Disney-comics digest #305.

Ronald A. Evry (Ronald) revry at tjhsst.vak12ed.edu
Wed Apr 20 18:19:40 CEST 1994


TO DON:

you said:
        And I thank the other nice person who suggested I could
collect
a royalty off my text pieces. But again... Gladstone would
avoid this by
not using my text pieces any longer. The thing you nice folks
don't seem
to grasp is that neither Gladstone nor Egmont are TRYING to
find a
system by which they would HAVE to pay me more money! No
publisher WANTS
to pay royalties -- but they find they MUST in order to get the
work
they want. Gladstone and Egmont MUST pay royalties to Disney to
use my
work (or any Disney stuff)... but they do not need to pay ME,
so they'd
be foolish to figure out a way to compel themselves to do so.


Actually, they would probably be better off letting you write a
forward to a collected Lo$ AND paying you additional royalties
for it for:
a) the publicity...they could put you on "Good Morning
America", etc...signings, the works...Marvel never HAD to pay
Lee to write forwards to the collections, but the publicity
value was enormous.
b) world-wide good will. It's about time that Disney Corp.
realized that old Walt is dead, dead, dead & they should hitch
their future on some warm bodies. A global personality cult
centered itself on CB without Disney's participation. Imagine
how their books would sell if they threw some of that enormous
PR machine on active artists....
c) future developments. I am assuming that they at least
realize the new life you and William Van Horn have breathed
into their characters. European stuff is nice, but you guys are
responsible for jump-started a dead vehicle in America.

Well, I've said my piece.

Probably you're right, they just don't give a tinker's damn
about their own stuff.

PS-- regarding your comments on the mouse -- Dan O'Neill knew
what MM was all about twenty years ago. THAT mouse had
character!
Ron



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