+Postage Due+Disney-comics digest #117.

[Don Rosa]

	What's this about sending copies of the Digests or condensed
versions of them to Gladstone? Through a modem? I think I can safely say
that the people at Gladstone have neither the time or inclination to
read through such stuff, whether it's in one GIANT batch or on a daily
basis. They are busy and have other things to do while at the office.
And once they go home, they aren't SUCH fans that they would want to
still be messing with Disney crap (nor are any of them so well paid that
they'd have home computer systems). But if somebody there said they were
interested, sure, go ahead. It WAS very smart of you to delete MY
remarks... I don't know what I'd say that Gladstone would not like, but
I STILL would not be speaking 100% freely if I thought someone at
Gladstone were reading my words.

	This long list of questions for Gladstone that someone printed
-- I can help with a few.
	I thought we'd covered the ground of why the Disney stores
cannot carry Gladstone comics. They can't get them from local
distributors without becoming full-fledged newsstands and carrying
EVERYTHING the distributor offers to every drug store and supermarket.
That's not how local distributors work. And they can't get them direct
from Diamond or someone because that requires LOTS of coordination and
ordering and non-returnable products and products with shelf-lifes of
1-2 months and.... a thousand other things that a Disney store would NOT
be the least bit interested in screwing with, especially for such a LOW
PROFIT item which would require the ability to READ from its customers.
There is no chance of Disney Stores carrying Gladstone comics or albums
(the albums are not marketed as books but as periodicals). Anyway, this
whole idea presupposes the completely wrong idea that (as I've said
before) the American Disney "fans" have any interest in Disney comic
books. They want T-shirts and cute figurines for the mantle, period.
	Gladstone, as well as most or all the European publishers, will
collect the 210+ pages of my "Life of $crooge" into huge books after it
runs its course in the comics. I will provide extensive "annotation" for
all the Barks references in these volumes, making them more like 220
pages? 230 pages? However, the foreign publishers won't do this for
several years after the series appears in the comics, and though
Gladstone won't wait that long, it will still be several years before
they can even complete the comic book use of the series. So all these
books are long off. Gladstone has told me, to my displeasure, that they
will do it as TWO volumes instead of a single one, as it is their
experience that once you cross the $9.95 price barrier, sales drop off
dramatically, and such a single volume would cost over $20.
	"Creators" at DC or Marvel would not be interested in writing or
drawing Disney comics because of how much $$$$ they can make in the
normal American comic system. The Disney system is still operating on
1940's style attitudes and treatment of the writers/artists. You can't
guess how rich these folks are getting, and even if they did feel it
might be cute to go "slumming" in Disney comics, I, for one, would
resent such an attitude and prefer they stay out unless they wish to
fight for the rights of us who don't get the deals they get -- and it
has been my experience in the past that they are too selfish to care
about helping the plight of people so stupid as to write or draw Disney
comics as a full-time job.