Posted in: Recent Updates | Tagged: Comics, disney, marvel

The Mouse Of Ideas – Thinking It Through

Published Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:47:38 -0500

by Rich Johnston

Last updated Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:03:13 -0500

Comments

Some first thoughts.

It is not April 1st.

What does this mean for the Disney/Boom deal?

Will Marvel now have a big booth at D23 as well?

Will the Howard The Duck likeness legal mess be sorted out once and for all?

And is World War Ducks now on the slate?

Jason Wood, comic geek and market analysis tells us that Isaac Perlmutter is expected to have full autonomy, or certainly to begin with. And that publishing comics would only have been a small part of this deal, it's all about movies, merchandising and theme parks. Marvel's talent manager CB Cebulski twitters;

Not much more I can say right now. More info coming soon. We're told it's like when Disney bought Pixar… everything Marvel stays as is.

Of course, Disney don't exacty give that much priority to publishing their own comic books, so…

The conference call is just about to start. DC Comics have declined to make any comment. And now we're all on tenterhooks to discover just what Bob Wayne's first convention on-panel comment be.

UPDATED: That was the conference call that was… mostly dull finance people asking tiny questions to put in their marketing report and no one asked who was stronger, Mr Incredible or The Hulk.

The Thing was of course ahead of the curve – he already has four fingers on each hand!

Things I would have liked to ask included if Disney was going to roll back the non-recourse financing of Marvel movies which could, inthe event of a flop, see the financers pulling back rights to characters, and of course if Howard The Duck could now start to look a little more like his Donald The Duck influence, as he did originally.

You know it's only five years since Disney were suing Marvel.

The other elephant in the room is Diamond Book Distrubution. Marvel currently distibute to the book market exclusively through Diamond, and its very much an anchor to the operation.

If that were to move to a company that Disney has arranged terms with… and away from a company associated with Gemstone, that Disney just broke publishing ties with… well it won't be pretty.

And then there's Disney's Kingdom Comics line. Bet you good odds that become's Marvel's Kingdom Comics.

Nothing like a bit of scaremongering on a Monday morning is there? These are all questions. We are nowhere near answers yet…

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!