Disney comics in 2020?

[hjv]

Hi everybody,

I wonder if someone knows which countries that nowadays have a regulary disney comic publication. In the nordic countries we still have weekly magazines but how about the other world? If some kind person could help me put togheter a type of list i would be grateful. 

/H

[hex]

The inducks database is great for these kind of lists/statistics. Here is a list of all Disney comics published in 2020 sorted by country:

inducks.org/compmag.php?date2=2020&order=cp

There are more, like China, Brazil and Spain, but this years comics are not added to the database yet. So it might be better to do the same search for 2019 instead.

Edit: Looks like the serach is limited to 999 comics when searcing for 2019...

[mickeyanddonaldfan]

The Italian and Dutch comics are still going strong.

[hex]

Here are the number of comic books registered in the inducks database (as of today) and published in 2019:

Brazil 73
China 34
Denmark 96
Estonia 8
Finland 201
France 114
Germany 167
Greece 155
Indonesia 44
Italy 423
Latvia 4
Lithuania 13
Netherlands 246
Norway 130
Poland 31
Russia 1
Spain 24
Sweden 118
USA 117

This will give you an idea about where comics are still being published, but there are probably a few more. Looks like Iceland still have weeklies published f.ex. And Disney Princess and Frozen magazines with comics are regularly being published in United Kingdom (and probably more countries not on the list) if you count them as comics.

[budi79]

It is interesting that Egmont holds rights for most of the Europe - but does not publish any comics in most of their territories - and does not allow any other companies to release Disney comics. They just sit on the rights for nothing. Few big local publishing companies around Europe (mostly Central end Eastern) released statements that there is no way to get rights for any of the Disney stuff from Egmont or from Disney directly (or Panini) - because of Egmont (Egmont is still strong on publishing Disney picture and coloring books). Their rights are pretty strong and are also covering Glénat Disney and other "non-disney" Disney stuf. Egmont also hold rights for all possible publications associated with new Disney movies sometimes causing problem for movie distributors willing to release tie-in promotional publications not covered by local Egmont branch.

[Mesterius]

Apr 4, 2020 23:08:48 GMT budi79 said:

It is interesting that Egmont holds rights for most of the Europe - but does not publish any comics in most of their territories - and does not allow any other companies to release Disney comics. They just sit on the rights for nothing. Few big local publishing companies around Europe (mostly Central end Eastern) released statements that there is no way to get rights for any of the Disney stuff from Egmont or from Disney directly (or Panini) - because of Egmont (Egmont is still strong on publishing Disney picture and coloring books). Their rights are pretty strong and are also covering Glénat Disney and other "non-disney" Disney stuf. Egmont also hold rights for all possible publications associated with new Disney movies sometimes causing problem for movie distributors willing to release tie-in promotional publications not covered by local Egmont branch.

Which countries/territories where Egmont holds the rights do not get any Disney comics published? I'm curious.

Also, there are some exceptions to Egmont holding ALL rights to the Disney comics in their countries. In Denmark, the license for the Glénat albums (which Egmont has no interest in doing more of) was recently given to the fan-founded publisher Comic Factory.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Apr 4, 2020 22:12:28 GMT mickeyanddonaldfan said:

The Italian and Dutch comics are still going strong.

"Strong" is maybe a strong word here. I would say that "they survive". 
In case you guys are wondering why it is the case despite the current pandemic, a little explanation about the Italian situation.

As you may know, Italy is currently implementing the strictest rules on social distancing and quarantine, as one of its twenty regions, Lombardy, is the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic in the world. The only shops that are allowed to be opened are supermarket/grocery stores, pharmacies, tobacco shops and newspaper kiosks. Until the end of Avril citizens are not allowed to get out, except to go for foods and drugs. (Police will give you tickets for thousands of euros if they catch you out for no reason, and you risk five years of prison n case you are already infected.) If the newspaper kiosks are on the path for your supermarket, you can buy some magazine or comics book. Italian Disney comics are almost* exclusively sold in kiosks, as it is the case in most European countries. So, for the moment Disney publications are not affected too much by the pandemic. 

