Mickey SMASH
HOLY FUCK!
Walt Disney Buys Marvel Comics for $4 billion!
Actually the first thing I thought of was, 'hey, that means they're going to close Marvel Super Hero Island at Universal Studios'. That's like Graceland to my people. On the other hand - Super Hero Land at Walt Disney World! YES! ... In like fifteen years maybe.
At any rate, apparently the Disney executives have made it very clear that they have no wish to upset the applecart and don't presume that they know better how to handle the Marvel stable than the House of Ideas, citing Pixar as an example of their track record. In fact, "Disney said that Pixar’s John Lasseter has met with key Marvel creative executives recently and the group got 'pretty excited, very fast.'" ... That sounds good!
For years DC Comics has had a fiscal advantage over Marvel, in that DC is owned by a giant faceless megacorporation that can just write off all the losses they accrue through publishing comics written by bad fanfic writers because the movies and DVDs based on their intellectual property can recoup them ten times over. On the plus side, DC's had plenty of money. On the minus side, corporate interference into the creative process, editorial decisions and administrative appointments have taken their toll over the years, fostering a paternalistic, vaguely misogynistic police state of a workplace culture ruled over by condescending executives and yes-men rubber-stamp editors sacrificing the story for the sake of corporate advancement. ...Or at least to bone the wife of one their artists.
Well now Marvel is backed up by the single largest and most terrifying multimedia empire OF ALL TIME! I mean if it had to happen someday, well, Marvel could do worse. Actually, Disney President and CEO Robert Iger, according to his Wikipedia entry, was "instrumental in convincing ABC to pick up David Lynch's offbeat but influential Twin Peaks" when he worked at ABC before Disney bought them out. That's good for some nerd credibility!
Not only THAT: Bob Iger is in fact part of the family, as it were, when it comes to the comics industry. Iger is none other than the nephew of Jerry Iger, co-founder of Eisner & Iger, a comic book packaging house in the Golden Age of Comics that Jerry Iger ran with Will "The Spirit" Eisner. In the 1930s, Eisner & Iger employed such future comic book titans as Jack Kirby, Lou Fine, Bob "Batman" Kane and Wally "Powergirl" Wood. So if there's one corporate CEO who might possibly understand comic books, it may very well be this one. Let's hope! Maybe he'll put Stan Lee on the Disney board of directors.
Walt Disney Buys Marvel Comics for $4 billion!
Actually the first thing I thought of was, 'hey, that means they're going to close Marvel Super Hero Island at Universal Studios'. That's like Graceland to my people. On the other hand - Super Hero Land at Walt Disney World! YES! ... In like fifteen years maybe.
At any rate, apparently the Disney executives have made it very clear that they have no wish to upset the applecart and don't presume that they know better how to handle the Marvel stable than the House of Ideas, citing Pixar as an example of their track record. In fact, "Disney said that Pixar’s John Lasseter has met with key Marvel creative executives recently and the group got 'pretty excited, very fast.'" ... That sounds good!
For years DC Comics has had a fiscal advantage over Marvel, in that DC is owned by a giant faceless megacorporation that can just write off all the losses they accrue through publishing comics written by bad fanfic writers because the movies and DVDs based on their intellectual property can recoup them ten times over. On the plus side, DC's had plenty of money. On the minus side, corporate interference into the creative process, editorial decisions and administrative appointments have taken their toll over the years, fostering a paternalistic, vaguely misogynistic police state of a workplace culture ruled over by condescending executives and yes-men rubber-stamp editors sacrificing the story for the sake of corporate advancement. ...Or at least to bone the wife of one their artists.
Well now Marvel is backed up by the single largest and most terrifying multimedia empire OF ALL TIME! I mean if it had to happen someday, well, Marvel could do worse. Actually, Disney President and CEO Robert Iger, according to his Wikipedia entry, was "instrumental in convincing ABC to pick up David Lynch's offbeat but influential Twin Peaks" when he worked at ABC before Disney bought them out. That's good for some nerd credibility!
Not only THAT: Bob Iger is in fact part of the family, as it were, when it comes to the comics industry. Iger is none other than the nephew of Jerry Iger, co-founder of Eisner & Iger, a comic book packaging house in the Golden Age of Comics that Jerry Iger ran with Will "The Spirit" Eisner. In the 1930s, Eisner & Iger employed such future comic book titans as Jack Kirby, Lou Fine, Bob "Batman" Kane and Wally "Powergirl" Wood. So if there's one corporate CEO who might possibly understand comic books, it may very well be this one. Let's hope! Maybe he'll put Stan Lee on the Disney board of directors.