Disney Comic stories later paid for by Egmont

John Lustig john at lastkisscomics.com
Tue May 16 17:53:27 CEST 2006


on 5/16/06 3:13 AM, Bob Foster at dcml-request at nafsk.se wrote:

> If the money controllers had just stood behind us and supported us, we might
> have done some memorable, groundbreaking stuff. But, no... they had to squeeze
> us into monetary oblivion. Gladstone operated for years on a handful of
> dedicated and talented people in modest offices in an affordable area
> (Arizona). Disney had about 35 people in some of the most expensive real
> estate in Burbank, with computers (I didn't get one), secretaries (not me),
> and supervisors (I had four). No wonder they couldn't afford to publish
> comics. My favorite quote by one of the semi-suits - "Here at WD Publications,
> we're not building a publishing empire, we're building resumes."  They saw
> Disney Comics as a way to prove they could reduce budgets and still get the
> work done, then used that skill to get jobs elsewhere.
>  
> David, you also said, "But because Disney Comics, Inc. in Burbank had already
> paid for the scripts, Egmont didn't have to pay for them again."
>  
> I'm not so sure that's entirely true. I think Gutenberghus (Egmont) did buy
> the scripts, perhaps at a reduced price, but maybe also as a diplomatic favor
> to Disney. It doesn't make sense to me that the budget conscious folks in
> Burbank would ever simply give anything away without breaking even on the
> expense. 
> 
Bob, I couldn¹t agree with you more about why the philosophy and structure
of Disney management made its comic book line fail. From the beginning, the
organization seemed to be bloated. Worse, there was an attitude that just
because it was Disney that the comics were guaranteed to be big sellers.

As for stories commissioned and purchased by Disney Comics that were later
published by Egmont, I¹m about 90 percent positive that I did get paid for
at least one story (maybe two) twice‹first by Disney Comics and then later
afterwards by Egmont. I think the justification for the double payment was
that Egmont wanted me to reformat the story (which involved a bit of
re-writing.) All the duck stories I¹d done for Disney Comics were three
tiers per page. Egmont wanted all of its stories to be four tiers per page.

Best Wishes,
John Lustig
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