The Mix : What are people talking about today?
Who makes money when Disney buys Marvel?
Well, if I’m reading these stock forms correctly, Avi Arad’s stock holdings jumped about $10 million dollars yesterday with the stock bump.
And Issac Perlmutter’s stock holdings went up about $282 million, with his total holdings worth about $1,391,049,355. Put another way, when they say that Disney bought Marvel for four billion dollars, over a third of it goes to Issac. And since this is a 60% cash/40% stock deal, Issac pulls in $830 million in cash.
Yowza. That’s a lot of variant covers.
Disneyfication Wave, Plus One Day
So Disney is buying Marvel. By now, that’s old news– in Internet terms, anyway.
How big a deal was it? I don’t think Marvel sent out a single press package today hyping their comics. Usually, we get two or three of them a day.
The Beat has an excellent roundup of what we do and don’t know by now. But they don’t say much about other reactions. So what does the Internet think? Twitter, as might be expected, has gone crazy with the #disneymarvel and #disneybuysmarvel hashtags. Reactions can be broken down pretty easily into three categories, in order of increasing rarity:
People Trying to Be Comedians
poohbear151: So is everyone ready for the spider-man/fantastic four/x-men/high school musical crossover event?
Professionals Trying to Be Comedians With More Success
Brian Reed (Writer, Ms. Marvel): “Face it, Tigger, you hit the jackpot!”
Stephen Wacker (Editor, Amazing Spider-Man): Y’know I never thought Cinderella and Prince Charming shoulda gotten married…hmmm.
Jason Aaron (Writer, Punisher Max): Can now officially have the Punisher target the entire cast of “Hannah Montana.”
Jeff Parker (Writer, Agents of Atlas): Please, will someone draw MODUCK (NOTE: Ryan Dunlavey did, as did Chris Samnee.)
Warren Ellis (Writer, Astonishing X-Men): so I got this phone call from Joe Quesada and it was just the sound of him rubbing himself with money and now I am confused
(Broken Frontier has a strong round-up of other professional’s reactions in somewhat longer form.)
People Who Might Actually Know What’s Going On
C.B. Cebulski (Marvel talent liaison/editor/writer) Allow me to reassure you right now, guys, that Marvel’s going to continue to produce great comic books the way we always have.
Joe Quesada (Marvel Editor in Chief) If you’re
familiar with the Disney/Pixar relationship, then you’ll understand why
this is a new dawn for Marvel and the comics industry.
Marv Wolfman: Because I was both the Editor-in-Chief of Marvel as well as one of the
two founding editors of Disney Adventures Magazine, I’ve already gotten
numerous phone calls, including one from Forbes Magazine, asking what I
think about Disney buying Marvel. The easy answer is – nobody knows.
Certainly I don’t.
We’ll keep more stuff coming– we don’t think this story is going away any time soon.
Jack Kirby draws Mickey Mouse as Disney gets Marvelized
In a case of incredibly lucky timing, Craig Yoe, the author of Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster, The Art of Ditko, The Complete Milt Gross Comic Book Stories and Life Story, The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers, and The Great Anti-War Cartoons, has started blogging again on Super I.T.C.H. (International Team of Comics Historians) with a well-timed piece: Jack Kirby’s drawing of Mickey Mouse:
Back in 1991, I did a coffee table art book “The Art of Mickey
Mouse”, I got artists from around the world to do their interpretation
of “The World’s Favorite Mouse.” One of the first people I called was
Jack Kirby. He and his wife Roz were very excited about the idea. He
sent me two drawings, as I recall, and I chose this one. I colored it
“animation style,” with the black line on an overlay and the
background colors underneath. Jack’s contribution was part of a touring
exhibit of art from the book throughout Japan. So, Marvel is called by
some fans “The House that Jack Built” (not, in my opinion to take
ANYTHING away from the brilliant genius Stan Lee’s more than vital
part.) And here’s Jack doing Mickey! Is this weird, or what?
Disney Eats Marvel: The most disturbing image of the day (so far)
Inspired by a twitter from Brian Reed, and drawn (or at least posted) by petroglyf.
Disney buys Marvel: Reactions
As you can imagine, the reactions on twitter have been flying since today’s announcement. Here are some of our favorites so far:
- Brian Reed has the quote for the win: “Face it, Tigger, you just hit the jackpot!”
- patrickkeller: Brian Michael Bendis is currently having giant, round mouse ears surgically attached to his head.
- Pinguino: Hey does this mean Rogue and Storm can be disney princesses now and get frilly dresses?
- Dave Stokes: Tinkerbell to play The Wasp in Avengers movie?
- uberthegeek: Chip & Dale: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
- joshuwain: “Finding Namor”
- One person we won’t name: “maybe this means i’ll be able to go into the disney store again without looking like a pervert”. Uh, if you have to ask, then the answer is NO.
