DCML digest, Vol 1 #143 - 29 msgs

bhc@primenet.com bhc at primenet.com
Sat Apr 29 01:23:46 CEST 2000


Lee R. wrote:

>To answer the question about the death of Gladstone, it seemed to have been
>caused by the Disney company itself. They put so many obstacles in front
>of the publisher, Mr. Bruce Hamilton, (they micro-managed stories, for
>example, and refused to let the comics be sold in their own stores (?!))
>that he decided it was not worth it anymore.  Supposedly a company called
>Diamond Comics (not Gemstone) was going to pick up the license: but I have
>heard that Disney is not really interested in selling such a license.  For
>them there is not enough profit: Gladstone was "only" selling c. 25,000
>copies per issue at the end.  You can debate whether or not that was due to
>the $6.95 price.

Some clarification: Diamond Comics Distributors, Inc. is a 
distribution company that owns Gemstone, a comics publisher. Diamond 
is the company engaged in a comics license negotiation with Disney, 
and both parties have been engaged in said negotiations for the past 
sixteen months.

Disney's take from comics is not based on sales, but on a guarantee 
agreed to by Disney and the publisher at the time of the signing of a 
license. This guarantee might be based on royalty calculations 
through the full execution of the license, i.e. x-number of issues of 
x-size of print runs distributed during x-number of years, or it 
might be whatever the publisher wants to offer or Disney asks to 
receive irrespective of such calculations. In any case, Disney's 
known for nearly a decade that the only thing they can realistically 
realize from comics is that guarantee, and all they really want to 
know is what sort of guarantee a publisher is willing to enter into, 
and under what terms. If Disney gets satisfaction, then they 
basically go home and the license runs its course.

(I know this sounds contradictory in the face of all the 
"micromanagement" reports involving Disney, but what I'm pointing to 
here is the bottom line in Disney issuing a license, not managing it.)

-- 
Gary

****************************
"I took the liberty of updating your resume. I'm guessing you'll need 
it soon" - the world's smartest garbage man
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gladstone *still* on the Web: http://www.brucehamilton.com/gladstone




More information about the DCML mailing list