Doug: As a revenue stream, are comic books still important to Marvel Comics and Disney? Or, is that a branch of the empire that eats up a lot of expenses that you could see getting cut out? We are living in new economic times...
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I know Disney acquired Marvel because they needed a male audience between 16 and 35 that their own shows lack. Apparently that age group spends a lot of money. I think it's in their interest to keep the comics going as advertising for Marvel merchandise which is where the real money is ( along with the movies )and probably also why Marvel was acquired. It's too long between movies to let them be the sole way of keeping the characters in the public eye. I'm not too sure of copyright and all but perhaps they need to publish to maintain control of their characters. Isn't that why Marvel keeps published a new Captain Marvel every few years ?
I'm curious if the Marvel Comics section of the Islands of Adventure at Universal will stay open or if Disney will shift it to their property.
@Atnhony:
" I'm not too sure of copyright and all but perhaps they need to publish to maintain control of their characters. Isn't that why Marvel keeps published a new Captain Marvel every few years ?"
They publish Captain Marvel to maintain a trademark on the name.
I don't know a lot of the details, but to me, at that level Marvel was just another commodity/income source with a huge built in audience spanning decades.
I think of McCartney being offered song publishing in the mid-70s, buying up all the public domain songs in what used to be a quiet little industry, for only 7 million (reportedly his entire savings..). It's all about grabbing anything conservatively and reliably equitable.
Comparatively to Disney and Marvel, I'm curious how everyone feels about how Warner Brothers is handling DC.
Uh...you can't buy something if it's in the public domain. Methinks your understanding of copyright law is lacking.
Marvel will keep publishing to maintain trademarks on their properties. D.C. would LOVE it if Marvel would stop slapping the words "Captain Marvel" on a comic book.
Xrayman
Not to hijaak, but actually, you can, if you look further into the complexity of copyright law and public domain.
Songs considered public domain in the US aren't privately-owned obviously, but international rights are. As an example, I looked up 'On Wisconsin' on wikipedia to confirm.
But the majority of his holdings are catalogs that either he purchased (like Buddy Holly) or with ownerships that had lapsed.
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