Okay it’s a brand new year, and Marvel is now officially part of Disney, and DC is officially not officially doing anything yet. So what’s the word? Here’s the week in leaks and whispers:

MARVEL: A Marvel insider tells us that a few retailers are definitely sending in covers of their Blackest Night tie-ins — one store sent in over 100 covers. Perhaps more will participate when the Siege Deadpool cover is actually revealed? Related: More on the record retailer reactions to the stunt.

DC: Still no publisher in sight to replace the departing Paul Levitz, either officially or even rumored, although an announcement was expected to be made by the end of the month. Luckily, to fan the flames of the hot stove league, Newsarama has an op/ed listing 10 Candidates for DC Publisher which is so gonzo that even Newsarama posters think it’s all hooey. Grant Morrison? Really? Why on earth would someone with no administrative and business background whatsoever be a candidate for helping Warner Bros. manage their licensing and branding?

So who IS going to take over as DC’s publisher? Will it be someone from inside Warners we’ve never heard of. You know, there’s one week left in the month. Continuing….

Yet again we poll folks from EVERY region of the comics industry to see what’s on their minds for the past year and what they have in the works for 2010. We’ve been doing this for a few years and never has there been such consensus on the top stories of both the past and future years. As you read on you’ll see what we mean, but you’ll also find exclusive art previews, publishing news, and some pretty sharp opinions.

David Lloyd, cartoonist

2010 projects: Cartoon Classroom .  Not a job of work but an act of charity I’m happy to perform – helping out a website designed specifically for folks in the UK and Ireland, where access to useful information on the study of cartooning and sequential art is not as readily available as in the US.  CC aims to centralise it all, so that anyone looking for info on classes, tutors to teach classes, books to study, museums to go to, has one source containing all, or pointing to all, rather than a disparate bunch to go to.  Our biggest problem – communicating it’s existence to everyone who should know about it.  But we’re getting there.
 
What was the biggest story in comics in 2009? Just don’t know.  After The Deluge should have been, I’m inclined to think.

What guilty pleasure (of any kind) are you looking forward to in 2010?
 
Doing another of my own graphic novels.  Hopefully one that people will get to know about in contrast to my last one… No – cancel that ‘ hopefully ‘.  I’ll make absolutely sure that people know about it or die trying.

When I think of comics in the 00s I think of:

(more…)

PR via Nikki Finke:

Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: MVL), a global character-based entertainment and licensing company founded in 1939, announced that at a special meeting held this morning, Marvel stockholders approved the adoption of the Agreement and Plan of Merger entered into by Marvel and The Walt Disney Company (“Disney”), which provides for a merger in which Marvel will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Disney. Marvel anticipates that the merger, which, based on the closing price of Disney’s common stock on December 30, 2009, has an estimated value of approximately $4.3 billion, will be completed today after the close of the market.

The completion of the merger is subject to satisfaction of remaining conditions disclosed in the definitive proxy statement/prospectus filed by Disney with the Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to Rule 424 on December 2, 2009.

Ah, Marvel, we hardly knew ye. I will miss your stock filings, your earnings forecasts, your heritage from Timely on. Welcome to the Mouse House. Welcome, 2010.

T Campbell and John Waltrip for the Disney-Marvel mishmash of your dreams. And posters ARE available. Get ‘em while you can!

Marvel Studios Chairman David Maisel plans to step down after the Disney deal goes through, the trades report. President Kevin Feige will remain and report directly to Disney Studios boss Rich Ross.

Maisel will retain an exec producer credit on movies developed while he was on board — IRON MAN 2, THOR, and THE FIRST AVENGER: CAPTAIN AMERICA.

According to Variety, Maisel , who once worked for Disney in Business Development, was instrumental in getting Marvel their $525 million revolving credit line which enabled them to start their own studio, and supposedly it was he who initiated the entire Disney-Marvel deal.

Although it may look like Maisel is getting the short end of the stick, don’t shed a tear — he’s walking away with $20.4 million after the Disney acquisition.

While the aftereffects of 10 Days That Shook The World™ have been rather muted of late while Warner figures out what to do with DC and folks were waiting for Marvel’s shareholders to approve the Disney purchase, at least one of those things is set to take place. Marvel has announced that the merger will be completed by December 31st. A special shareholders meeting has been set up, at 9:00 AM.

At the special meeting, stockholders will consider and vote on the adoption of the Agreement and Plan of Merger entered into by Marvel and The Walt Disney Company (“Disney”), which provides for a merger in which Marvel will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Disney. Stockholders who owned Marvel common stock at the close of business on November 23, 2009 are entitled to vote at the special meeting.

And then it’s DAZZLER: THE HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL all the way!

We know that you are all tired of Disney Marvel mash-ups, but Is Animator Jeffrey Thomas’s Twisted Princess portfolio close to how Marvel might handle classic princess characters?

NOTE: We really screwed up when we first posted this. We picked it up from another blog that called it how Marvel would handle Disney Princesses, but it’s a completely independent project from earlier this year. It is kinda funnier with the attribution, though. Anyway, very nice concept designs!

