What’s really frustrating to me is seeing this golden age of classic comic book and newspaper strip reprinting projects go by without any major attempts to re-present the Taliafero Donald Duck strips, Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse adventures, the gorgeous Silly Symphonies serials, or the classic Dell comics. Barks is more than adequately covered, and I’m grateful for the handful of recent Gottfredson stories in C&S, but I cling to my quickly-deteriorating Gladstones from the 80’s and 90’s for the great stuff they published.

David Gerstein, thanks for all you did for the various publishing efforts over the years. You produced a precious set of books that I now enjoy sharing with my kids.

The European model was tried, and succeeded as Disney Adventures magazine, spinning off a comics-only magazine. Gladstone II tried cheaper editions. Disney tried a mainstream approach, hoping to ride the speculator boom. Gemstone catered to collectors with trades and to young readers with digests. Marvel partnered with Gladstone to distribute titles to newsstands, as well as producing movie tie-ins.

The only format not tried? Black-and-white “phone books”. Something like Shonen Jump or Essential Spider-Man. (Hey, if someone will shell out $100 for black-and-white hardcover Barks stories, why not $4.95 for 300 pages of Disney comics & stories & games & …)

Are the classic characters marketed well in the U.S.? Do kids see them? And where are the tie-ins for Goof Troop and House of Mouse? (Or One Saturday Morning?)

My best to the Gemstone staff. You produced some excellent stories, and I wish you all well.

Whatever you thought of the rest of our line, the Neighbor Jones title and 16-page comics were Gladstone II products some twelve years ago—not ours.
As for Gemstone, our $2.95 32-page comics had 30 actual comics pages. Our $2.25 competitors had 20-24 actual comics pages. It shakes out to the same price.

Don’t let me get bogged down in technicalities… I’m as glum as anyone here.

As for the 32 pages for $2.95, these books came out when other kid friendly comics were selling for $1.95 to $2.25. Their only try at truly cheap comics were those horrible 16 page comics with easily ripped covers, one of which focused on Neighbor Jones, for crying out loud.

As for what the next Disney publisher should try, i would look to the Japanese manga model. Shonen Jump sells for $4.99 for 300 pages of comic content. It’s on cheap paper. Save the glossy crap for the collected editions. Plenty of other content in there too. It’s a good value for the buck, which pleases readers. It’s got a price tag similar to other magazines on the newsstand, which pleases retailers.