In 1993, when the Walt Disney Company stopped publishing their own Disney comics, and instead Gladstone reacquired the license for the monthly Duck and Mouse comics, Marvel Comics got the comic book rights to all Disney characters created from the 1980s onward.
Marvel Comics has published comics such as Aladdin, Beauty And The Beast, and The Little Mermaid since this point. The titles are mostly drawn by the Jaime Diaz Studio, although current Mickey newspaper strip cartoonist Rick Hoover has drawn an occasional issue.
Later they only published two Disney comic books: Disney's Comics Hits and Gargoyles.
The issue of Disney Comics Hits that came out December 1996 stated that it was the last issue. (I don't know if Gargoyles's last issue was even earlier.)
The modern Disney license
has gone over to
Acclaim Comics.
regularcharacters, they cut a deal with Marvel for newsstand distribution. In this, Marvel bought the lion's share of the print runs of Gladstone comics and passed them through their distribution channels to reach the returnable newsstand market. This provided Gladstone with a buffer against the often ruinous return rate for comics in that market, though they were required to change the Gladstone logo on the covers to the box that stated
Disney Comics distributed by Marvel. They in fact ran two versions of the covers, one with the Marvel box, and one with the Gladstone logo, those copies going to the distributors handling the nonreturnable direct market. Aside from that one change on the covers (the UPC code boxes changed between direct market and newsstand editions as well, but they always do), all copies were otherwise identical.
This arrangement was for a specified period, and after that, late 1995, Marvel was not interested in renewing it, and Gladstone had to take the returnable hit themselves. The final one that Marvel distributed was Uncle Scrooge #292.
On some issues from that period all copies carry the Marvel stamp.
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