I know that there have been Disney comic crossovers with Asterix, and according to Inducks, Betty Boop has appeared in some 30's era Mickey Mouse comics. Any more?
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Oct 25, 2017 9:03:23 GMT
Well, there's been a crossover with Tintin, believe it or not. If cartoons count, there's also the very odd animated special Mickey's 60th Birthday where Mickey comes across characters from the sitcoms Family Ties and Cheers.
Post by Baar Baar Jinx on Oct 25, 2017 18:43:47 GMT
How exactly did the writers get away with this kind of thing? Did they get approval from Disney? Or are European publishers subject to less oversight from the company?
How exactly did the writers get away with this kind of thing? Did they get approval from Disney? Or are European publishers subject to less oversight from the company?
In the Astérix crossover's case, it was an accepted homage for the characters' 50th birthday, and as such as even published in an anthology hardcover of Astérix tributes printed that year, on top of its printings as a Disney story.
The Tintin one was a duck comic with Tintin characters, not a Tintin comic with Disney characters. It's with the Hergé copyright holders that there was trouble, and trouble there was, because you probably don't know this but it's almost a joke, in France, how sensitive about the Tintin copyright these guys are. Even though it was obviously a tribute story as opposed to plagiarism, they made a fuss and the Disney writers were forced to adress the characters in the stories by absurd workarounds ("Denden" for Tintin, "Hadciuk" for Haddock, etc.)
how sensitive about the Tintin copyright these guys are.
They didn't even allowed some foreign publishers to write a preface for "Tintin in the Congo", a clearly racist comic book that glorifies the cruel colonialization by Belgium in the Congo.
how sensitive about the Tintin copyright these guys are.
They didn't even allow some foreign publishers to write a preface for "Tintin in the Congo", a clearly racist comic book that glorifies the cruel colonialization by Belgium in the Congo.
Ehm, don't overdo it. Is it awfully colonialist? Yes. "Clearly racist"? …I dunno. There are issues with it certainly, but they seem to come more from Hergé blindly following clichés and colonialist propaganda for his depiction, than from a personal belief in white superiority. In short the book does promote colonialism and show European civlization as unequivocally superior, but I wouldn't say there's necessarily racism (belief in born superiority and inferiority) behind it.
Either way, this anecdote isn't really an example of how obnoxious they can be with copyright — I think it was more a matter of not wanting to admit Hergé wasn't an ever-right prophet of wholesome truth, than a copyright thing.
Either way, this anecdote isn't really an example of how obnoxious they can be with copyright — I think it was more a matter of not wanting to admit Hergé wasn't an ever-right prophet of wholesome truth, than a copyright thing.
That's true, although it shows that they are pretty strict if it is about Hergé. As for later albums (e.g. "The Blue Lotus") he was more conscious of what he is writing about (Benoit Peters (he wrote a biography about Hergé) states, that this was "an ideological turning point").
Pretty sure Disney can ask for permission to use characters of another company, occasionally (Who Framed Roger the Rabbit?). But since we are talking about comics, I do wonder if Egmont can do it as well.
Pretty sure Disney can ask for permission to use characters of another company, occasionally (Who Framed Roger the Rabbit?). But since we are talking about comics, I do wonder if Egmont can do it as well.
Roger Rabbit was, of course, a special case; and the mixing of characters from different studios was limited to the movie itself. Disney couldn't use non-Disney characters in the Roger Rabbit comic books, for example. (Droopy somehow appeared in the theatrical shorts.)
But coming back to these Tintin/Asterix crossovers, did the European publisher seek Disney's permission to mix their characters with non-Disney characters? And was that permission easily forthcoming? The impression I've gotten over the years is that, while they have little interest in the comics themselves (except for that brief stint where they self-published), Disney tends to micromanage the licensed publishers who do put out the comic books; or at least the American ones. Both Asterix and Tintin are relatively unknown in the US, so I'm not sure what they would have thought of these proposed crossovers if their permission was indeed sought. I guess an equivalency in American comics would be mixing the Ducks with, say, Batman or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I wonder if Disney would okay that. Does Disney exercise less control over European publishers?
And from the foregoing discussion it appears that permission was not sought from the owners of Hergé's properties ... which leads me to believe that Disney wasn't involved in the process, as I doubt their lawyers would allow such an egregious faux pas.
She never was officially. It all came from the Yugoslavian bootleg Mickey comics of Vlastimir Belkić, which, being the only Disney comics published at all in Yugoslavia, are also indexed on INDUCKS despite never having been authorized. Since he wasn't tied down contractually to Disney, and there were no other channels for those characters in Yugoslavia at the time, Vlastimir went all the way and gleefully inserted Popeye, Laurel & Hardy, and even Betty Boop as semi-recurring characters, providing such surreal imagery as this cover where Mickey serenades Betty. For more info, and links to scans, see the comment section of this post on Joe Torcivia's blog
But coming back to these Tintin/Asterix crossovers, did the European publisher seek Disney's permission to mix their characters with non-Disney characters? And was that permission easily forthcoming?
Probably so in the case of Astérix, since the story was originally published by Editions Albert René, the publisher of Asterix's albums in France.
In 1985, there was a Donald Duck appearence in the brazilian Monica comic book. Monica and her friends are very popular characters in Brazil. In this story, someone was making fun of her, sticking out his tongue through a hole in a fence. So, she paints the tongue in the hole and tries to find out who has the green tongue. After chase every character possible, she finally found the prankster: Donald Duck!
