[Tonus]

All the worrying is nonsense.

Most of it probably is, but the concerns over the fate of the direct market in the USA are real.  Marvel's revenues (not profits) from comic book sales in 2008 were around $290-300 million.  That's not a small amount of money, but it is dwarfed by comic sales in many parts of the world, where comics are accepted as a legitimate literary medium for adults.

This deal should work out well from a movie-making standpoint.  Marvel had struggled with raising money for some of their films, and that will not be a concern once Disney's deep pockets enter the picture.  As I said above, changes to editorial content will be minor and shouldn't affect the bottom line.

But the comic books themselves are probably a small part of the equation for Disney.  And there's a chance that at some point in the future, Disney will decide that the small and monopolized distribution system in the USA is not their best option.  Disney has the wherewithal to distribute their own books if they decided to do that, and it could potentially boost Marvel's global sales, which would be great for Marvel/Disney.  But losing its biggest revenue generator could wipe out Diamond Distributors, the biggest distributor left after the distribution wars that Marvel initiated in the mid-90s.

DC and some of the larger independents (Dark Horse, Image) would probably survive after making some drastic changes.  But the small independents would likely disappear, and that would be a sad day, indeed.

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