Disney's Magical Kingdoms: Abadazad and Jellaby

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on April 25, 2006 Sign up now!

by Heidi MacDonald, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 4/25/2006

It's one of the oddities of comics around the world: Disney publishes the most popular comics in places you wouldn't expect for an audience you wouldn't expect.

While Disney is the #1 publisher of children’s comics around the world, adult readers have made periodicals starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck bestsellers in Italy, Denmark and Norway, where they can't get enough of such magazines as Topolino and Anders And.

In the U.S., Disney's comics output has had its ups and downs over the years. But as the graphic novel category grows for both adults and children, Disney has been getting back into the field with a mix of in-house properties like W.I.T.C.H. and acquisitions such as Abadazad and the just-announced Eisner award nominated webcomic Jellaby by Kean Soo, who was in the acclaimed comics anthology Flight.

"We're always on the lookout for comics material," says Brenda Bowen, v-p and editor-in-chief of Disney Children’s Books. "We don't have a [separate] line; we're just infusing comics into our publishing material."

Chief among the projects Bowen is excited about is Abadazad, a fantasy prose title acquired in the bankruptcy sale of comics publisher Crossgen. Written by comics writer J.M. DeMatties with sections of comics by animation vet Mike Ploog, it's the story of a girl who must enter a fictional fantasyland to rescue her little brother. Bowen says the level of interest in Abadazad been a surprise even for Disney, prompting an increase in the print run from 30,000 to 100,000 copies. Two books are being launched in mid-May, with displays at the major chains and appearances by Ploog and DeMatties at BEA. They are also a Book-of-the-Month Club selections. The property has already been sold into 11 countries, and will be one of the lead titles for the launch of HarperCollins' graphic novel line in the U.K.

"It was sort of a gleam in our eye," says Bowen of the development of Abadazad. "As the books began to take shape and we showed people proofs, retailers become excited. The response from Price Club and Costco [was great] right off the bat."

What's most unusual about the books is the format—a mix of prose, illustrations and comics, covering the multiple layers of the story. Originally signed for four books, the Abadazad line is now planning for eight titles.

While Abadazad is the most prominent of the titles picked up from Crossgen, others are still in play for development. "They're starting to bubble up," says Bowen, mentioning Ruse, a Victorian-era mystery featuring two bickering detectives that's aimed at an older teen audience. The book has already been optioned by Beacon Films.

"We are sitting on a goldmine of wonderful stories and fabulous art," says Bowen. "They will emerge in due course—each one has to have its right format."

According to vp of business development and strategic planning Steve Miller, Disney's Italian comics team, which is based in Milan, is continuing to develop properties for both the European and American markets. W.I.T.C.H. started in Italy and became a big a hit across Europe. Brought over to the U.S. a few years ago, the book about five teens with special powers found a ready reception, with 18 prose novels and four graphic novels already on the shelves and four more prose novels and two more graphic novels in the works.

"We're looking at several new concepts out of Milan," says Miller. "Some of it is based on our existing content, but taking it in a new direction."

Although Disney hasn’t jumped on the manga bandwagon, the company is looking at developing more content out of Japan, according to Miller, publishing manga versions of Disney properties that are appropriate in the Japanese market and developing a pool of talent there.

Meanwhile, Bowen's list is expanding with a mix of material. Two nonfiction graphic biographies are underway, created in coordination with faculty members at the Center for Cartoon Studies: Houdini by James Sturm and Nick Bertozzi, and Satchel Paige by Sturm and Jason Lutes. (All three are award-winning creators.) A Pirates of the Caribbean graphic novel, produced by the Italian Disney studio, will be published in January 2007. Comics from the long-running Disney Adventures magazine have proven popular enough to spin off into their own collections, which have been selling briskly on newsstands, according to Miller.

Finally, Disney has just announced a deal to publish Jellaby by Kean Soo, a web comic which was just nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Online Comic. Soo is a self-taught cartoonist who was formally trained in electrical engineering, and serves as assistant editor for Flight. Jellaby is the story of Portia, a 10-year-old girl who finds a monster living behind her house. The story is projected to run 300 pages, and will appear in either two or three volumes.

Given the worldwide success of Disney's characters, it's ironic that bringing Disney comics back to the attention of American kids has taken such a long time. "The kids are open, it's a matter of getting to all the gatekeepers, including ourselves," says Bowen. "The kids just think it's more stuff. [To them] it's just another form of storytelling."

[Disclaimer: the author of this piece is a former Disney employee.]