+Postage Due+Disney-comics digest #196.

[Don Rosa]

HARRY:

	In America, the word "cousin" is commonly held to refer to your
aunt & uncle's kids. However, that is not the dictionary definition. The
true meaning of the word is "any distant relative". I guess there was no
specific name for those kids of aunts and uncles, so they were refered
to as "cousins", and people eventually incorrectly assumed that a
cousin is specifically that relative and no other. So the actual meaning
of "cousin" is not so different from your "neef".

TRYG: 
	I don't have time this morning to go into this matter as deeply
as I easilly could. But the reason that Disney comics are ignored in
America nowadays, even though they were as far-and-away the most popular
comics in America years ago as they have ALWAYS been everywhere else in
the world, reached all the way back to the early 60s, and is tied to the
whole reason for the twisted structure of the tiny but profitable
American comic market.
	Because of TV, kids stopped reading comic books. Companies who
had their fingers in many other pies, such as Dell/Gold Key, had no
reason to try to save a failing industry, and let their product slide,
as well they should have. But there were TWO companies who did nothing
but super-hero comics (DC & Marvel) and had to stick it out. There were
fewer and fewer kids reading comics every years, so Marvel was the first
to hit on the idea of continued stories to make kids buy EVERY monthly
issue, whereas before that every kid in the country bought comics but
only a few each month. This worked, and the next idea was super-hero
teams and cross-overs and tying the "universes" all together to compel
kids to buy ALL the company's product, rather than specific titles. This
also worked. However, the buyer base was still shrinking too rapidly and
there were not enough comic buyers in America to make national
distribution profitable. Then the magic idea of DIRECT SALES was
invented, which saved American comics and is the ONLY reason they
continue to exist -- without direct sales and the circumvention of
national distribution, American comics would cease to exist overnight.
With these direct sales came the idea of comic books as "collectibles"
rather than reading material, all promoted by the only two companies
with any market share, DC & Marvel. Nowadays, because of the direct
sales system, even TINY companies can wrestle the market share away from
theose two former giants, since distribution, formerly the most COSTLY
part of publishing, now costs nil. As a result, in 1990s America, comic
books are a tiny "cult" hobby which makes large profits for several
very, very tiny companies.
	How does this relate to the unpopularity of the Disney's? Simply
that DC & Marvel did not publish the Disneys, so they literally
disappeared from the scene, and were no part of the reshaping of the
industry. Tryg says that someday a generation will grow up having never
read a Disney comic??? Where have you been? That's already happened!
There were NO Disney comics in America for over 5 years, and due to Gold
Keys bad handling, there were effectively no Disney comics in America
from about 1970-1986. This loss of a generation is the single biggest
hurdle for Disney comics to jump, and one that I am convinced is far too
big to ever manage. No matter HOW good the comics are that Gladstone or
Disney or whoever turns out, American Disney comics are doomed to being
shunned by the "cult" of comic buyers since they are of the generation
that are taught upon entering the hobby that they are to SHUN Disney
comics and ONLY read Super-hero comics. Of course, as you say, it's the
super-hero comics that are childish and silly, no matter how violent
they are, but when an American gets a particular impression of what
peer pressure expects him to believe, THAT'S what he believes without
thinking for himself. 
	Since America is the only place on earth where the comic book
market collapsed and a super-hero based "cult" sprang up, this is the
only country where Disney comics are not king. The rest of the world is
just as America would still be if they had never invented TV.
	And if you haven't been on here long enough to hear how well the
Disney comics sell in Europe, here's my usual example: In Norway, a
country of 4 million people, DONALD DUCK sells 250,000 each WEEK. For an
American comic to sell that well PER CAPITA, it would need to sell about
80,000,000 copies per month!!!! But a good-selling American comic sells
about 100,000 copies a month, made profitable by the "cult hobby"
system. In 1950, Dell's cut-off for cancelling a failing comic book was
when it sold only 1,000,000 copies per month. UNCLE $CROOGE sold 2 to 3
million copies per month. That was over 40 years ago. With all the
extra kids in the country now, what should those sales have risen to? 5
million? 10 million. Instead the sales of an American Disney comic is
about 50,000. 
	That's how it happened and it will never change since American
kids (and their parents) are only getting stupider, not smarter, as each
year goes by.
	Questions?