Russ Cochran's new company

[Wilmer Rivers]

I too have received one of the postcards from Russ Cochran, saying
that he has stopped being a business partner with Bruce Hamilton in
Another Rainbow / Gladstone.  He says that his new company will
issue a catalog in a few weeks.  Is anyone privy to the arrangements
of the original Hamilton / Cochran / Barks / Disney deal and can
thus explain who will now get what?  Specifically, will Cochran
be able to sell Barks lithographs, or does Another Rainbow have an
exclusive license to sell those?  If Hamilton retains rights to the
lithographs, then just what will Cochran sell?  I suppose we shall
see soon enough when he distributes his catalog, but I wonder what
kind of items we should expect to find offered there.  What sort of
deal did Barks make when Another Rainbow was founded?  Is he a legal
partner in the company, or is he just a vendor to them?  Can he take
his art work to another distributor that offers him a better deal?
What say-so does the Disney Corporation have in determining who can
sell the lithographs?  (It's hard to imagine their allowing anyone
to sell anything with a duck on it unless they have total licensing
control!)  I suppose I'm just being nosey, but I would like to know
what business arrangements underly the sale of Barks-inspired merchan-
dise, especially now that Don Rosa has told us all about the truly
wonderful deal he and other Disney artists and authors are given for
the royalties on the international reprinting of their stories :-)

Wilmer Rivers
rivers at seismo.css.gov