CLAWS AND MICE AND PRETTY THINGS...





Look, i'm an info junkie, every morning i awake roll over and turn on my Laptop, it's right next to me, like a techno teddy bear.(yeah, i know, sick, shut up.) And 1st thing i'm half awake and scanning, CNN, FOX, The BEAST, SLATE, HUFFINGTON, MINE, etc. etc.
Look kiddies, Daddy needs his feeds, and no sin is more unforgivable than being uninformed...

Oh and comic boards, CBR, NEWSARAMA, BLEEDING COOL, WHEN FAN GIRLS ATTACK, THE BEAT...
and we all now know the big news on Monday, was:

DISNEY
BUYS
MARVEL

Now i will admit at 1st i missed it, i was a bit too early with my scans, i was on my facebook page and getting ready to leave for work, when i got the news from a friend who scans the stock market. (That's right, the stock market, when Mickey and Wolvie decide to pop claws even Wall Street stops to take a look.)
So yeah, when my friends who know i like comics get ripples out there in the real world it's kinda a big thing. So when i saw it i quiclky posted back, and then i put it up on my LJ along with some links. But then i had to go to work, so now with 24 hours and all the internet howls behind me, may i present:

My Thoughts
About The
Marvel Disney
Alliance.

I'm fine, how are you?
No really, to me this is kind of like the 1st day after an election, the sun still shines, the birds still sing, there don't seem to be a noticeable amount of tanks driving down main street, and no brown shirts have asked for my papers, or wanted to know why I'm reading Supergirl instead of Wolverine, so I'm fine. Also I'm pretty sure they're not going to search my bag pull out my copy of Deadpool and rip it up while shaking their head menacingly at me and muttering 'Tut, tut, not acceptable'

Look I know Disney is a media/corporate/commershalism Juggernaut. It's big, it's scary and when it sneezes we all feel a breeze.

*Genzustite*

To me the outcry at Disney, is sort of like the outcry at the Catholic church from time to time, they're both big, easy, targets. You can throw stuff at them and scream and 7 out of 10 times, people will start to throw stuff with you. Not that they've really thought about it, no, just because; 'Well they MUST be bad, they're DISNEY, right? KILL THE MOUSE. KILL THE MOUSE!'

sigh

Yesterday, a person came into my shop and as he was making a purchase he asked me how I felt about the whole Marvel/Disney deal, and while the thing on my mind was what it would mean to bookstore distribution, (Not comic shop distribution, I'm pretty sure that won't be touched Disney proved that with BOOM and the Disney Ducks books) But Diamonds deals with stores like Borders for Marvel may become a thing of the past. And soon and that has the potential to hurt Diamonds bottom line. Which may lead to a reversal of their new publishing quotas for indie books, which could be a good thing in the long run.
But no, He wanted to talk about how Disney would ruin Marvel, and alienate their audience.
So I talked about the fact that while Disney has a lock on the little Girl Market with things like the Disney Princess and Tinkerbell line they've never been able to get a real foothold in the Little Boys market which they've been actively pursing with the Disney XD channel and Marvel is the perfect 'Touchstone' to open that market for them.
So then since I still wasn't sharing the Kool-Aid with him, he said he just saw this as an 'Eisner' type problem, how Disney would change the nature of the brand.
Oh I said, like when 'Eisner' came in and with Roy Disney at his side revitalized the Disney Animation dept. and gave us "The Little Mermaid', "Beauty and The Beast' 'Aladdin' and 'The Lion King'? After those big hits 'The Black Cauldron', and 'Oliver and Company', Disney had been lost in the woods since the minute after they made TRON.

Now I knew that wasn't going to make him happy. But i didn't care much, he had asked me my opinion and i gave it to him. He talked about the loss of quality animation, in the backgrounds of the movies since, 'Snow White' I countered with the backgrounds in 'Beauty and The Beast', and 'Aladdin'.

He argued that the movies were aimed at kids and not edgy, like 'Fantasia'
I countered that 'Fantasia' lost tons of money when it was released, and when they did 'Fantasia 2000' which had pieces inspired by Hershfield (Rapsdody in Blue) and the amazing 'Right of Spring' with the death of the Dinosaurs, It kind of died an awful death too. Along with the fact that 'Aladdin' was bascily a Looney Tunes cartoon ala Disney, and that in 'Lilo & Stitch' While the Marketing department, screamed to the public that Stitch was their edgiest character ever, the REAL Edgy chracter was Lilo, an outcast, a rebel, the first clinically depressed Disney Princess to grace the screen, and she was awsome in her fury, her sadness her refusal to conform, and her goal to make the world see the beauty she saw in what others saw as misfits, and we have not seen her like since.

Oh and that when they bought 'Pixar' they just let it be "Pixar'

Then he looked at me and said, 'Well, I just don't trust Disney.'

And there's the rub.
It's really not about the fear of what Disney will Do. It's about the Fear of what Disney might do in our heads. Walt and Co. have archived the what they set out to do, they are the stuff of legends, they are now the 21 Century Fairy Tale. Told and handed down from Generation to generation.

What they weren't prepared for, is that they're the Wicked Stepmother.