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Letter to the editor

Disney buys Oldsmar comic book company

Bankrupt CrossGen Entertainment went for $1-million, and its founder will temporarily serve as a consultant.

By SCOTT BARANCIK
Published November 16, 2004

CrossGen Entertainment founder Mark Alessi set out to create comic books that were works of art as well as fodder for video games or the movies.

But if his company's comic book series, such as Way of the Rat or Route 666 , end up at the neighborhood multiplex, it'll be the doing of Walt Disney Co.

CrossGen, an Oldsmar company that filed for bankruptcy court protection in June, sold all its assets to Disney last month for $1-million. Disney was the high bidder at a court-sanctioned auction held at the Tampa offices of Holland & Knight. Though dozens of companies were invited to bid, only three did.

Intellectual property, not computers or mechanical pens, were the real items of value. Disney acquired 26 comic book series developed by CrossGen since its founding in 1999.

"There are a few properties there that we think are nothing less than brilliant," said Deborah Dugan, president of Disney Publishing Worldwide in New York. "There's a chance they could make good interactive games or TV or movies."

Dugan, an alumnus of Boca Ciega High School in St. Petersburg, is already promising a series of books based on the series Abadazad, an epic fantasy about a girl trying to rescue her kidnapped brother from a strange land. She said her division seeks to serve as an incubator of stories and characters for Disney's other units.

Alessi declined to comment on the auction Monday. But Noel Boeke, one of two Holland & Knight lawyers representing CrossGen, called the company's demise "unfortunate." Movie studios optioned several CrossGen titles over the years, but none of the projects were realized. One of CrossGen's original series, Meridian, published 54 issues before its artists and writers were let go.

"(Alessi) put a lot of his own money in it, made a good product, and I think Disney got a lot of value for what they paid for," Boeke said. "It's just a classic case of a debtor running out of money before they got to the finish line."

Investors sank millions of dollars into CrossGen before it failed. Alessi alone claims the company owes him $5.4-million; he made millions in the 1990s by selling a software company to Ross Perot. Upon filing for bankruptcy, CrossGen had just $2,000 in the bank and liabilities of $14.7-million.

The court will now decide how to divide the $1-million among the company's creditors, which include many former employees and contract workers who filed claims for unpaid wages.

Alessi had been harshly critical of the comic book industry, including its focus on spawning multimillion-dollar films, and that may have come back to haunt him. "Marvel (Comics) makes me want to puke," he said in a 2000 interview with the St. Petersburg Times . "It's basically, as far as I'm concerned, run by bankers."

By 2003, with bankruptcy looming, Alessi was asking Marvel and about 40 other comic book or movie industry kingpins for help.

Warner Bros. was initially interested in the bankruptcy auction but dropped out about a week before it. In the end, Disney was joined at the Oct. 5 auction by Classic Media, owner of Rocky & Bullwinkle and other properties, and John Taddeo, a former comic book industry executive.

But Alessi may not be entirely out of the loop yet. Disney's Dugan said her company has hired Alessi and several other CrossGen veterans to help with the transition. When that three-month consultancy is up, Disney will consider offering them permanent jobs.

-- Times staff researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report. Scott Barancik can be reached at barancik@sptimes.com or 727893-8751.

[Last modified November 16, 2004, 00:39:15]