new Disney series in States

[Mike Rhode]

I'm surprised this hasn't come up yet.  The Post had a
couple of pics of it - looked pleasant enough, if
somewhat manga-influenced.  Since I have a young
daughter, I'm fairly happy w/ newish tough female
characters like Kim Possible.   mike
 
For Young Readers, Will Disney's Hex Mark the Spot?
By Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 30, 2004; Page C01


When it comes to exporting popular American kidculture
to other
parts of the planet, the Walt Disney Co. is the
out-and-out, hands-
down, no-doubt-about-it world champ.

Now Disney is turning the tables and importing a fad.

You heard right. Batten down the hatches and lock up
your young
ones. It's a book! It's a TV show! And it just might
be a
multimedia, money-minting onslaught coming straight
from Italy.

It's "W.I.T.C.H."

Which, according to Disney's marketing machine, is a
group of five
girls, in their early teens, "with special powers to
keep the world
safe from evil." But there is nothing to keep America
safe
from "W.I.T.C.H."

The company will introduce the first couple of volumes
in a series
of paperback books, selling for $4.99 apiece, next
month. A TV show
based on the characters is slated for Disney cable
next year.

Deborah Dugan, president of Disney Publishing
Worldwide, says, "We
are building a major franchise."

Disney, which bills itself as the world's largest
publisher of
children's books and magazines, is hoping to slip the
world another
Mickey. "W.I.T.C.H." comic magazines are already
published monthly
in 64 countries and in 27 languages. More than 1
million copies are
sold each month. In France and Germany, kids buy more
than 100,000
copies each month. In Italy, more than 200,000 copies
are sold
monthly.

Though the stories are mostly published as comic books
in other
countries, the Disney brain trust believes that
American girls will
prefer chapter-book storytelling, at least in the
beginning.

The letters of the title stand for the first names of
the main
characters -- Will, Irma, Taranee, Cornelia and Hay
Lin. Each
heroine has control over a natural force or element:
energy, water,
fire, earth and air.

In the first American paperback, "The Power of Five,"
the girls meet
at their school, Sheffield Institute, and discover
they have super
powers. They also have wings. Together, they battle
monsters.

Translated from Italian, the book is written in a
breezy style. For
example: The principal, Mrs. Knickerbocker, "stalked
around the
school with her ample chest thrust out before her and
her even more
ample backside swishing from side to side with
terrifying force. It
reminded Taranee of the swirling brushes of a street
sweeper, dead
set on ridding the hallways of filth (otherwise known
as loitering
students)."

Disney sees grand possibilities for "W.I.T.C.H.,"
including action
toys, clothing and maybe even a movie. There is a TV
series in
development in France. "The TV show will be edgier,"
Dugan says. "It
will draw more boys. It will have lots of action and
be more cutting
edge."

Disney has also created Web sites for fans in Finland,
the
Netherlands and other spots around the globe. "Girls
in Poland are
talking to girls in Brazil," Dugan says.

In the face of its split with Pixar Studios
(responsible for silver
screen hits such as "Toy Story" and "Finding Nemo"),
rating woes at
its ABC network and an internal power clash between
Chief Executive
Michael Eisner and former director Roy Disney that
coincided with a
multiyear stock slide, Disney is hungry for some
hopeful signs.

The first "W.I.T.C.H." story was published in 2001 in
Italy -- where
Disney has a lucrative tradition -- by the same team
of Milanese
cartoonists that produces a weekly magazine featuring
Topolino, the
Italian version of Mickey Mouse. Topolino was
introduced in 1932.
Average weekly sales of Topolino in Italy these days:
320,000
copies. In Germany, sales of Mickey Mouse magazine are
even bigger.

Several years ago, the Italian group was assigned "to
come up with a
concept that would appeal primarily to girls," says
Ellen
Morgenstern, communications director for Disney
Publishing
Worldwide. "W.I.T.C.H." has worked in every place it's
been
launched, she says, even in China and other "countries
that are very
stringent about the content they allow you to bring
in."

The writing is not edited for each country,
Morgenstern says, but
sometimes illustrations are redrawn to be more
geo-appropriate. "In
Saudi Arabia we had to make the socks on the girls go
up a little
higher."

Will "W.I.T.C.H." cast a spell on American girls?
Sheilah Egan, a
bookseller at A Likely Story in Alexandria, says that
her store will
definitely be stocking "W.I.T.C.H." "They're going to
be cute," she
says. But, she adds: "It's very odd. They are
manufacturing a set of
characters not based on a previous book, a fairy tale
or something."

She points out that "people are hungry for the
fanciful."

Other contemporary series, such as "The Babysitters
Club" and "Sweet
Valley High," also appeal to girls.

Sometimes, Egan says, series appear and then just fade
away. "Other
times," she says, "they hit at just the right time."

Deborah Johnson, book buyer for Child's Play on
Connecticut Avenue
NW, says she has seen the books in Disney's spring
catalogue, but
she is not planning to buy any. "I believe in books
that come from
authors' minds and not from committees," she says.

"There are so many good books in the world that speak
to people more
directly and come from writers' hearts as well."

She adds, "Why give children books that encourage them
to watch
television?"

Staff writer Frank Ahrens contributed to this report.
 


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