There are only a few naysayers, and most either confused or cautiously speculative, but I honestly don’t think many things on the fandom end will be affected; there will just be more money in different people’s pockets. What’s really going to change with this acquisition? Disney is notorious for aggressive merchandising and pushing their licensed characters, but will a flood of new action figures and new Marvel-themed rides at Disneyland really affect Marvel’s artistic integrity or quality of work? As long as Disney keeps its hand out of what the folks at Marvel actually do, then I don’t see a problem. People were upset when Disney bought out Pixar too, but Pixar has, for the most part, retained its autonomy and continues to produce outstanding films. So why shouldn’t I expect Marvel to continue making comics like it always has?

Some people are concerned with the long list of Marvel properties being developed as films at the moment, but it isn’t like Disney is forcibly severing Marvel’s existing contracts with the dozens of studios already involved. If Marvel’s success in movies is part of why it was attractive to Disney, then shouldn’t Disney just let them continue doing their thing? Others are concerned that Disney might take away from the maturity and violence of certain Marvel titles, but if Disney was also attracted to Marvel’s popularity with boys and men of a wide demographic, why would they tamper with that by numbing anything down? Of course, logic hasn’t stopped companies from shooting themselves in the foot before, but Disney should know that they can’t afford to make too many mistakes here.

I guess I might be more concerned if I actually read more Marvel titles, but my Western comic consumption is pretty limited as is, and even then, it’s mostly DC for Batman. Still, I see this mostly as just another acquisition that will be accepted soon enough, just like Disney and Pixar and when Adobe bought Macromedia.

As for Kingdom Hearts, I don’t really think that Spider-Man will be making his debut there any time soon, but Square-Enix is just as notorious for exploiting its properties as Disney, so who would really be surprised? Sora, Spidey, and Mickey VS Xemnas, the Lizard, and Sephiroth, why the hell not?? At this point, Kingdom Hearts is every bit as much of a cash cow as Final Fantasy, so I’m not too invested in the franchise keeping any kind of integrity anymore. It’s too late for that already, so whatever! Bring it. …I’ll still buy it. Integration might be a little awkward considering most Marvel characters reside in the “real world,” but hey, it would be kind of awesome if Sora and his buddies could visit Manhattan and do the tourist thing. Sora in Times Square! Sora in Central Park! Sora at the Statue of Liberty! Sora riding in a taxi! I mean, they’ve already visited Port Royal and that was a real place too.

Just think, you could have Wolverine as a summon and he’d slash through Heartless for you… Okay, so I can’t actually picture Logan taking orders from Sora at all, but heeey. Maybe if Sora buys him a cigar and a beer.

From @debaoki (Editor of manga.about.com and one of the best AX twitter reporters I’ve found!):

okay at manga in US industry panel #ax09

lots of good commentary at manga in the US panel. lillian diaz-pryzbyl, luis reyes from tokyopop, plus robert napton fr. bandai

i can’t keep up with all the incredibly quotable quotes from the us manga panel at #ax09. very frank talk about failures, limitations.

there’s talk about how expensive it is to develop OEL manga – 4x as much as licensing manga from Japan.

Damn, that’s a huge investment difference — no wonder so few companies are willing to put forth the effort! Especially since they at least have an idea of how popular a licensed manga from Japan will do. With OEL, all the risk is on them — they have no idea how much it will sell, which leads into some cyclical failure as far as marketing goes. Seriously, how many OEL titles have you actually seen advertised? If TOKYOPOP pushed had pushed its OEL titles even half as much as they push Fruit Baskets, more of them might have had a chance. I also really get the idea that the talent search isn’t thorough enough — there are a slew of mediocre titles out there that pollute manga fans’ general opinion of OEL, which also contributes to this apparent downward spiral.

I really want to see more traditional US comics publishers to take on OEL projects. The companies that have previously been just licensing Japanese works may not have an incentive or the financial support to experiment with OEL, but at the very least, companies like Marvel and DC have money to play with. And I don’t mean any of the “manga versions” of their existing titles either — manga X-Men and manga Batman don’t count. I guess they still don’t have much of an incentive, but it’s unfortunate if they’re only looking for original projects in a certain style. If VIZ’s eventual original comics line will be willing to accept good pitches in any style, then why can’t Marvel and DC?

lots of talk about how the US system is not equipped to train artists to be better artists, storytellers.

