Will somebody kindly tell me...

...just what the friggin' frig the deal is with this?

I mean, do I need to elaborate on that? Probably not, but I will anyway: the comic is known as Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. By leaving off "Walt," this new version looks bizarrely decapitates the title for no reason that I can see (somehow, I think of those old photos from Stalinist Russia from which liquidated party officials would be edited out as convenient). And compounding the bizarreness is that it remains "Comics and stories. "Stories" is the anachronistic part of the title. It hasn't published text stories in forever. There have been incarnations of the title which lopped off "and stories;" I don't love that, but it makes sense and I can't get too het up about it. But this--let's not mince words--fucking bullshit of getting rid of Walt (I mean, the renumbering sucks too, but at least you can sort of explain, if not justify, that)? The only possible explanation I can think of is that someone at Disney decided that they want to deemphasize the man himself and only have "Disney" used as a corporate signifier. That possibility does NOT speak well of anyone, but, well...what am I supposed to think? But whatever the reason, it sucks. A lot (I want to love you, Disney, I really do, but you sure don't make it easy). WDC is a beloved, venerable institution and does not deserve to be fucked with in such a manner. And really, whatever wildly misguided notions anyone may have about branding, from a marketing perspective, this is just nonsense: new readers are not going to care one way or the other about this, and stalwarts like us are just pissed off. What brain trust is responsible for this?

I think IDW may be having some kind of psychotic break. There's this, and then there's the extremely ominous talk of "fresh and modern" translations, or whatever the fuck? I mean, if you want to switch up translation philosophies for some sort of articulated reason, that would be, well, at least theoretically justified, but does anyone think this is going to be anything other than an exercise in blandness, probably precipitated by some clueless bureaucrat's resentment over liberties and perceived liberties taken with the Most Holy Text? Especially given that they're kicking off with the mediocrity that is "Uncle Scrooge's Millions," I think the question comes very close to answering itself.

But hey, by all means, don't listen to me; I'm just an intense, long-time fan. I'm sure you can make up for alienating people like me by attracting random dilettantes. Really. This is an extremely coherent, well-thought-out idea. Don't worry about a thing. Knock yourselves out.

Still...you should probably at least know this much: if your comics go in the bad direction that it looks like they're going to go, I'm going to stop buying them. No, you don't care about that per se, but look: this blog may not be particularly popular as blogs go, but as English-language Disney-comics blogs go, it's pretty comfortably in the number-one spot. That sounds like bragging, and sure sure it's a bit like winning the "tallest dwarf" contest, but it is what it is. If I write about a story (assuming it has an even slightly distinctive title), my blog entry will appear among the top google hits on the first page.  Point being: do you want me to give you unrelentingly negative publicity? 'Cause if you earn it I will, and it seems like that might not be the all-time super-greatest thing for you, given how marginal this field is. Think about it,'s all I'm saying.