Het Centrale Comic-topic! part 3 (of 8)

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Op vrijdag 28 augustus 2009 16:30 schreef Breuls het volgende:
Final Crisis is alleen nog hardcover ja.

Ik vind het zelf wel jammer dat de paperbacks zo lang duren, want die lees ik ook het liefst, maar ik ben vaak nieuwsgierig naar sommige verhalen omdat er veel over geschreven wordt, en dan ga ik toch maar voor de hardcover. Het is helaas ondoenlijk (logistiek en financieel) om de crossovers in magazine vorm te volgen in Nederland. Yendor in Rotterdam heeft bijvoorbeeld maar een handjevol DC titels (en een shitload aan Marvel). Je kunt wel via hen abonneren, maar dan moet je het helemaal uitgebreid vantevoren plannen.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Walt Disney Co. announced Monday that it has agreed to purchase comic book and action hero company Marvel Entertainment for about $4 billion.

If Marvel shareholders approve the deal, they would receive $30 per share in cash and 0.745 shares of Disney for each share of Marvel that they hold. The deal is valued at $50 per Marvel share, more than a 29% premium, based on Friday's closing price.

"We believe that adding Marvel to Disney's unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation," said Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger, in a statement.

0:00 /17:13The man behind Disney
Marvel has launched a large number of action-hero movies over the past decade. Last summer's "Iron Man" blockbuster was the first to be fully financed and produced by by the comic book company.

Marvel also holds the rights to 5,000 popular action hero characters, including Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four and Thor.

"Disney is the perfect home for Marvel's fantastic library of characters given its proven ability to expand content creation and licensing businesses," said Marvel Chief Executive Ike Perlmutter. "This is an unparalleled opportunity for Marvel to build upon its vibrant brand and character properties by accessing Disney's tremendous global organization and infrastructure around the world."

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Depending upon which source you believe, Walt Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook either resigned, or was fired, from the company Friday afternoon after 38 years. Whichever is the case, the news took most everyone by surprise. No successor has been named.

Cook's departure comes nearly three weeks after Disney announced its planned $4-billion purchase of Marvel Entertainment. The Wall Street Journal reports that "people close to Disney" claim Cook had complained Disney Studios wouldn't have control of Marvel Studios under the terms of the deal -- something Cook, through a spokeswoman, denies.

Others note a growing rift between Cook and Disney CEO Robert Iger, who in May publicly criticized the performance of the company's film division.

Cook began his Disney career in 1970 as a ride operator at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, working his way through the company until 2002, when he was named chairman of Walt Disney Studios. [Los Angeles Times, Deadline Hollywood]

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Jack Kirby's heirs seek to reclaim copyrights to some Marvel characters [Updated]

* Posted on September 20, 2009 - 02:39 PM by Kevin Melrose


In a move that by now should be familiar to comics fans, the heirs of Jack Kirby are seeking to regain copyrights to some of the legendary artist's creations.

The New York Times reports that 45 copyright-termination notices were sent last week to Marvel, Disney, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and others who have made films and other forms of entertainment based on characters that Kirby co-created.

The heirs, who are represented by Marc Toberoff -- the attorney who helped the wife and daughter of Jerry Siegel regain a share of Superman last year -- intend to reclaim copyrights to some properties as early as 2014.

A copyright dispute that involves many of Marvel's marquee characters obviously adds a wrinkle to the recently announced $4-billion purchase by Disney.

Although the article doesn't say which characters are specified, the movie studios listed may offer a clue: Sony Pictures holds the film rights to Spider-Man; Universal had the Incredible Hulk; Fox has the X-Men and Fantastic Four; and Paramount has the distribution rights to several of the Marvel-produced projects, including the Iron Man movies.

In addition to those characters, Kirby also co-created (with Stan Lee) The Avengers, Thor, the Black Panther, the Silver Surfer, Nick Fury, Magneto, Galactus and Doctor Doom -- to name but a few properties that have recently appeared, or are slated to appear, in film or on television.

Developing, naturally ...

Update (7:09 p.m.): The Los Angeles Times breaks down some of the dates when Kirby's children would be eligible to claim their father's share of copyright: Fantastic Four in 2017, the Hulk in 2018 and X-Men in 2019. (The copyrights would continue for another 39 years under current law.)

The newspaper also manages to get a comment from a Disney spokesperson: "The notices involved are an attempt to terminate rights seven to 10 years from now and involve claims that were fully considered in the acquisition."

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Op zaterdag 3 oktober 2009 17:20 schreef FinancialBubble het volgende:
Worden hier ook wel eens Belgische of Nederlandse stripboeken gelezen?

Zoals bijvoorbeeld het recentelijk tot Beste Nederlandse Literaire Stripboek van 2009 verkozen

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Op vrijdag 28 augustus 2009 06:40 schreef Tokus het volgende:

[..]

psst, Zürich is de grootste stad van Zwitserland


Duitsland vertaalt sowieso bijna alles. Het valt me mee dat ze Engelse muziek nog net niet verduitsen, maar iedereen kent wel de nagesynchroniseerde films. In Zwitserland is het wel minder, maar blijkbaar verkopen de Duits-vertaalde comics daar dus beter dan de originele Engelstalige.

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Though they've been aggressively pursuing web content for the past few years in multiple forms, Marvel Comics made the leap today that many have been speculating will be the next big wave in comics distribution: comics on the iPhone. Starting today, the publisher will have titles ranging from classic Stan Lee/Steve Ditko issues of "Amazing Spider-Man" to modern hits like Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's "Astonishing X-Men" for purchase on Apple's signature smart phone and the iPod Touch through comics-specific app sites Comixology, iVerse, and Panelfly as well as general publishing site ScrollMotion.