US industry doesn’t allow artists time to develop their skills over time – demand for quick $$ return

at this panel, they’re showing examples of student work from a manga program at a local university. they’re all v. mediocre. #ax09

the very amateurish examples being shown on the screen don’t help anyone think that OEL manga has much to offer.

Exactly. No wonder no one wants to buy OEL! Consider that a vast majority of TOKYOPOP’s OEL titles were picked up form high school and college kids that entered their Rising Stars competition — most of them have never had any sort of formal training, so it’s really no surprise that they putter out so quickly. Their 20-page one shot might be okay, but give them a three-volume series and they have no idea what to do. I really get the feeling that TOKYOPOP was too eager to break into that market since no one else was tapping it at the time. Manga had only been popular for a few short years when Rising Stars was started, so there was only one generation of fan-turned-artists to draw from (admittedly, there were lots of manga fans from before the big boom, but the recent generation is the biggest crowd to take from). If they had started a few years later, there would have been many, many more art school-trained artists that would have been more capable of tackling the challenge of building up an OEL market in the States. Then again, many art-school trained artists still suck in the storytelling department because all they focus on is drawing, as noted below:

korean comics industry is smaller, but seems to allow for experimental comics to be more successful

“very few US manga artists have that fusion of drawing skills and knowledge of how a story flows”

webcomic artists forget that their pace of drawing 3 pages a week is too slow for professional work.

“it’s very difficult to be an awesome artist & an awesome writer at the same time.”

“We’ve met great artists who are miserable writers. There’s only so much an editor can do to fix an awful story.”

“so many 14 year olds on deviant art say “I’ve got a great idea for a manga”

“I say ‘give it 10 years & come back to me when you know how to write.’ – & that’s me being NICE.”

“ive been to many portfolio reviews where the artist says ‘this is not my best work’– so why show it?”

Lillian was frank that they think that they don’t pay artists enough, but the biz structure makes it hard to pay more

“we don’t care that you can draw naruto in 15 poses. Being able to draw a character in a story, that’s what we want”

Ouch. And yet there are so many artists I know that will openly admit that they can’t write worth a damn. But they still want to draw their own comics. There aren’t enough comic-oriented art programs in the United States — most liberal arts universities have a very general art program with most of the focus on traditional fine art. As such, they will have students work on technique and style, but not storytelling. It might be more useful for aspiring comickers to enroll in a film program instead, or at least take a few directional classes on camera and storytelling. It blows my mind that countries like France and Korea invest so much more into the arts and recognize so many more branches of art; no wonder both of their comic markets are ten times as prosperous as the one in the United States.

Interesting bit about the webcomic artists though — what is the professional pace of pages per week? I feel like this is something I should know, but the rate would be different depending on how many people are working together on the pages (penciler, inker, toner/colorist). This really is a ruthless industry, lots of work for very little reward other than your own satisfaction, but your own satisfaction doesn’t pay the bills.

general consensus is that OEL manga development is a low priority for publishers in hard economic times.

“the bookstore model works as consignment: you can sell 10,000 books to these stores, then they can return 9,000.”

“this really plays havok with a business to be stuck with 9,000 books that’s headed to the compactor.”

Bad news for all the recent and soon-to-be-graduates looking for jobs! (Oh snap, that includes me.) I think this is all the more reason to hope that the Longbox really takes off since it’ll make production and distribution much, much easier and cost-effective for publishers, which could theoretically translate into them being more willing to take chances with original projects.

–

Not really specifics from the AX panel, but here’s some good additional commentary from @CBCebulski (Talent scout for Marvel Comics):

The U.S. comic system is equipped to train artists. The problem with OEL is that a lot of them aren’t artists. They’re manga fans who draw.

Many OEL kids were thrown into, and taken advantage of, by a fledgling business they had no education in or understanding of.

Early OEL chewed up and spit out a lot of artists who did have talent and just needed guidance and support. I hope they stick with it.

I know many “OEL artists” who have stuck it out and have successful careers now, but there are plenty more who walked away disenchanted.

Hopefully they’ll go to art school, learn more about the comic form, & give it another go, w/ a company/editor who can guide them this time.

Reading manga is not a proper art education.

The last bit makes me laugh, though while I agree, I also think that reading a ton of manga/comics definitely helps. There was a girl in one of my classes last year that admitted to not reading a lot of comics at all. Everyone else in the class was all, “Then why the hell are you here?”

It has some very Apple-inspired aethestics.