Via this week’s issue. As correspondent Jamie T. points out “While I suspect Lee Lorenz believes he has drawn Iron man, doesn’t his armoured gent more closely resemble ROM: Spaceknight? Is he a closet Bill Mantlo fan?”

• Bob Iger held a meeting with Marvel folks yesterday morning, and by all accounts, it went over very well. C.B. Cebulski tweeted :

“The essence of Marvel, that lives mainly in its comic books, will remain as is.” – Disney’s Bob Iger speaking at Marvel this morning.

And then, the usually unstoppable tweeter Cebulski….fell silent for the remainder of the day.

• Rich Johnston had an excellent piece on the European situation. Basically, Disney is an overseas powerhouse, and the biggest publisher in many European countries — however, its market share has been slipping of late. BUT, Marvel is distributed by Panini, a rival of Disney’s Italian office and a company that was once OWNED by Marvel but came out of the deal one of the biggest comics licensors in Europe. This one is going to be rough!

• It has been a busy week! I recorded two interviews yesterday! One with Mike Melia for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer’s Art Beat blog.

And another with Scott Hinze for Fanboy Radio , who also nabbed Rich Johnston, Rick Marschall, and Media Professor, Dr. Derek Kopare of SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts.

Some links to keep you company with that afternoon cappuccino. The transcript of yesterday’s investor call with Bob Iger is now online.

Staci D Kramer at Paid Content has a good overall look at the deal with some informed speculation:

—Does Marvel have autonomy? Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter will report to Iger. How much after that is written into the fine print could be in the merger agreement, which hasn’t been filed with the SEC yet, but people at both companies familiar with the thinking say a lot is riding on trust—as in “it would be crazy” (a phrase I heard often) for Iger and Disney to do anything that would muck up the creative integrity of a company they’re paying $4 billion to get. The broader deal was still being worked out overnight as Disney and Marvel prepared for Monday’s early announcement, and they have three or four months to work out the fine points. During the pitch to analysts, CFO Tom Staggs said: “We believe in the creative team at Marvel and don’t see any reason to upset the apple cart. They have done a good job, and I think they have got a good pipeline in place, and we expect that they will continue to do a good job operating as they have.”

Hollywood pundits are giving an idea of the picture across town, and if they are to be believed, other studios are wishing they’d thought of it first. Sharon Waxman takes the time to laud Bob Iger and his canny deal making:

Around Hollywood on Monday, Iger’s colleagues were openly envious at his stealth move in buying Marvel, a company that provides exactly the kind of content that a 21st century media conglomerate craves.

Characters and stories – thousands of them, with fan bases to match.

Jeff Bewkes over at Time Warner must be kicking his desk.

Nikki Finke has comprehensive coverage, starting with yesterday’s updates which look at Marvel’s other deals, lawsuits, and so on.

With the whole deal worth $4 billion in cash and stock, a little math shows that Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter, who owns 37% of his public company, stands to reap $1.5 billion in cash and stock. With so much to lose, and the SEC casting a watchful eye, Perlmutter had every reason to keep this negotiation secret from everyone, even intimates who described themselves to me as “completely blindsided”. But they tell me that this sell-out has been the strategy all along of this no-nonsense Israeli. “Ike is the real story here. He’s really operated like the Great Oz behind the scenes, not accessible to the public but always mindful of shareholders. This was always an acquisition play for Ike,” one insider explains to me. “The bottom line is he turned the whole thing around after he fought tooth and nail with Ron Perelman for the company. Today he runs a nifty company that’s tidy on expenses and has no cash flow issues. This deal with Disney just ups his game and creates shareholder value and lets him walk away a billionaire.”

A later post scrutinizes Marvel’s deal’s with Universal, which is going to fight to keep as much as they can to keep the House of Ideas in their theme parks:

I’m told that this is because the Universal-Marvel licensing contract is extremely narrow: Universal has to follow it to the letter, or they risk losing the characters altogether. Universal’s parks group structures contracts so that there’s a master licensing agreement for the Marvel name, and then individual sections for the properties. It’s not a catch-all, you-have-a-blanket-license-to-use-any-Marvel-character-as-you-see-fit-in-your-parks, because Marvel’s not stupid. And because Marvel owns high-profile characters (it’s like this for most non-owned properties), Universal must get approval for any additional/future use of Marvel’s characters so Universal doesn’t use the characters in a way Marvel doesn’t like. For that reason alone, Marvel has a big ol’ out in their contract with regards to future use.

According to Finke’s sources, it’s unlikely that the Marvel Island of Adventures rides will be changed, however. This does look to be an area of continued conflict — kinda like the Skrulls — for some time.

[Thanks to LF for links.]

It’s almost like a meme going on, eh?

Paul DeBennedetto and Matt Occhuizzo

Adam Koford’s Gooflactus

Chris Samnee’s M.O.D.U.C.K.

Jack Kirby’s Mickey Mouse via Craig Yoe’s new SuperITCH. Click for the whole thing.

There’s a LOT of this going around, but we declare these the BEST.