+Postage Due+Disney-comics digest #117.

[Torsten Wesley Adair]

On 4 Oct 1993, Don Rosa wrote:
> 	This long list of questions for Gladstone that someone printed
> -- I can help with a few.

(ahem.  That was I.)

> 	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.

Ah, but almost every fan of Disney comics was seduced at a young age.  I
wouldn't sell to the fans (although if they buy them, fine), but to
parents, as Disney comics are wholesome and entertaining.

I wonder if Marvel will bag the Disney comics, and if so, couldn't the
stores order the books directly from Marvel, or the packaging company? 
How do they manage the other licensed items?  Isn't there a central
warehouse for the Disney Stores?  (I don't know.)

> 	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.

Perhaps we should lobby for a limited edition hardcover?
If Another Rainbow can sell something as expensive as the Carl Barks
Library, then why not hardcover book for $30-50?  I guess we'll have to
wait for the reaction to the episodes.  

Don, if Gladstone doesn't market this as heavily as Charles Barkley, then
they are idiots.  Have them insert the family tree as a quarto poster in
one of the first issues. 

Does the Disney regulations you cited affect written text pieces?  If not,
perhaps Mr. Gaiman or catherine yronwode would consider writing an
introduction for the Lo$ HC.

Torsten Adair	torsten at cwis.unomaha.edu	Omaha, NE, USA