of Barks I figured I should check Barks out.  At the time (early 
'70's), it was fairly easy to get Barks reprints for 25 or 50 cents.  I was 
amazed to discover that Barks work was far better written than the super-hero 
comics I was then giving up.

I still have a collection of Marvels from the '60's.  I do pull them out to
look at art by Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko.  However, I never find myself
re-reading the stories.  With Barks, I can't open up a comic without re-reading
it.  For me, that's the proof of Barks' value.

Anybody:
Is there any video of Carl Barks in any comics documentaries?  I seem to
remember seeing an ad for a documentary that I think that Ed Summer was
working on that included Barks.  Has this been released?  Anybody see it?

___________________________________________________________________
Mark Mayerson				Side Effects Software Inc.,
Internet:  mayerson at sidefx.com          Toronto, Ontario, Canada
					(416) 366-4607	  



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