AW: non-Disney characters in Disney comics

[cwiljes@bol.de]

Timo Ronkainen wrote:

> Being precise, Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi), Snow White (old fairy tale),
Bambi 
> (Felix Salten), Winnie the Pooh (Milne) etc, are all non-Disney characters

> (just like Zorro)!

Yes, the question is much more complicated than I originally thought. There
are Disney characters which are "public domain", characters for which they
bought the rights (Winnie the Pooh (?)) and characters which they are only
allowed to use on a one-time basis (Zorro)

But in contrast to Franquins Marsupilami, Jeff Smith' Bone or William Van
Horn's Nervous Rex in all examples cited above the Disney studios had a
great creative input shaping the character which finally appeared in the
comic or on the screen. In some cases this goes so far that many people
believe that the character IS in fact a Disney creation instead of something
which they built on (Winnie Pooh, Bambi, Pinocchio, ...). Marsu, Bone & Rex
in contrast had been fully defined and shaped characters when Disney used
them.

Cord