Why I stopped buying Disney

[AndrewP603@aol.com]

Don,
  There may be one other bit that may interest you about the store that was
selling Lo$ 3 and 4 for $10 and $5.  Each month they rank the top ten hottest
new comics.  When I stopped into the store, guess what was in the #1 spot,
ahead of Spawn (which doesn't deserve to be up there at all), ahead of
Sandman (which does), and ahead of everything?  You bet.  Uncle Scrooge #288
(Lo$ 4).  And they even hung an extra sign next to it which read something
like "You'll be sorry if you miss this one!"  (Don't get too excited: I
should also mention that one of the other main comic stores in town, where I
used to shop, has apparently stopped selling Disney comics all together.)

  You were wondering why I stopped buying Disney comics when Disney took them
over.  Well, there were a number of reasons:
  
First of all, I loved the job that Gladstone was doing at producing the
Disney line.  I couldn't see any reason to yank the licence away from them
when they were doing such a good job.

When Disney took over the line they flat-out canceled the Donald Duck series.
 It was one of the longest-running series in comic history, dating back to
around 1940.

The editorial quality dropped.  When you read a Gladstone comic, you could
always tell from the letters columns and articles that the people cared about
the artistic value of Disney Comics.  The people at Disney aimed didn't seem
to care about the Barks and Rosa fans.  It was as if they were saying,
"Everyone else in America thinks Disney comics are just for kids.  So do we!"

In my opinion, the writing and art took a turn for the worse.  They used
almost exclusively people that I had never heard of before (with the
exception of DDA #1).  A look at the credits in Disney's first WDC&S shows
Les Lilley, Victor Arriagada Rios, George Beal, Julio Ramos, Jack Sutter, and
Fernandez.  I haven't heard of one of these people!

And also, they raised the price by 50%, which is pretty substantial.


  Well, there you have it.  An in depth look at why I stopped buying Disney
comics.  (And by the way, mind filling me in on "the same reason I've heard
from all the other people I've asked this of"?)

Andrew Peterson