predicting becoming comics

[H.W.Fluks@kpn.com]

Simo:

> So: Are there differences between the market-prices of
> stories manufactured by different Disney comics producers?

What I understood from the Dutch editor is that all editors have a standard
price per page for reproduction and shipping of the proofs to be used.
The "intellectual" rights of the material is owned by Disney. So Disney gets
an amount of money for everything that's published.
A publisher can re-print as often as he desires: he only needs to pay
Disney, not the original publisher where they got the proofs from.

> Who owns the rights for
> Western/Dell stories, S-coded "Disney Studio" stories,
> AR-coded Another Rainbow stories, or old KF Sunday pages?

Disney, Disney, and Disney...

> They all just can't
> be some kind of common-free filling-material allowed to
> use for free by everyone who has paid the license to
> publish Disney comics? (- in such case you'd expect all
> weeklies and other issues to flood old re-re-re-printed
> stuff much more)

There are several reasons for a publisher to decide to publish new stories
in stead of reprints. Licence fees are not one of these reasons.

> Perhaps some attempts about cutting the costs have take
> place in a real world already?
> Some ten years ago the pocket books (260 pages) sold in
> Germany, Finland and all around the Scandinavia
[and the Netherlands]
> were
> compiled almost solidly about Italian stories. But since
> the mid-90's some 1/3 up to half of every book have been
> Danish Egmont's own stories.

As you already guessed, quality and culture differences are the reasons
here. Not production costs.

> On the other hand for the couple past years Egmont's
> weeklies have had quite a lot of short (2-6 pages) Dutch
> stories. Could this be because for Egmont it'd be more
> inexpensive to purchase some of the needed fillers from
> the Dutch producer than use it's own writers and artists,
> as it did yet some years ago? (Surely not the only reason
> but who knows?)

That may be one of the reasons, yes. Another reason is that Egmont editors
*like* the Dutch stories. 8-)

--Harry.