Of course, a lot depends on how long this situation will go on. It is probable that all the comic industry will have to reinvent itself if the social distancing becomes norm in the coming years.



* In Italy mainstream comics series (Bonelli's stuff like Tex or Dylan Dog, Diabolik, all the Disney stuff, even pornography, and so on) have always been conceived to be sold in kiosks/magazine shops, not differently from comic books in the US in the 40's and 50's. Still today comic book shops remain mainly the reign of graphic novels, French-style albums and collection editions. In recent years all the mainstream kiosk-like series, Disney, Bonelli and so on, have started to appear in comic shops too. But most of the selling are still from magazine shops, so a full conversion to comic book shops is still out of interest for the publishers.    

    

[That Duckfan]

Some of the Italian comics are also published online, right?

[anomyduck]

I think people can still buy books online(also i think i saw somewhere topolino is still published))

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

I do not know about other online sellers, but in this period in Italy and France Amazon is only allowing to order books for kids, not for grown up. I do not know if comic books qualify as kid books.

[Spectrus]

Apr 5, 2020 11:15:21 GMT That Duckfan said:

Some of the Italian comics are also published online, right?

Yes, there's also a digital subscription if I'm not mistaken.

Obviously Italy is hit very deeply by the current situation (and my thoughts go out to all the writers and readers affected by it), on the other hand it's one of the strongest comics markets so I doubt that the virus is a fatal blow... unlike some other countries, which probably didn't have strong sales to begin with.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Apr 5, 2020 11:15:21 GMT That Duckfan said:

Some of the Italian comics are also published online, right?

Yes, you can subscribe to the digital version of Topolino. So, you can get all the new Disney comics online.

I don't known about old stories. They are reprinted in many monthly anthological series, but I doubt that those are available in digital form.

[cacou]

Apr 4, 2020 21:54:22 GMT hex said:

The inducks database is great for these kind of lists/statistics. Here is a list of all Disney comics published in 2020 sorted by country:

inducks.org/compmag.php?date2=2020&order=cp

There are more, like China, Brazil and Spain, but this years comics are not added to the database yet. So it might be better to do the same search for 2019 instead.

Edit: Looks like the serach is limited to 999 comics when searcing for 2019...

Hi! I removed the 999 limit. Also, this page may give a better overview of the publications in each country for a given year

inducks.org/legend-country.php?view=2&c=2019

[cacou]

Apr 4, 2020 22:53:55 GMT hex said:

Here are the number of comic books registered in the inducks database (as of today) and published in 2019:

Brazil 73
China 34
Denmark 96
Estonia 8
Finland 201
France 114
Germany 167
Greece 155
Indonesia 44
Italy 423
Latvia 4
Lithuania 13
Netherlands 246
Norway 130
Poland 31
Russia 1
Spain 24
Sweden 118
USA 117

This will give you an idea about where comics are still being published, but there are probably a few more. Looks like Iceland still have weeklies published f.ex. And Disney Princess and Frozen magazines with comics are regularly being published in United Kingdom (and probably more countries not on the list) if you count them as comics.

And data for other years as follow

countrycode^n2019^n2018^n2017^n2016
it^423^440^466^416
nl^246^261^254^244
fi^201^241^265^222
de^167^228^281^273
gr^155^139^104^116
no^137^136^155^168
se^118^119^127^120
us^117^157^211^221
fr^114^115^139^151
dk^96^93^100^100
br^73^73^171^172
id^44^65^68^95
cn^35^52^103^131
pl^31^29^32^39
es^24^34^4^0
lt^13^26^37^44

This suggests there is still a weekly in it, nl, fi, gr, no, se, fr, dk

[hex]

The inducks database is great for lots of things. But one disadvantage with using the database for statistics is that it doesn't have any category standards you can use to filter the search (the ones added are different from country to country). Ex. if someone index 300+ issues of a daily newspaper for 2019, that would ruin the statistics as you probably don't want those counted among comic books. Also there are fanzines, books about comics etc. – and for Greece especially, there's a large number of children's books that have nothing at all to do with comics added. I would have been nice to have all of those filtered away in a search.