I still voice my confusion at why there is so little actually being reviewed once it's released. I'd LOVE to know what US readers think about WOM beyond the first cycle.
Not US reader and I haven't read it in english, but:
In Poland only first story was published in 2008. At the back there was solicitation that second volume will be published in August. It's 13th year of waiting...
I decided to read it in Italian. Right now I'm after first Venerus/Marini story. My opinions:
WoM 2: Dark Age - First 3 chapters are the best. Mickey influenced by evil was the most entertaining thing in whole series in my opinion. Search for Great Armor (idk how it's translated) is slightly worse, but still good. Last part feel a little rushed.
Wom 3+4+5 (End of an era) - I expected that it won't be as good as previous ones. How wrong was I... First story is just good, some typical WoM story... But 2nd and 3rd, wow! It feels like it could have twice as many pages, but doesn't feel rushed at the same time. Exploration of background story of WoM world is also amazing.
WoM 6 (The New World) - I liked it. Phantom Blot is always good. First chapter introduces doomspiders. They feel like a pokemons a lot, but I like the idea. Second chapter with Trudy is my favourite from this cycle. Third one feels like a filler, only Phantom Blot past story was good there. Final part (or two parts) is return of quality ideas and I highly recommend it.
WoM 7 (Lemuria) - so this is probably the best part of WoM after Dark Age. Authors probably used all of their ideas there (this is the last Amborsio's story in WoM) and it feels like it, but also is a problem. Last 10 pages feel like a summary of 50 pages story. But the rest is great and I enjoyed it.
WoM 8 (Legacy) - so, say hello to Matteo Venerus. I stil don't know if I liked this story. It's more of 4 short stories with one theme. First one was mediocre, but Magica's one was really good. One about dragons was fun, but felt a little rushed. Final part has a good plot, but Phantom Blot is a little out of character, he wouldn't do things like these without good research and swot analysis lmao
WoM 9 (World's Mountains) - Hello, Roberto Marini. I really don't like style of his art. This is the worst looking mickey since Egmont stopped producing 3 rows stories with this character. Pastrovicchio's art was a little dark, with aura of secrets. Marini art looks childish and doesn't suit Wizards of Mickey series. This story is really nice, but nothing special.
At the moment: Ambrosio>Venerus Pastrovicchio>>>>Marini I hope next stories (Aurora, Magicraft, Oberon, Arena and Destiny) will be better, I have hopes - I think Venerus' plots can be better with a little of work and I think I will stand Marini's art if the plot is good enough.
Thanks! Maybe it would be best to have a dedicated WOM discussion because I could really reply a lot to this.
Although Lorenzo Pastrovicchio probably stands out as the most impressive artist of the series (no surprise he's back with the "Forbidden Kingdom" cycle), I do really like Marini. He's a pupil of Marco Rota, and you can see it especially in his Donald. Plus, the way he sometimes completely tears the traditional layout apart (combined with extremely detailed background art), is far out of the ordinary.
Bumping this thread to point out that IDW's Classic Disney comics (With the exception of the recently released Doorways to Danger graphic novel) are no longer available to purchase digitally from Comixology. I am taking this as official confirmation that they no longer have the license to publish anything, most likely having let it expire sometime within the past year. This honestly does not come as a surprise to me due to the way they kept reshuffling all the various series before leaving it at just Comics & Stories and Uncle Scrooge and coming out less frequently. There was likely a decline in readership over time and especially after the original translation team was unceremoniously replaced with no official explanation ever given. In my eyes, COVID was just the final nail in the coffin.
Thankfully, we still have Fantagraphics filling in the void of Classic Disney comics with their Disney Masters series but I'm sure many still miss having multiple series coming out in monthly formats. I don't have any doubt that another publisher will try to take the mantle sometime in the future as this has honestly been an ongoing song and dance for around 30 years now.
Note: If you had previously bought any of these comics on Comixology, then they should still be viewable with your library. They are just no longer listed on the main site or available to purchase. There is currently still a Disney section on IDW's official website but every subseries either leads to a blank page or has everything listed as out of stock.
With single issues of Disney comics no longer coming out on a regular basis, I had stopped posting in this thread regularly since I'm sure all the Fantagraphics stuff is being discussed in their own dedicated threads and being revealed through retailer listings before the official solicitations.
I'm sure all the Fantagraphics stuff is being discussed in their own dedicated threads and being revealed through retailer listings before the official solicitations.
Mostly discussed before it's released and then there's very little in the way of opinions, so not really much different from what used to happen here. I don't get it...
I don't have any doubt that another publisher will try to take the mantle sometime in the future as this has honestly been an ongoing song and dance for around 30 years now.
With Fantagraphics reprinting the vast majority of Disney comics that deserve to be reprinted (complete Gottfredson serials, complete Rosa, complete Barks, the best of other authors) and very few good Disney comics getting produced nowadays, I wonder what comic even would in a new monthy comic book get published.
