Disney-comics digest #240.

[Don Rosa]

GARY:
	I think that, in my comments about Disney Stores and comics, I
was saying that a LOCAL distributor would never allow a store to order
only Disney comics, or only comics, or anything less than EVERYTHING if
they were a customer... and that the store COULD order whatever it
wanted from Diamond since that's a totally different concept: with a
local distributor the store would be becoming a sortuva licensed outlet
for ALL periodicals -- with Diamond, the store would be BUYING the
product so could buy whatever it wished. And, as you say, the very
thought that a Disney Store would go to any such trouble is laughable
considering the profit and ease there is in selling T-shirts and Ariel
dolls to the moron masses.
	Another thing I'm delighted to see another human in this country
besides me realize is that American comics as a mass market item is
forever and irreversably DEAD. The American super-hero writers and
artists are all making skads of money and getting loads of attention...
but they naturally want to think that the future of the industry is
rosey and that everyone respects and loves and KNOWS them as much as the
kiddies at the comic conventions. But their livlihoods are based on
extremely small sales in the highly profitable direct market, and have
as a cornerstone a sort of comic genre that no intelligent grown up (and
few intelligent children) sees as anything less than utterly silly. All
the American comic writers and artists have this pipe dream, as you say,
that they are gaining respect and sales, which is not the case. And I
don't think there is ANYTHING which can change this. No matter HOW good
the material suddenly became in American comics, it is still doomed as a
mass medium because it has two things working against it that CANNOT
change: the American perception of comics as kid stuff... and the fact
that comics require READING. Of course, the success of Disney comics in
America has a third dooming force pulling them down: DISNEY EXECUTIVES.

RON:
	Yes, isn't that a WIG Gyro is wearing? It's clear that there's a
STRAP of some sort around his bird-chin... and that strap seems to lead
not to his HAT but to his HAIR. Has anyone ever wondered about that
strap? 
	Actually, what IS Gyro? I always thought he was a sorta
cockatoo-stork judging by his beak, his intelligence and his lankiness.
Even though he doesn't have a chicken-beak, I understand most people
have always thought of him as a chicken. But if he IS a chicken, that
would explain that tuft of reddish hair -- I'd need to check the
encyclopedia for the name, but there is a species of chicken with a tuft
of fuzzy reddish hair on its head (and no strap).