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<TITLE>Re: WDC&S complete reprints</TITLE>
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<FONT SIZE="2"><FONT FACE="Arial">on 3/26/03 7:08 AM, SRoweCanoe@aol.com at SRoweCanoe@aol.com wrote:<BR>
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ok, how about is Gemstone doing it?<BR>
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</FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Arial">Yes. From the “Disney Comics Return!” interview with Steve Geppi on IGN.com - <BR>
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</FONT><FONT SIZE="1"><FONT FACE="Verdana"> <B>IGNFF: What are your current plans as far as something that Gladstone never got around to, because I guess they were so entrenched in the comic album format, in that there's never been Disney trade paperbacks – like an Uncle Scrooge trade paperback with a couple hundred pages worth of stories?<BR>
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<FONT SIZE="1"><B> GEPPI:</B> Well, that's what I was just mentioning. In addition to the pocket size, we plan to do some compilations. One project that we're going to be doing late in the year is – you'd probably describe this more as a direct-market oriented project, because it's a reprint of classic <I>Walt Disney's Comics and Stories</I>. We plan to do an exact size and shape <I>Walt Disney's Comics and Stories</I>, starting with number one.<BR>
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<FONT SIZE="1"> <B>IGNFF: Oh really?<BR>
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<FONT SIZE="1"><B> GEPPI:</B> If you recall, Barks reprints – when they did the libraries for example, the Barks libraries – they started with number 31, because that's where Barks started. And even though these are strip reprints, we feel that if we're going to be the people publishing <I>Walt Disney's Comics and Stories</I> number 600 and something in an ongoing basis and continue the tradition, there is going to be a market – aside from the collectors – who'll want to go back and get, at reprint prices, a complete <I>Walt Disney's Comics and Stories</I> set. So, effectively, we could put them out like number 1, then number 2, number 3 – then collect them again into an archival package and a trade paperback version. For example, DC does <I>Superman</I> 1, 2, 3, 4 and then 5 – 8 in their archive editions. Well, the difference here is we would do, in a sense, <I>Superman</I> 1, 2, 3, 4 in separate issues, because they're big, thick, 64-page books, and collect them into maybe – and this is not all etched in stone, per se – an expensive, hard-cover, limited edition with the idea later of doing them in a trade paperback for the bookstore market. That would be a variety of ways to get revenue from those products, and packages that are more conducive to the different audiences. For example, the collector might want that limited edition hardcover, you know, in a very permanent looking package. The casual buyer, who might go to a Walden's or a Barnes and Nobles or whatever, might want that same thing, but it's the hardcover or soft cover thing that's worked for you forever. So we feel pretty confident that there's a market for that. It's already been established with the hardcovers – at $50 no less – that DC is selling. You're not going to get mass-market quantities at $50, but then that's where the trade paperback comes in. So you can do a lot with this, but I think that the mass market buyer – that name, that title... <I>Walt Disney's Comics and Stories</I> is just a perennial, and that's the right title to start with, and to see if we can't get people who are picking them up starting with number 600 and whatever, to work their way back in a nice shelf life, archival edition – keeping in mind that one of the perennial ideas that has worked in the past that we're going to look at... when I was a kid and you went to the food store with your mom, at the end of the aisle you'd see a little stand-up display where you bought the first encyclopedia for 99 cents. Then you were hooked, and every week when you came in you bought the additional ones – I'm giving my age away with the prices here. I think that's the Disney, again, because it's Disney and that brand is something that's got that continuity – like a <I>Walt Disney's Comics and Stories</I> – I can see something like that that a parent, especially a nostalgic parent, says, "Look at this, these are the same comics that when I was a kid. I can have this whole series ..." We sign them up, so to speak, in advance for <I>Walt Disney's Comics and Stories</I> for a long, long time.<BR>
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Take care, <BR>
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Rob<BR>
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