Disney/Marvel official, and Disney’s getting Stan Lee as well. Now what about the freelancers?
It’s official. Marvel Entertainment stockholders approved the company’s merger with Disney at a special meeting held last Thursday, December 31, 2009. Under the agreement, which is valued at an estimated $4.3 billion, Marvel becomes a wholly-owned subsidiary of Disney.
But in addition to acquiring Marvel, Disney also furthered its existing relationship with Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment (Purveyors of Wonder) by taking a 10% equity stake in POW! for $2.5 million. Disney entered into a first look deal with POW! in 2007, and under the new deal includes enhanced rights to the creative output of POW! and certain exclusive consulting services.
The only hitch? Over the weekend, I was talking with a freelancer who was complaining about a recent job he did for a Disney subsidiary which still hadn’t paid him after many months, even after signing multi-page forms and four contracts, for what basically amounted to a lettering job.
One wonders what it’s going to be like for all the freelancers at Marvel who will suddenly find themselves thrust into Disney’s mammoth accounting system for dealing with outside vendors. If anybody has any experiences with the new regime, let us know.
It’s been a heck of a ride, hasn’t it?
It really is the year of the nerd, isn’t it?
Now when the crew of the Enterprise addresses him as Sir, they can really mean it.
It may be a skip week for the rest of the comics industry, but not here at ComicMix, where we bring you the conclusion of a story over a year in the telling!
I’m trying to avoid declaring an end-of-year window closing bankruptcy, wherein I just close every window and never look back, and then keep no more than ten tabs open.
How repetitive humor works