I don't have any doubt that another publisher will try to take the mantle sometime in the future as this has honestly been an ongoing song and dance for around 30 years now.
With Fantagraphics reprinting the vast majority of Disney comics that deserve to be reprinted (complete Gottfredson serials, complete Rosa, complete Barks, the best of other authors) and very few good Disney comics getting produced nowadays, I wonder what comic even would in a new monthy comic book get published.
? I think there are certainly many good Italian Disney comics being produced today, and you could probably select good Egmont stories as well from the current production. (I don't follow Egmont's output regularly anymore, but Maya Åstrup is a great writer among the current creators there.)
In my opinion, for Disney comics to really catch on here in the US again, a publisher really needs to be able to create new material rather than just recycle Italian or other European stories. They need to be able to have creators that people here recognize and can maybe make appearances at conventions and help promote the books.
In my opinion, for Disney comics to really catch on here in the US again, a publisher really needs to be able to create new material rather than just recycle Italian or other European stories. They need to be able to have creators that people here recognize and can maybe make appearances at conventions and help promote the books.
It could be very interesting to see a mix of newly produced U.S. stories and localized European stuff. Especially if Disney allows the U.S. writers and artists some creative leeway.
Question is, though, will a U.S. publisher be willing to take the financial risk? Gladstone and Gemstone only very occasionally produced stories of their own (well, at least after Gladstone I).
In my opinion, for Disney comics to really catch on here in the US again, a publisher really needs to be able to create new material rather than just recycle Italian or other European stories. They need to be able to have creators that people here recognize and can maybe make appearances at conventions and help promote the books.
It could be very interesting to see a mix of newly produced U.S. stories and localized European stuff. Especially if Disney allows the U.S. writers and artists some creative leeway.
Question is, though, will a U.S. publisher be willing to take the financial risk? Gladstone and Gemstone only very occasionally produced stories of their own (well, at least after Gladstone I).
And there’s problem #2. Would it be worth the financial risk? Even Disney doesn’t sell Disney+ on the merits of classic Disney. Marvel, Star Wars, The Simpsons…the Disney brand doesn’t really keep Disney afloat.
It could be very interesting to see a mix of newly produced U.S. stories and localized European stuff. Especially if Disney allows the U.S. writers and artists some creative leeway.
Question is, though, will a U.S. publisher be willing to take the financial risk? Gladstone and Gemstone only very occasionally produced stories of their own (well, at least after Gladstone I).
And there’s problem #2. Would it be worth the financial risk? Even Disney doesn’t sell Disney+ on the merits of classic Disney. Marvel, Star Wars, The Simpsons…the Disney brand doesn’t really keep Disney afloat.
I don't really see Disney allowing much creative leeway, nor that approach generating enough of a sales boost when the comics struggle without actually paying for new US talent.
I think the biggest problem is visibility, more than anything else. I got into the comics growing up because my library carried the Gemstone prestige formats and pocket trades. At this point, a lot of the purchasing base for US Disney Comics is adults. I don't think this is so much because there isn't new US talent-- all the stories IDW was printing would have been new to kids, and the degree to which things have to be #relatable to kids is always overstated-- but principally because most kids just aren't very exposed to them. Almost all Disney products receive incredibly aggressive marketing, but Disney comics receive essentially none. There are very little odds of running into them outside of a comic shop, and the majority of kids don't go to comic shops now (of course, there are still plenty that do.)
Getting Disney comics in bookstores, grocery stores, Disney stores and parks, etc. would do a lot, I think. Having some kind of monthly or bi-monthly pocket trade that could be sold in more environments and carried at libraries would also probably get more visibility and investment than the slight compilation trades IDW was doing. There's plenty of unpublished long-form Italian material that would be easy to fill them out with.
Comics are also pretty expensive now thanks to print and paper quality, even adjusting for inflation, even if IDW did IMO offer better value than Marvel/DC on that front. Having some kind of bargain pocket digest line or something where the value proposition offered more story on the dollar-- and again, could get on different shelves-- might help that.
AzureBlue If you look back through this forum, you'll see that I also suggested pocket trades with a higher proliferation.
Especially since printing older 3-tiered material in such a format would 1) allow more stories to be printed in one issue and 2) free the "classic" lines for material that's actually made for the larger format (mostly Danish and Dutch).
In my opinion, for Disney comics to really catch on here in the US again, a publisher really needs to be able to create new material rather than just recycle Italian or other European stories. They need to be able to have creators that people here recognize and can maybe make appearances at conventions and help promote the books.