"We've got those four signed, and we're in active discussions with several others," explained Marvel's Executive Vice President of Digital Media, Ira Rubenstein. He told CBR that the announcement being made across four simultaneous platforms on their own sites was indicative of Marvel's commitment to getting their comics into the marketplace in as many formats as possible. "We want to give the consumers the choice to decide what's best for them. Each software has a world of difference, and each company has a different approach. By going with multiple companies, we're letting the consumer decide."

The comics available will vary from iTunes publisher to publisher, though certain books and issues will be common amongst all the providers, much like the previously available online initiatives like the Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited service which anchors Marvel's own site and their recent deal with the PSP gaming device. As for why now was the time to make the iPhone service happen and why Marvel went with the companies included in the launch, Rubenstein said "I think the timing was that the applications and the consumer experience was there. A lot of these applications are in their multipled version. This isn't their first program. With any good software, it improves over time, and what we're concerned with is the consumer experience and how our content looks. With all these companies – be it iVerse, Comixology, Panelfly or ScrollMotion – it's a very compelling consumer experience.

"Each one works a little differently, but all of them, for the most part, have a programmed view where you can, similarly to what we have on our Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited reader, hit the forward button, and it kind of programs the page for you. If you don't want to work as hard and have what I think is a bad experience like with a PDF where you have to zoom around and it gets tiring...if you just hit the forward button, it's a natural style to read. Most, if not all the programs, offer you either/or. And again, that's a compelling consumer experience where, if the consumer wants to zoom in on one particular shot, they can. It's very similar to how we approach stores. We service over 3,000 stores, and every store is different, be it the stores in New York, or the stores in Chicago or Florida. Consumers can decide what stores they want to buy our books from."

Examples of the Panelfly interface

When it came to what content would be immediately available, Rubenstein and the Digital Media department went to the top of the company's publishing line. "I work very closely with [publisher] Dan Buckley and the rest of the publishing team," he said. "We wanted to get a selection that was compelling to start, and would give us information on what consumers would want to buy. Obviously, you can't roll out with everything, but we wanted to roll out with enough of a selection to really figure out what's happening. Dan and his team say, 'Okay, these are the books we're going to give.' And we'll continue to have more books over the coming months, and we'll continue to see how it goes."

Asked how initiatives like the MDCU program have worked in terms of outreach to readers who may not regularly be buying comics, Rubenstein offered, "What we have been seeing – and we have some research to back this up – is that we're finding that the Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited product is actually proving to be a discovery tool for people. They're discovering new concepts and new characters and new storylines, and then going to the stores and buying them. We have research for that, and we have some e-mails from comic book store owners who told us those stories."

Rubinstein stressed that programs such as MDCU, and now the iPhone comics apps, should not serve to drive readers away from traditional comic book stores, a market the company has begun to support with a special retailers-only site. "We're very cognizant of [worries retailers may have.] If anything, we're trying to help enable the brick and mortar stores through the [newly launched] Marvel Retailer Resource Center. Now, they're going to be offering First Looks and things, and we're asking, 'How can we enable them now to offer motion comics through their websites?' and the next extension would be to ask 'How can we enable them to offer digital comics?' It hasn't all been announced yet, but we're looking at it. We've been talking about how to help these very, very important partners, and we do not take them for granted here."

Examples of the iVerse interface

Speaking of Marvel's motion comics program, which saw its second major title launch this week with the MarvelFest NYC 2009 premier of the "Astonishing X-Men" motion comic, currently available on iTunes, the word of iPhone comics comes hot on its heels. Rubenstein said the close nature of the events came thanks to Marvel having multiple irons in the fire. "I've been here a little over a year, and I was brought in to really step up our digital efforts. We've always done a lot here, but we wanted to take it to the next level. I think what you're starting to see now is the fruition of a lot of people's hard work. If it feels like dominos have been falling, it's because we've been working really, really hard, and things are starting to come out now. We can't really talk about it until they come out, but you're going to see a lot more, because now we have some investment and resources dedicated to it."

And more motion comics are on the way, including possible distribution of the format over other smart phones and devices outside the Apple brand. "We are absolutely looking towards other distribution. We're up on the Xbox now. Motion comics aren't on Xbox yet, but they will be shortly, through Xbox Live, and our other video content is up there. We're up on Hulu with "Spider-Woman." So we're looking at legitimate video screens for distributing our motion comics, as well as the video content we have rights to."

Asked what lessons his department has learned from the MDCU launch and applied to this new iPhone program, Rubenstein concluded, "I come from entertainment. I spent 12 years at Sony and four years at Fox, so the lessons I've learned throughout my career are with entertainment and brands. I think entertainment consumers want to consume entertainment content when they want it, where they want it, and how. I'm not surprised when it does well, because people want it. I guess the lesson is, be it comic books, movies or TV, content is content, and it's all about storytelling and great characters. Whether it's in print or video, consumers want to consume it across devices and platforms."

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Op maandag 2 november 2009 10:48 schreef Young_David het volgende:
Comics op een scherm lezen vind ik maar niets, doe mij maar lekker een paperback. Staat mooi in de kast zo'n rij met strips. Je kunt het overal mee naar toe nemen en bij een goede artist kun je echt genieten van het artwork.