Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Aug 7, 2021 0:12:36 GMT
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.
Oh yes sure, 'good stories'. The solution was simple and under my nose. How I could not think about it!
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.
I am sorry, but I don't think anything produced by Egmont has ever been great. With the obvious exception of Rosa, whose discovery should be credited to Gladstone.
Van Horn and Rota are the best I have seen from Egmont, and they are barely 'passable comics' to me, especially when it comes to the material they produced for Egmont. Maybe with a couple of good stories each, but 'great' is a word I would use for something else. Plus, in any case Van Horn is another talent stolen from Gladstone, as was Rota from Mondadori. The highest point in the history of Egmont's Disney comics is the Disney company taking back the license from Gladstone.
But what I think is or is not great comics is irrelevant to the discussion, that is just personal taste. The question is what could help recreate Disney comics in America. 'Doing like before' means nothing, and 'doing good stories' is just a tautology.
Then again, I do not want to discuss this thing. It is so unlikely to see this happening in the next ten years, that going too far in speculations seems a sterile exercise. (Unless some publisher wants to pay me to think about the problem. I can do that, if you pay me. But I have no expertise in the field, I must warn you. )