I’ve written about the idea of digital distribution of comics before, but had only considered a web-based platform because that was what most companies seemed to be experimenting with at the time. And really, I think one of the other reasons I hadn’t considered the iTunes model before is because I couldn’t really see the comics (or manga) industry ever agreeing on a universal solution, especially considering how haphazard and all over the place everyone’s digital model is for anime and television streams and downloads. And yet, how convenient and elegant it would be if they could agree? If you could find all your comics in one place for the super cheap price of $0.99/issue? It’s just about perfect.

With all the comics inflation that’s been happening recently, the price point of the Longbox might be the most attractive feature for both consumers and companies. Marvel has raised its most popular titles from $2.99/issue to $3.99/issue. For me, the three bucks I’d save buying a digital version is well worth sacrificing the novelty of a hard copy, especially when those three bucks add up every Wednesday. I could use that extra money to buy more comics! For graphic novels, if we go by prices set by various current web-models, they might go for anywhere between $2.50 and $4.50 a volume — at least half the price of Viz’s new $9.99 standard and TOKYOPOP’s $10.99. And for companies, since there would be zero printing costs, and since the Longbox supports formats already being used, it isn’t unlikely that they’d see an even bigger profit margin from digital sales.

A lot of people already read comics digitally, whether legally or illegally, so I really don’t think that transition will be much of an issue here. With money tight in everyone’s pocket’s these days, it’s hard to argue tradition with cost, and the publishing industry in general has been declining for a while. When Amazon’s Kindle 2 released in February, my feed reader was bombarded with Slashdot and New York Times articles comparing its surging popularity with that of Apple’s iPod with further comparisons with the music industry in general. And indeed, there do seem to be a lot of similarities, including telltale mistakes. The Longbox does seek to interface with the Kindle, as well as the score of other experimental eReaders like the iPhone, WiiWare, DS, and Xbox Live. The graphic format of comics might make it more challenging to adapt than text, but at this point, I see its acceptance as inevitable, at the very least on computer screens.

The last thing is, of course, content. A few studios are already on board, but no one major yet (ie, no Marvel or DC or Dark Horse, no Viz or TOKYOPOP). I am hoping that this will change soon as news of the Longbox makes its way around. Really, I don’t see any reason for it to fail once the major players sign on — iTunes is a proven success, and I don’t think comics or comics consumers are all that different from music and music consumers. Such a dramatic shift to digital comics will be hard on a lot of people and there will be casualties in the process (comic stores that don’t host D&D games will be the first to go), but as Ron Richards over at iFanboy dramatically puts it, “Digital comics are inevitable.  Change or Die.”

Madhouse apparently has the creative license to “re-imagine” whatever the heck they want using Marvel’s properties. This phrasing does not bode well with me. …Has anyone seen the Spidey live action show Japan created? I’ve seen an episode. It is the most hilarious crack ever and is definitely one of those things that makes you go, “OH, JAPAN! OH, YOU! …WHY?!” It makes you wanna laugh and cry simultaneously. It’s so very stereotypical of Japan to “re-imagine” Spidey in a parallel universe where he not only has special, radioactive spider powers, but he pilots a giant robot! Yes! That is totally what Japan is all about. Giant robots. With everything. (Because everyone knows that mecha makes everything better.) In a similar vein… has anyone seen the Japanese Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles “re-imagining”? Japanese Spider-Man was more laughing than crying. Japanese TMNT was more crying than laughing.

I’m not as big a fan of Iron Man and Wolverine as I am of Spidey and the Turtles, but I sure hope they get treated better. I do have some confidence in the Marvel/Madhouse team though. After all, the Spidey and TMNT adaptations are years old now and the industry has changed a lot since then. I don’t think Batman: Gotham Knight really counts as an example since they weren’t “re-imagining” it and it had a specific story role to fill between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, but it still shows that more recent partnerships between US and Japanese companies have been more successful. I haven’t actually seen Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z, but honestly, I think PPG was rather suited for the magical girl nonsense.

What I’m really curious about though, is whether or not the Japanese audience really wants American properties to be “re-imagined” for their sake. Case in point: American fans are generally pretty damn livid when companies do any editing on existing shows. 4Kids has a place down in the deepest level hell with along with Judas and Brutus in the eyes of most overseas fans, and even FUNimation, back in the hay day of DBZ, was not immune from rampant criticism. Can you imagine what would happen if an American company tried to “re-imagine” a Japanese property? If Viacom tried to remake Akira with “American cultural references”? There would be rioting in the streets.

