Marvel end "Non USA produced superhero output"

[icon_uk]

This is... bizarre.

First some scene setting... (and legality too)



...who would expect the end would come because of a MOUSE?

According to Newsarama, Disney has decreed that ALL Marvel superhero material originate in the USA, rather than from outside their borders.

This means no more new stories from the UK, where some writers got their first taste of professionally published stories, even before moving on to 2000AD, including such minor luminaries as... Alan Moore, Alan Davis, Dave Gibbons and Grant Morrison (who wrote the ZOIDS story glimpsed above)

Quotes from Simon Furman and Simon Williams

Furman: It’s a huge blow to British comics. In their heyday, Marvel UK (before it became Panini UK) was turning out a vast amount of originated material — from licensed titles like Transformers, Zoids, Thundercats, Doctor Who and Real Ghostbusters to UK originals like Dragon’s Claws, Death’s Head, Motormouth, Sleeze Brothers, Knights of Pendragon, Warheads, Dark Angel and many, many more. Along with 2000AD, Marvel UK was the biggest single producer of original comics content in the UK during the 80s and early 90s. The fact that Panini continued the tradition of UK-originated strips, albeit on a smaller scale, was, in my view, worth preserving/encouraging.

Williams: It certainly is a big blow to British comics. Over the years, Marvel UK has played a very important role in not only the UK comics industry, but I think comics in general. Look at the wellspring of home-grown talent that started out working, or honing their talents with Marvel UK who have gone onto work for Marvel US (creators such as Alan Davis, Steve Dillon, Bryan Hitch, Simon Furman, Andy Wildman and Richard Starkings to name a few). Panini are one of the few companies here in the UK which produce comics featuring originated material, and Disney's new ruling now means that the many freelancers who worked on those books are now without work.

Well, that's a bit of a bugger and no mistake. :(

Comments

[silverzeo]

A friend of mine in the UK told me this after sometime ago, bad news for the Marvel UK line up...

[mynondw]

Maybe they're trying to create employment for Americans? Maybe it's a political thing, because employing people outside the US might "look bad"? Just random guessing. I have no idea. *headscratch*

[icon_uk]

Neat try, but Disney has such a massive European publishing arm for the Scrooge McDuck, Dingo (Goofy) et al, I can't quite see it.

[lieut_kettch]

Exactly-- Disney comics don't sell well in the US; the majority of the profit from these comics comes from European sales.

[kamino_neko]

It sounds more like controlling the brand - rather than leaving it to freelancers working with Panini, it's people under contract to Marvel proper.

Which still seems strange with Disney's foreign comics of their core Disney characters, though.

[kaete]

What on earth? This is insane. Why wouldn't you take the best product no matter where it comes from?

[drexer]

Do you remember Dan Didio's answer regarding female employment on DC and how they got 'the best writers and artists possible'?

Expect a similar answer from Marvel implying that the UK doesn't have proper writers and artists.

...

I kid, I kid. Although this does make me wonder what will happen with current writers such as Kieron Gillen and such.

[stubbleupdate]

Why would Gillen be affected? His work is on Marvel US properties.

[drexer]

I have no idea, that's why I asked.

To be fair I dived back into the comics medium little more than an year ago and I've yet to gather the courage to try and understand all the sub-companies and legal distinctions that the big two have between themselves. Even icon_uk's simple post above regarding Scrooge McDuck publishing and such around the world makes me simultaneous both want to check how it works and cowers in a corner if fear of the fast deluge of information.

I do need to gather up the willpower one of those days for a wikipedia reading day...

[stubbleupdate]

[lieut_kettch]

DEY TUK URRR JERRRBS!

[darkblade]

Were the Madhouse Marvel animes that bad?

What about Marvel vs Capcom? Isn't that made 90% in Japan and still bringing in money by the truckload even without Ultimate coming out soon.

[mullon]

Oh sure, now someone tries to fight outsourcing.

[salinea]

what the fuckery?! why?

[greenmask]

Well fuck you DIsney! Fuck you!

[greenmask]

P.S. Moar Zoids scans plz icon?

[pyrotwilight]

But...wasn't Spider-Man UK one of the places where Spider-girl has shown up (twice I think?)

That's a shame (the closing).

[hyperactivator]

Hopefully the best of the talent will be scooped up by the main company now.

[lieut_kettch]

Does this affect artists based outside of the US as well?

[thistleburr]

This is what I want to know too. Is this going to mean no more Marvel work from Jim Cheung? :(

[icon_uk]

Not if they are working on material to be published in the USA.

[eyz]

I liked some of the stuff Marvel UK put out all these years..
Hey, at least in Europe there's still Marvel France, right?
...
What? Nobody besides me knew about them?

[turtlefu]

Oh, I think I get it. There are saying there are going to end the original, exclusive stories that came out in other territories like Britain. I think, instead of having Marvel UK books that are completely separate from the ones published in the US, Marvel may just publish their books in both the US and UK.

Which makes sense, I guess, because it actually reduces the number of books that Marvel needs to manage and it gives greater in-house control.

[icon_uk]

Yes that's it, but it raises the fact that the UK has been a very good recruiting ground for creative talent for the US comics industry, and this will mean that there may be any number of journeyman creators whose work will never achieve the recognition needed to spark their careers because there will be no Marvel UK original product for them to work on.

2000AD can only do so much you know.

[turtlefu]

Right, that's the other part to it. But I do think Marvel is still going to try to reach UK-based creators. If I'm not wrong, Kieron Gillen never worked on Marvel UK before his Marvel US work. Hopefully Marvel will still provide some means to recruit UK creators.
I wish there was some way to have it both ways, because the other problem with having two separate set of books was that if you weren't a part of the market (ie a US reader wanting a UK comic) it's almost impossible to get. Maybe digital will fix that.

[kenwyn89]

Nooo. Just when you're starting to see comic and graphic novel shelves in newsagents grow more and more now!