Gemstone
Margaret Rutledge
margaretrutledge at earthlink.net
Fri Dec 1 19:56:11 CET 2006
My family is very, very happy with Gemstone, and we wish them all the
best. It is very sad that Disney doesn't help with the promotions,
but they have their own Disney Adventures publication to push. It has
comics in it too, but not with the classic characters.
My brother and I loved the duck comics when we were children, and as
an adult I bought them whenever I saw one, so I have lots of old Gold
Key comics. When Gladstone began publication I subscribed
immediately, and my children grew up on Uncle Scrooge and Donald
Duck. My son later moved on to Groo and Asterix, but still reads
every new one I get when he comes home from college. He loves Don Rosa.
We followed the Gemstone's efforts to get publishing rights since the
Carl Barks fan club newsletter had updates on the incredible struggle
negotiating with Disney's ever changing legal team. Steve Geppi
deserves a lot of credit for persistence, and he must have done it
for love because a normal businessman would have thrown up their
hands and walked away.
The Gemstone people have all been very nice to us when we stop by
their booth at Comic-Con. Last year they saved their only copy of the
Duck Tales collection for me to buy after they showed it at their
panel. We've met Don Rosa several times now, and once he talked to
the children for quite a while. I gave my son a signed copy of The
Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck for a high school graduation present.
I live in southern California and personally complained at
Disneyland's city hall because they don't sell the comics, and didn't
give them out during Free Comic Book Day. I have always thought
Disney's reputation for marketing was undeserved - you couldn't find
any movie-related items at the parks when Pirates of the Caribbean
was packing them in at the box office. My daughter had to buy her
Aztec gold necklace at a Lord of the Rings convention! I was told
Disney didn't own the marketing rights to everything Disney-related,
but that sounded pretty lame to me.
Margaret Rutledge
margaretrutledge at earthlink.net
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