Yes, that is the only way according to me too. However, in order get some kind of success - or at least in order to be financially self-sustaining, this new wave of American Disney comics would have to be very different from the traditional ones (Barks, Rosa, or even the old and new Europeans...), which have proved not to break the northern American ice since the late 50's and are in crises in Europe too. I have no idea how they could do the trick, honestly. The publisher, editors and creators would have to find a formula to attract a fresh new audience. Me, I would personally try the graphic novel way. I do not like the expression 'graphic novel', I am using it here just to give you an idea of the format: no comic book floppies, no 'run', just self-contained stories, as many pages as necessary to properly tell it, sold as stand alone books. Like the French stuff by Glénat, only in some way more coherent and less experimental or author driven than that. But that's just me. Maybe there is a way to successfully insert these characters in the traditional comic book format, although that format is destined to disappear sooner than later. One way or another, it takes money, talents and actual will from the licensed publisher. Good luck finding that on Disney comics, especially nowadays.
However, in order get some kind of success - or at least in order to be financially self-sustaining, this new wave of American Disney comics would have to be very different from the traditional ones (Barks, Rosa, or even the old and new Europeans...), which have proved not to break the northern American ice since the late 50's and are in crises in Europe too.
I disagree with that assessment. I think what you need for a new wave of Disney comics to be successful are simply good stories, they don't necessarily have to be different from what we have had so far. The reason Disney comic readerships are drastically declining even in Europe is simple: Egmont stopped producing great comics. The decline really kicked in when Rosa retired, then was exacerbated by other great talens getting old and slowing down (such as Van Horn and Rota). Egmont's really bad decision to not produce long 4-tier comics anymore (with one or two exceptions per year) didn't help either.
Rosa and Barks get constantly reprinted in Europe, which proves that there is still a lot of appetite for good Disney comics. In Germany for example, Rosa has had not one, not two, but THREE hardcover collections in the past 15 years (Hall of Fame, Don Rosa Collection and now the Don Rosa Library). Barks' complete Duck comics are also constanty getting reprinted in Germany: softcover album series, Carl Barks collection, then a more affordable hardcover series and now another cheap softcover series. Of course not everyone can be Barks or Rosa but where is the Van Horn or Rota of the younger generation?
You can point to Midthun and his writer partners as younger talents, but let's be honest: even the best Midthun story is worse than a lesser Rosa story. Take A Christmas Crossing for example: it's esentially a Lo$ chapter 8/D, except they completely missed one of the Lo$ saga's biggest points! Scrooge and Goldie spent significant time together only once in the past: when Scrooge kidnapped her. And now they are together for the entire duration of A Christmas Crossing?! Why are you creating a Lo$ bonus chapter if you don't even understand the Lo$?
Then there is the new Arpin Lusene story, which I have not read yet, but is mediocre to bad according to people who have read it. First of all, why did it take Egmont 15 years after Rosa's retirement to finally make a new story with the best Disney character Rosa has created? And why did it take FIVE writers to write a mediocre ten-pager? This is ridiculous! But back to the main point: Egmont of course is blaming changing reading habits for the declining readership, and of course changing reading habits have contributed to it, but the main reason fewer and fewer kids are reading Disney comics is that none of their writers are writing good stories anymore. Egmont (or any Disney comic producing company that wants to be successful in 2021) need to find talented artists and more importantly: they need to LET THEM DO THEIR JOB.
And now we have reached my final point: Egmont's infuriating decision making. For example back when Rosa was still active, he was the only one who was allowed to create 4-tier comics longer than 24 pages. Two-parter? 16 pages. Three-parter? 24 pages? No ifs, ands or buts, unless you are Rosa. Egmont editor Byron Ericson is a great guy, I met him once, he was very kind to me, and I suspect those bad decisions at Egmont were mostly not made by him, but even he made some awful ones. When Rosa created the "Sharpie of the Culebra Cut" he was told by Egmont (and I am 99% sure it was Byron who told him this), that readers don't want more Lo$ stories, so Rosa sold the story to the French pubisher instead. What on Earth was Byron smoking?? And now they stopped making longer 4-tier comics entirely, except when Midthun and his parters make one per year.
Disney comic publishers are now riding the coattails of Barks and Rosa, but unless they start producing great Disney comics again, when the people who grew up in the 1990s die, Disney comics will be completely dead too.
If IDW has lost the license, and it's in limbo, I would love to form a non-profit, and have all of us who love these comics contribute and buy the license, then publish the comics our way. Sure, it'd be risky. Sure, we'd probably lose money. But instead of wasting our money on junk just to keep the comics going (and then seeing them fail anyway), we could waste our money on keeping a product alive that we all like!
Oh, and keep the original numbering going...
I am quite serious; if enough of us showed interest (and put the requisite money up), I would do the legwork to incorporate the non-profit, but I'd need a lawyer on board to negotiate with Disney for the license.
Perhaps a pipe dream, but I'll throw it out here to the community anyway just in case. Any millionaires reading this who want to be on board, perhaps as a silent partner if you are the humble type???