Roger’s Comic Ramblings: I’m Not Gonna Talk About Disney
by Roger Ash
OK. Maybe I’ll talk about Disney just a little, but only to explain why I’m not going to talk about it more right now. When the news broke yesterday about Disney’s impending purchase of Marvel, I thought it was a fascinating story. By the end of the day, I was overwhelmed by all the commentary about it and needed a break. I was especially weary of the paranoid suppositions of a small handful of Marvel fans who seemed to think this would end civilization as we know it. If you want to read the most cogent piece I found yesterday about what this buyout could mean, read what Marv Wolfman has to say at his blog. And if you want to laugh, check this out. It still makes me giggle. Thanks KC. (The M.O.D.U.C.K. drawing is by Chris Samnee.)
I was thinking of making this column into a wonder piece, as in “I wonder why people hate Disney so much?” Then I realized that would be an exercise in futility as some people just love to hate Disney and nothing I said would make a damn bit of difference. As an aside, the concept of loving to hate something escapes me and I honestly hope I never come to understand it. So that’s why I’m not going to talk more about Disney right now. Let’s move onto a different topic
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If you’re still with me, you may have noticed that I changed the title of my column. Why would I do such a thing? After my last post, a friend asked why I chose the name “Blue Shift” for my column. The easy answer was because a few years back I had an occasional column in Worlds of Westfield called “Blue Shift” so I simply kept the title the same. When I tried to explain my original thinking, which involves the fact that when you observe a blue shift it means that something is moving towards you, I realized how pretentious I sounded. I needed a new title; something that would quickly sum up what readers could expect in my columns. A number of titles were considered, but after the ones using profanity were discarded, “Roger’s Comic Ramblings” was the one left standing. Hope you like it.
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Flaming Carrot
A quick recommendation before I go away. I’ve recently re-read my collection of Flaming Carrot Comics from creator Bob Burden. For those of you who may not know the character, here’s his origin: A man reads 5,000 comics in one sitting on a bet. It addles his brain and he dons a carrot mask and swim fins (he also wears a shirt and pants) and becomes a crime fighter. His adventures pit him against such menaces as alien invaders, flying dead dogs, and clones of Hitler’s feet. I’m happy to report that the series is just as quirky, strange, weird, and downright fun as I remembered it being. If you’re looking for a superhero with a sense of the absurd, check this out!
Flaming Carrot’s Greatest Hits SC
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That’s it for this week. Got any questions or comments about the nuggets of wisdom I dropped on you this week? Post ‘em below and I’ll actually respond to you. I may not make sense, but I’ll respond. Now go read a comic.
September 1st, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Hi Roger,
As you can see by facebook, I’ve been enjoying the whole Marvel/Disney thing. Still, as a Friend Of Old Marvel, I have to admit it does bring up some concerns, most of which for me revolve around the concentration of media in fewer and fewer hands, as well as the ultimate editorial independence of Marvel.
Disney has a definite cultural outlook, which, while delightful to millions can seem stifling to others. Imagine Disney owning beloved Warner Brothers cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny and Sylvester the Cat and then picture new interpretations of those characters filtered through the Disney world view. Compared to Disney, WB toons were gritty and at times subversive. Disney toons tend to take a more conservative, “wholesome” tack.
In the big world of corporate mega-companies its easy to presume that Marvel is going to be left to be Marvel, just so long as they’re profitable. But what if one day they aren’t and someone at Disney starts tinkering? I’m not going to lose sleep over it, but if you care about the history and culture of a set of beloved characters like those of Marvel, it is of some concern.
Final thought, it’s my opinion that an argument could be made that some parallels could be drawn between Stan Lee and his relationship, as a writer and “idea man”, with prodigeous artist Jack Kirby at Marvel and the relationship Walt Disney had with Ub Iwerks. I’d be interested to hear your take on that.
Take care,
Ben
September 1st, 2009 at 9:31 pm
Ben,
Well, I understand your concern about media ending up in fewer hands and I can’t argue with it.
However, I believe your concern that the Marvel characters will be “Disney-fied” – a concern I have read elsewhere – does not take into consideration all that Disney is a part of today. People rightly connect Disney with family entertainment, but that’s not always the case. When they released the movie “Splash” they created the Touchstone line for films that were more adult. Disney, through Miramax, released “Pulp Fiction.” Disney owns ABC and I don’t find “Lost” or “Desperate Housewives” to be typical Disney fare. So, Disney has shown that they are willing to release all sorts of programming, so long as the Disney name itself is used only for family fare. Since these will still be Marvel Comics, I honestly don’t think they’ll monkey with the characters. But, really, and this point, who knows?
As far as the Stan and Jack are like Disney and Iwerks, I can see it a little, but not much. Part of this comes from the fact that collaborating on a comic is very different from collaborating on an animated film. Beyond that, my understanding (and I could be wrong) is that Stan and Jack worked more closely with ideas coming from both of them to produce the final comics. While Iwerks was a brilliant animator and later introduced some amazing innovations to the art of film making, story was not his strong point. That was where Walt and the rest of the story men came in. Or to put it another way, from what I’ve read, Stan and Jack were co-workers; Walt and Ub were boss and employee. So while they are both classic collaborations, how the people worked together was different.
Roger