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<FONT FACE="Verdana">on 5/16/06 3:13 AM, Bob Foster at dcml-request@nafsk.se wrote:<BR>
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</FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Arial">If the money controllers had just stood behind us and supported us, we might have done some memorable, groundbreaking stuff. But, no... they had to squeeze us into monetary oblivion. Gladstone operated for years on a handful of dedicated and talented people in modest offices in an affordable area (Arizona). Disney had about 35 people in some of the most expensive real estate in Burbank, with computers (I didn't get one), secretaries (not me), and supervisors (I had four). No wonder they couldn't afford to publish comics. My favorite quote by one of the semi-suits - "Here at WD Publications, we're not building a publishing empire, we're building resumes." They saw Disney Comics as a way to prove they could reduce budgets and still get the work done, then used that skill to get jobs elsewhere. <BR>
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David, you also said, <I>"But because Disney Comics, Inc. in Burbank had already paid for the scripts, Egmont didn't have to pay for them again."<BR>
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I'm not so sure that's entirely true. I think Gutenberghus (Egmont) did buy the scripts, perhaps at a reduced price, but maybe also as a diplomatic favor to Disney. It doesn't make sense to me that the budget conscious folks in Burbank would ever simply give anything away without breaking even on the expense. <BR>
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</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Arial">Bob, I couldn’t agree with you more about why the philosophy and structure of Disney management made its comic book line fail. From the beginning, the organization seemed to be bloated. Worse, there was an attitude that just because it was Disney that the comics were guaranteed to be big sellers. <BR>
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As for stories commissioned and purchased by Disney Comics that were later published by Egmont, I’m about 90 percent positive that I did get paid for at least one story (maybe two) twice—first by Disney Comics and then later afterwards by Egmont. I think the justification for the double payment was that Egmont wanted me to reformat the story (which involved a bit of re-writing.) All the duck stories I’d done for Disney Comics were three tiers per page. Egmont wanted all of its stories to be four tiers per page.<BR>
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</FONT><FONT FACE="Verdana">Best Wishes,<BR>
John Lustig<BR>
Sign up for free weekly Last Kiss e-mail comics at www.lastkisscomics.com<BR>
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