Monday, July 26, 2010

Gott Rights?

This project has been "teased" for a long time, but it appears to be about to come to pass. It will certainly be an "acid test" for the acceptability of politically incorrect material; Fantagraphics' PEANUTS, KRAZY KAT, and THIMBLE THEATER collections contain no material quite so dicey as that seen in, say, "The Great Orphanage Robbery" or "An Education for Thursday." FG's well-regarded ongoing collections, however, have bought the company quite a lot of good will, which no doubt helped during the negotiating process.

Will this collection extend to the end of Gottfredson's working career, in 1975? I rather doubt it. Previous efforts to collect the Mouse master's work stopped when the format switched permanently to "gag-a-day" mode in the mid-50s. Even before that time, in the 1940s, when the gag format was occasionally used for brief periods of time, the quality of the gags was not exactly top-notch. (In particular, the gags tended to put Mickey in a surprisingly bad light more often than not, though he never came off as badly as Donald consistently did in Al Taliaferro's strip.) I'll definitely call it quits once the adventures trail off, but how nice it will be to have such a luxury to begin with!

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In his comments on the Gottfredson Library news, GeoX wonders whether Disney is sending a signal to Boom! by assigning the publication rights to Fantagraphics. If I were Boom!, I'd be a bit more concerned about this news. The TRON graphic novel -- which, with its "departures" from the movie cast and storyline, certainly sounds like a setup for a continuing series to me -- is different from the Library in that it's an honest-to-goodness original comics creation. Are we now simply counting down the days until Disney flips all of its remaining comics over to Marvel?

1 comment:

Kneon Transitt said...

Fantagraphics was a good move. Their 'Peanuts' collections are absolutely superb, and it's about time that Gottfredson got this kind of top shelf treatment!

As for Marvel...

Boom! seems to be treading water with its Disney material. They're not promoting the books as heavily as they were at the start, either. Pardon the pun, but it's almost as if they're a lame duck publisher now... and know it.

Keep in mind that many of Boom's employees already have histories with Marvel, and I hafta wonder if Marvel will take over the license... or even absorb Boom! at some point.

I agree with this:
http://www.comicbookbin.com/MarvelComics_Buy_Boom_Studios001.html

Just speculation on my part, but Disney has to realize that the Boom! books are a sinking ship, and even (potentially sub-par) Disney books with a Marvel logo plastered on the front will no doubt sell better in the direct market than Boom's offerings.

I mean, seriously -- if you own the country's largest comic book publisher, why let some Mom and Pop shop publish your books?! Makes no sense.