I'm talking about the legacy that the original 1987 DuckTales TV series has among American audiences. Obviously the new TV series also contributes to that popularity, but the pattern has been very clear with earlier Disney comics publishers such as Gemstone and Gladstone II: the Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse books tend to get cancelled after a while, whereas WDC and (in particular) Uncle Scrooge are the titles that sell well enough to continue.
While I enjoy watching it (mostly), the new DuckTales TV series is a mess, and seems to be devolving into fan pandering by supposedly reintroducing all of the Disney Afternoon characters in the promo poster. But that is being discussed in another post in another section, so I'll stop there. In terms of legacy, it is somewhat telling that many DuckTales items at places like Hot Topic and Box Lunch (and other trendy mall stores with two word names) do seem to use the 1987 designs over the reboot, though. Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney's Comics and Stories do seem to be the legacy titles that keep going the longest (even after dropping "Walt" from the title), don't they?
Precisely. My feeling is that since WDC offers a package with all the characters, it attracts more buyers than the specific Mickey and Donald books. Whereas Uncle Scrooge sells because 80s and 90s nostalgists see it in the comic shop and go, "OMG, DuckTales! Remember?! Wooo-ooooh!!"
I'm talking about the legacy that the original 1987 DuckTales TV series has among American audiences. Obviously the new TV series also contributes to that popularity, but the pattern has been very clear with earlier Disney comics publishers such as Gemstone and Gladstone II: the Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse books tend to get cancelled after a while, whereas WDC and (in particular) Uncle Scrooge are the titles that sell well enough to continue.
While I enjoy watching it (mostly), the new DuckTales TV series is a mess, and seems to be devolving into fan pandering by supposedly reintroducing all of the Disney Afternoon characters in the promo poster. But that is being discussed in another post in another section, so I'll stop there. In terms of legacy, it is somewhat telling that many DuckTales items at places like Hot Topic and Box Lunch (and other trendy mall stores with two word names) do seem to use the 1987 designs over the reboot, though. Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney's Comics and Stories do seem to be the legacy titles that keep going the longest (even after dropping "Walt" from the title), don't they?
Once "Walt" (ya know, the guy who STARTED all this) was dropped from the title, it was no longer a "legacy"!
-- Carl Barks didn't write "Fresh and Modern"... He wrote WELL!
I'm talking about the legacy that the original 1987 DuckTales TV series has among American audiences. Obviously the new TV series also contributes to that popularity, but the pattern has been very clear with earlier Disney comics publishers such as Gemstone and Gladstone II: the Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse books tend to get cancelled after a while, whereas WDC and (in particular) Uncle Scrooge are the titles that sell well enough to continue.
You might be right, but I always thought (based purely on gut feeling, with no empirical evidence whatsoever, I hasten to add) that the American Disney comics market, at least since the mid-80s, has survived (in fits and starts) mostly thanks to collectors and fans of the classic Duck stories of Barks and his contemporaries, and successors like Rosa, Van Horn and the foreign artists, rather than those who joined the bandwagon due to the Disney Afternoon (thus, the Disney Comics Implosion). DuckTales would hold no particular appeal to the former. Perhaps Mickey isn't as popular, even with the collectors' market, but why Uncle Scrooge and WDC&S always make the cut, but the Donald books don't, I'm not sure. Do the Mickey and Donald titles sell that much more poorly than the Scrooge and WDC&S titles?
Either it's due to Ducktales, or if you want to go with the niche collector's market idea, Scrooge's a higher rated character since it's Barks' own creation. Odds are, it's both aspects at once.
