The Wizards of Mickey book is the most interesting news this month. The stories in the first volume have previously been published in English digitally and (as a huge mess) by Boom! But it sounds like more volumes are planned, and I've been wanting to check out some of the more recent Wizards stories.
Also, Yen Press haven't been publishing these kinds of Disney comics before. They are mostly focusing on manga style comics, but maybe that is changing now (?)
If this book is translated by the same people who did the later IDW books and the Dark Horse Literary Parodies books, that’s a “No Sale” for me. Get someone who knows the material, like David Gerstein or Jonathan Gray (who did a fantastic job with Duck Avenger: New Adventures), and then maybe.
The original French book is called Mickey All Stars too. According to inducks it looks like the book is a compilation of one-pages from various creators. There are other books in the series, like Café "Zombo", Mickey et l'océan perdu and Horrifikland that looks more interesting (to me at least) than this one, and I hope we get those in English someday too.
The original French book is called Mickey All Stars too. According to inducks it looks like the book is a compilation of one-pages from various creators. There are other books in the series, like Café "Zombo", Mickey et l'océan perdu and Horrifikland that looks more interesting (to me at least) than this one, and I hope we get those in English someday too.
Thank you. I know the series, I lived in Paris when they came out a couple of years ago. Now I am not in France so I was not following how the Glénat project is evolving.
The original French book is called Mickey All Stars too. According to inducks it looks like the book is a compilation of one-pages from various creators. There are other books in the series, like Café "Zombo", Mickey et l'océan perdu and Horrifikland that looks more interesting (to me at least) than this one, and I hope we get those in English someday too.
It's one of only two Glénat books I've bought so far. Basically there is a framing device (Mickey walks through a door) and then every artist got one page to do something that links to it, often the results are very wild. Some of the art styles are pretty ugly IMO, but there are some real nice ones too. Not so surprisingly though, I vastly prefer those of the regular Disney artists - Fecchi's page is especially nice and funny and makes me wish for more Mouse by Massimo...
Uncle Scrooge #57 was pushed back to December 2nd. Uncle Scrooge #58 is currently listed for September 23rd but that will likely be pushed back as well if #57 isn't out by then. #58 was the last issue to have been solicited.
Disney Comics and Stories #14 was removed from the Diamond catalog entirely. This suggests to me that it got cancelled. That was the last issue to have been solicited. #13 was released a couple weeks ago which means that is the final issue of the series for now.
Edit: On the bright side, this Free Comic Book Day Giveaway for Disney Masters by Fantagraphics will be out on August 19th.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Sept 5, 2020 6:15:14 GMT
I have seen that there is a site providing the number of selling of (single issues) comic books in the US through the so called direct market, i.e. in comics books shops. With my great surprise, I have discovered that the likes of Uncle Scrooge sell less than 1000 copies per month (not counting the trade paperbacks). In a country of at least 350 millions people!!! (380 millions if those numbers apply to whole North America.) How exactly these comics even exist? How they can even cover the cost of printing? How can the entire norther American marked exist, considering that the best selling monthly comic book (typically Batman) rarely goes above 120000 copies?
As a comparison, despite a continuous tremendous crisis that has halved its sales in the last years, Topolino magazine allegedly sells around 110000 copies per week. In a country with a bit more than 60 millions inhabitants, which is 1/5 of the US population. In proportion, that would be like selling 11000 x 5 = 550000 copies per week (more than 2 millions per month!) in the US. And I repeat, it's a magazine whose sales are picking down rapidly and whose survival in the decades to come is at stake! Sure, Italy could possibly be the third greatest national market for comics in the world after the crazy gigantic Japanese and French markets. Nonetheless, the American numbers - as provided by the only distributor Diamond, I guess - still don't make much sense to me, honestly.
It is weird. Isn’t availability a big problem in the US? That comics are mainly sold in a relatively small number of speciality stores, leaving large parts of the country without any closeness to them?
From what I understand, the American comic industry is almost exclusively being propped up by the purchases made by long time fans currently aged at least 30, with the only kids getting into comics mostly doing so because their parents are already into comics and want to share their hobby with their kids. When I lived in America 10 years ago, the only comics available to your average kid was Archie digests in the checkout line at Walmart, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn those are gone now as well.
Comics aren’t dying in the U.S. They’re dead. And no one wants to admit it.
Well, if I understand correctly, in the US independent comics, graphic novels (I hate this expression, but you get what I mean: one-shot stories sold as books) and Japanese comics sell more or less as in the rest of the world. Which means a lot in the case of mainstream mangas and as few as you would expect for all the rest of the more niche stuff. I guess that you mean to say that 'single issues monthly comic books' are dead. Well, as they should, I add. I do not see how getting a story in pieces, at a rate of 20 pages per month (not in a magazine with other stuff) is a pleasant way to consume comics. There are other more reasonable selling formats. For instance, in Japan the 16-to-20 page long chapters of a comic series come out almost weekly, and in any case are sold in thick magazines with a plethora of other choices. In Italy mainstream comic series are monthly like in the US, but every issue has 96 pages per month (in some rare cases 64) and contains a whole story, which you can read and enjoy even if you are an occasional buyer who purchased that issue at the newsstand of the station to kill time while waiting for your underground train. basically a trade paperback per month! In France they basically got rid of periodicity (even if some comics magazines still exist, as in the rest of Europe) and they have decided that comics should be all sold as novels are in the regular book market: when the story is done, you publish it, AMEN. These are only the markets I know, but I guess there may be other approaches in smaller western countries. Now, all these 'more evolved' comics industries have their own share of problems, don't get me wrong. Nonetheless, I think that the American mainstream market can rise again, but the first step should be to get rid of certain outdated publishing traditions.
As for superheroes comics - the main genre sold in this weird northern American publishing scheme - I do not understand why they did not die already in the 60's or 70's. To me, they already sucked - narratively and aesthetically -when they were done by the likes of Jack Kirby, Chris Claremont, John Byrne and so on. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
EDIT: I want to clarify, to avoid offending anyone. I am not against the 24-pages American single issues, also known as 'floppies'. I just think that they should only be used the way they were intended to be used originally: contain stories whose length is at most 24 ages. And not fund a whole industry upon them
EDIT2: I want to clarify another thing, still to avoid pissing off somebody. I am not against the idea of superheroes per se. It's not the concept per se that sucks. (My favourite comic and story ever, One Piece, is a manga with people with superpowers similar to the archetypes of American comics, just to say.) It's the comic books themselves by Marvel, DC and often Image and Dark Horse that suck for me.
It is weird. Isn’t availability a big problem in the US? That comics are mainly sold in a relatively small number of speciality stores, leaving large parts of the country without any closeness to them?
Well, if the average comic book sells 500 (five hundreds) copies per month, it means that there are entire states of the country where less than 10 copies are sold. Not cities, STATES. Why would you even try to distribute in a capillar way?