More to come…
Disney Eats Marvel: Hannah Montana becomes Dazzler
C’mon, it’s too easy:
Hannah Montana has to reveal her secret identity under the Superhuman Registration Act, refuses, and goes head to head against Tony Stark.
Hannah Mutana. I like it.
(Not to be confused with hakuna matata, which is also a wonderful phrase.)
Disney Eats Marvel: The Analysis
So the mouse is eating the spider. What does it all mean?
Poke around the Internets and you’ll see a lot of hysteria. Comics fans aren’t happy; they’re worried Disney will Disnify the whole thing. Movie fans are worried the Marvel flicks will have all the weight and depth of your average Disney movie. Theme park fans are concerned about Universal losing their franchise just so Ant-Man and the Wasp can fit into “It’s A Small World After All.”
Calm down. Assuming the deal gets approved by Marvel’s stockholders – which is likely – and the government – which is likely but not as certain – contracts are contracts and Disney would rather spend the next five years buying other things than paying for litigation. Paramount will still release those next five Marvel Films films, Universal will continue to maintain their current lifespan (however long that might be) with the Marvel rides and that fat lady who’s knocking the poo out of Captain America’s winged head in those commercials, and the comic books will continue to be published.
Well, most likely.
Marvel’s been trying to pattern itself after the Disney business model for at least the past four or five owners, so it’s no surprise that the House of Mouse took preemptive measures. Disney can’t mess with their theme parks right now – I mentioned the contractual obligations and, quite frankly, business ain’t what it used to be. The Disney characters and the Marvel characters are not a good theme park fit: the latter are not grandmother-friendly.
I doubt Disney will interfere with publishing very much, at least not in the short run. They have a very bad track record in the publishing fields, and the racks are littered with their cancelled product. They’re in the licensing business; that’s what they do and what they know. If the overall comic book publishing field continues to deteriorate they might do what they did with their other product and simply license it all out. It would be wonderfully ironic if Mark Waid’s Boom Studios gets the franchise, and I’ll bet you Mark feels the same way.
If there are any changes, they are likely to take the form of a reorientation of the Marvel characters towards the teen-age male market. Disney is weak in that demographic and can use some bolstering up. And bringing Marvel Comics back to the teen-ager friendly arena isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It worked for Lee and Kirby and Ditko and Thomas and Buscema; today there are more than enough really good writers and artists to address that market in a contemporary manner.
So I don’t think we’ll see Doctor Doom threatening The Little Mermaid. Don’t hold your breath for that Sinister Seven Dwarves movie. The Hulk probably will not stomp Goofy. Stan Lee will not be frozen and placed on the shelf next to Walt Disney and Jim Henson. All that’s a pity. Disney has no sense of humor. Just ask the Air Pirates.
The fact is, big business has never, ever been able to understand the American comic book industry. We defy the Harvard MBA mentality, and I’m proud of that. If DIsney does what Disney does best and the publishing business doesn’t implode, nobody will notice a thing. The Avengers 3 will make more money than publishing could lose.
Unless Dean Jones is cast as Nick Fury.
A 33 year veteran of the comic book industry, Mike Gold is ComicMix’s editor-in-chief. Portions of this blather appeared in today’s The Point podcast.
The Point Radio: What Does Marvel/Disney Really Mean?
Everybody’s talking about Disney buying Marvel, but what does it really mean? Beyond all the speculation is there a real story yet? Plus we continue our visit backstage at WAREHOUSE 13. Meet the guy behind that oh so familiar face – noted character actor Saul Rubinek who is at the center of the new SyFy series. And it was a frightening box office tally this weekend, but it’s a good week in the comic store with some real treats waiting for you!
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Disney Eats Marvel – Update 2
Walt Disney reached an agreement to purchase Marvel Comics for a combined cash and stock deal valued today at $4 billion. According to a report at Marketwatch, the acquisition was approved by both Boards of Directors over the weekend and is subject to SEC approval.
In a statement, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger said “adding Marvel to Disney’s unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation.”
Those holding Marvel stock are expected to receive $30 per share in addition to approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own.
A shareholders’ conference call was scheduled for later today and no doubt Marvel will have their own comments for the press. The deal is not expected to close for some time and how the integration will work, including the comics properties owned by Disney and Marvel will be announced in the future. In addition to Disney’s own characters, they purchased the assets of CrossGen some years ago and have done little with them, much I the same way as Marvel has yet to fully exploit the Malibu Comics characters they acquired in the 1990s.
Disney has been moving more into the graphic novel field through their publishing division, notably announcing works based on their forthcoming film The Prince of Persia, based on the video game. One can only expect Disney to entrust projects like this and others to Marvel.
Isaac Perlmutter, Marvel’s CEO, will continue to oversee the Marvel properties and is expected to be an architect of the integration along with Disney execs.
