Marvel Disney implosion: further data

[9475609@arran.sms.ed.ac.uk]

      Hi, folks.

      Since I get the feeling few folks on this list also get the Disney 
TV mailing list or "ranger-list" (which, as I've said before, I'm not a 
member of, but am able to ftp from an archive), I thought it would be to 
everyone's benefit if I posted the following information, excerpted from 
a letter by the ranger-list's Ed Rudnicki.  Ed, if you're also on this 
group, you'll notice I've de-abbreviated a few comics' names so that 
things would be clearer to some of our foreign readers here.

      * * * * *

      "[According to Marvel Disney editor Hildy Mesnik] GARGOYLES will 
stay a monthly series. All the rest of the [Marvel] Disney titles will 
be condensed into a single title.  DISNEY'S CARTOON HITS ... is likely 
to be [the name of the comic].
      "The monthly series [that exist now] will have at least two more 
issues each, with the transition likely in August ... [DISNEY'S CARTOON 
HITS] will have THE LITTLE MERMAID, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, ALADDIN, THE 
LION KING, and possibly POCAHONTAS.  The DISNEY AFTERNOON title is the 
least popular [now] and likely won't get put into the rotation until 
next year.
      "[Marvel's] Disney titles [do] quite well for the genre, but not 
very well on an absolute basis, compared to the ... superhero titles 
that are Marvel's stock in trade. Hildy complained that their biggest 
problem is a lack of exposure - people don't know the titles are out 
there. They do get a very favorable response from those who are aware of 
them .... The Marvel "business" people like the cutbacks, but the 
creative and editorial groups are demoralized by them."

      * * * * *

      And so's Disney, I expect (I personally doubt Marvel will keep the 
features-characters license in the long run).  The complaint that 
"people don't know the titles are out there" is no surprise to me.  
Marvel's "business people" push them as kids' titles [regardless of any 
virtues or faults they may have], so they receive little discussion in 
the various comics publications.  Once again, the brass that's 
responsible for the problem appears not to recognize that they might be 
the ones at fault.
      With Gladstone, the reason that "people don't know the titles are 
out there" is, as far as I can figure out, the fact that Gladstone 
doesn't advertise.  The comics media reviews Gladstone's stuff very 
favorably when they actually hear about a project early enough to jump 
on the bandwagon and discuss it.  Also, Gladstone doesn't send 
review-copies to comic journals like other companies do, from what I 
understand.
      A postscript:  my local comic shops back home in Santa Barbara 
don't order droves of Gladstones (about 8 copies each), but the Marvel 
Disneys -- after an initial demand -- have begun selling so badly that 
the shops order only about TWO copies of each of them.

      David Gerstein
      <9475609 at arran.sms.ed.ac.uk>