Sure, American moviemakers have developed a gradual interest in making live action adaptations of Japanese works — Akira, Evangelion, Battle Angel, and so on, but for the most part, the people involved have said that they will try to stay as true to the source material as possible. They aren’t re-imagining much, if anything at all. Overseas fans don’t want their Japanese cartoons and comics filtered through a cultural lens. They are perfectly willing and able to digest foreign culture. They want to. They’re sick of their own culture; that’s why they gravitated to Japan in the first place.

So why is Japan different? They love US movies, which usually release in theatres subtitled. I’m not sure how big the audience is for US and other foreign comics, but we know that Japan loves Disney. And Harry Potter. So do superheros really need to be adapted for them? Did Spider-Man really need to become a mecha pilot for Japanese kids to be able to identify with them? (That’s a… really, really hilarious thought.) For Iron Man, I imagine his suit streamlined like whoa. It will be sleek and beautiful and have a billion new functions and be oh so very Japanesey. And Tony Stark will be flaming bishounen. But other than that, what would be changed? Billionaires and self-absorbed assholes exist in Japan too. And Wolverine? He should fit right in. He’s a mutant. Japan freakin’ loves mutants and monsters and aliens and that junk.

It is puzzling to me. But oh well. I guess we’ll find out in two years. If anything, I’m sure it’ll be a darn pretty anime if Madhouse is doing it. And Stan Lee’s other Japanese projects should be interesting too.

And yet, if SDCC is any indication, comic movies are going to be going strong for at least the rest of the decade. We’ve got the Wolverine movie coming up, and what, I think DC’s going to do a Justice League movie? Not to mention the Watchman hubbub that’s been up since the trailer debuted in theatres with The Dark Knight. You know what I’d really love to see though? I wanna see Marvel to a Civil War movie. That would be so many kinds of epic. Despite the fact that we’ve seen so many superhero movies already, there are still endless possibilities because the DC and Marvelverses alone span hundreds of titles. With Hellboy and Hellboy II, it’s clear that more independent companies also want in on the potential cash cow too, not to mention that manga-oriented companies like TOKYOPOP and Viz are also very interested. We’ve got enough material here to go on forever!

I don’t doubt that the fanboys and girls will be endlessly willing to keep going to see these films in theatres. I don’t doubt that midnight releases will continue to feature long lines full of cosplay and excited debate. Batman is more than seventy years old; we still love him. But the hardcore fans only make up a fraction of the audience, and I wonder how much tolerance the general public has for superhero genre, especially considering most still don’t consider it a very “serious” kind of movie. How seriously can you take a guy dressed up like a bat? Fighting a clown? Kids stuff, right?

We of the fandom understand that Batman has perfectly legitimate, intelligent and relevant themes hidden beneath the mask, smoke, and mirrors, but from experience, I know that most people don’t care to look for those things and just go for the action-packed fighting or whathaveyou. It’s a cheap thrill, and cheap thrills get boring after a while. Is “educating” the general public about the more serious themes of comic books an achievable task? Would they really care to learn when they can easily get their fix of “seriousness” from what they already deem to be serious movies? Would having them understand the underlying themes of movies really even help slow or stop their gradual progression to boredom? I’d like to think so.

The Times article I mentioned earlier claims that most superhero movies follow the same sort of storyline. Hero meets villain. Hero confronts villain. Hero defeats villain. For the most part, I suppose this is true — Superman defeats Lex Luthor (kind of), the X-Men defeat Phoenix (kind of), Spider-Man defeats Venom (kind of?) — but the beauty of any genre is its ability to break free from the conventions that define it. The Dark Knight is actually a great example of that, or really, any Batman storyline involving the Joker. Does he ever really win? Is chaos something you can really defeat? What would defeating the Joker actually mean? Full of deep questions, see?

Personally, I don’t think the comic book movies are going to stop any time soon, though they may start to diversify and stray away more from the straight-up superhero path. Sin City and 300 are also great examples of this (okay, well, 300 is debatable, but it’s still pretty different). Eventually, the general public may come to realize that comics don’t just mean kid’s stuff. In the meantime, they’ll probably keep watching anyway. We seem to be good at hyping things up, after all. :P Franchises do best in trilogies, so I hope they’ll lay off of Spidey a while longer. I wouldn’t mind if they took a bit longer with the X-Men followups either. But Iron Man 2? Hell yeah! More Batman! Yes, please! More Superman? Sure! Bring it. We’ll watch ‘um. And we’ll smash a few more box office records while we’re at it.