by Michael San Giacomo
Just when it looked possible that someday most of Marvel Comics would be available on DVD, Marvel pulled the plug.
Ray Pelosi, of the GIT Corp. which has been producing DVD’s of whole
catalogues of Marvel Comics, said they will sell off their current
stock by the end of February. That’s it, that’s the end,” he said.
“After that we are no longer permitted to sell Marvel DVDs.”
GIT’s Marvel pipeline was cut
shortly after Marvel announced Digital Comics Unlimited, which offers
more than 2,500 back issues to customers at Marvel’s website.
Subscribers pay an annual $59.88 subscription fee, or $9.99 a month for
all the comics they can view. The catch is, they can only view them as
long as they subscribe.
In addition to DVD collections of X-Men, Avengers, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and others, Pelosi said the final Marvel products coming out in December would be Civil War — The Complete Collection and House of M — The Complete Collection.
Pelosi said though he has lost Marvel, he gained Archie. He announced
the Spring production of DVDs of Archie Comics, but was still trying to
decide how to package them.
“We may go for smaller sets, like all the Valentine’s Day issues and
specials,” he said. “Archie has been around since the 1940s and there
are too many books for one set.”
He said he would try to convince Archie to let him collect the Golden
Age Archie Comics superheroes, (then called MLJ Comics) including
titles like Zip, Blue Ribbon and Pep with characters like The Shield, Steel Sterling, The Comet, The Hangman, Black Hood and Mr. Justice.
He is also interested in releasing a DVD of the Silver Age Archie superheroes, starting with Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s The Fly and Private Strong and including the various incarnations of The Mighty Crusaders.
Personally, I’d love to have all those comics on DVD since they are not
only horribly expensive, but very hard to find. Not as many people
saved Steel Sterling compared with those who horded Superman and
Batman. I have a few of the MLJ comics and all of the Silver Age
books…somewhere. It would be great to read them again for those Jerry
Siegel stories and art by Rich Buckler, Gray Morrow, Dick Ayers, Steve
Ditko, Carmine Infantino and dozens of others.
I plan to drop a line to Archie Comics at http://www.archiecomics.com/talkback.html begging them to release the books. If you agree, let ‘em know.
Pelosi said he has so far been unsuccessful in convincing DC to open
their massive vaults for reproduction, but is always looking for
suggestions.
Marvel’s decision might put a slight crimp in the plans for Fred
Wright, Ph.D., of the English Department of Ursuline College a bit east
of Cleveland.
Wright is conducting a survey, via Cleveland area comic shops, to determine if anybody is reading the things.
“I am conducting research on how the entire runs of comic book titles on DVD-ROM (such as The Amazing Spider-Man
from GIT) might affect the hobby of comic collecting,” he said in his
survey. “As a comic book collector/reader, you might be able to assist
me in the research by answering the following questions.”
The survey is a simple set of six questions like: have you ever read a
comic in electronic format? How does it compare to reading a comic
book? If you have purchased a collection, would you buy another?
And the pithy question, “Would you consider a comic book collection in electronic format to be truly a comic book collection?”
Hmmmm. Good question.
( Wright said anyone interested in filling out the survey, or who has thoughts on DVD comics, can contact him at wredfright@yahoo.com)
This boils down to what comic collections actually are and why we have them. As I said, I have all the Mighty Crusaders
comics somewhere among my tens of thousands of unsorted comics in
boxes. At least I think I do. Suppose I needed them for some reference,
or just wanted to read them, it could take me weeks to find it. But if
I had the Archie Silver Age DVD, I could see the books in minutes.
Now that Marvel offers this service, we can even more easily track down
a single story even if it not among the DVD sets, assuming it’s among
the 2,500 offered.
PEANUTS
I just finished Charles Schulz and Peanuts by David Michaelis (slow reader, I know) and it has given me a greater appreciation for the man and his work.
It also made me dig out the wonderful Fantagraphics collections of the strips.
For those of us who grew up reading Peanuts, and that’s just about everyone born since 1950, the strip was an important part of our lives.
The life of Charles Schulz reminds me of a line from an old Lou Reed
song in which he told his ever-struggling father, “You’re not a poor
man anymore. I hope you realize that before you die.”
Michaelis’ book depicts Schulz as forever unsatisfied, a man always
striving for something better, a man as sad as Charlie Brown. One of
the more touching passages in the book comes after Schulz was diagnosed
with terminal cancer and after he has retired from the strip. He says
wistfully that “The little guy never got to kick the football.”
Schulz was one of the most successful cartoonists in history, parlaying
his strip into a billion dollar industry that continues long after his
death on Feb. 12, 2000, the day before his final Sunday cartoon
announcing his retirement was published.
Schulz’s son, Monte, has criticized the book as inaccurate, but it’s
impossible to know if he’s correct or just a beloved son reacting to a
sometimes uncomplimentary book about his father.
If Monte believes anyone would think less of his father because of his
depiction as sometimes depressed and always unfulfilled, he’s wrong.
The fact that Schulz was able to chain himself to his drawing table for
five decades and produce all those amazing cartoons in spite of those
emotional issues, makes him even more impressive.
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