@JWeinCom Yeah, I know what he's like. It's not exactly a glorious representation, but I'd argue that this hardly does any harm to anyone. He probably barely got any attention before this, and my personal experience is that I don't remember paying any particular attention to him as a child (beyond him being a zombie, of course, which felt like his dominant feature by far to me). I have some understanding for e.g. some concerns about certain traditions involving poor representations, but this seems like excess caution. Well, I guess it's not necessarily excess caution, since there's a non-zero chance this could've caused an outrage at some point - which is actually what I have an issue with, and Disney acting on it is just a symptom... Oh well.

For context here is Bombie the Zombie. 

He was definitely modelled after an African man (and in the story was one) with extremely exaggerated racial features. His appearance in the comic in question was more innocuous, but I can see why Disney wouldn't be keen on acknowledging this character. Definitely not expecting to see a Bombie meet and greet next time I go to Disney World.

There's also really zero benefit to publishing anything with this character. How much money are they generating off of reprints of 20+ year old Donald Duck comics? How many people that are buying them will now refuse to because these issues are missing?

So, you're in charge of this whole thing now. You can decide whether or not to publish it. Can you think of a financial (talking dollars and cents here) reason to republish these? Cause, if anything, this is a symptom of capitalism, which I generally favor. 

And that's one thing I personally dislike about capitalism. For the relatively few people that would still be interested in this, this makes it harder to find this, and this also hinders preservation (although there's probably quite many copies of these comis in circulation). As far as I care, this is a fairly close relative to censorship, so I don't like it being done for what seems like a fairly petty reason. Of course that's just my opinion.

Our hearts go out to all the victims of these duck comics around the world.
The surest way of doing diversity is to not do it at all, because any depiction of anything else than "white" characters will be problematic in someone's eyes.
Anyhoo, Disney should just sell everything and start from scratch, because they are no longer in the entertainment business and don't know what to do with their assets. They are just a ministry of woke.

Yeah, it's a good thing they're removing this one.

You dislike that companies get to make decisions about what content they want to put out?

First off, this in no way makes it harder to find it. Literally, you can be reading this comic in less than a minute if you desire.

But, even if piracy didn't exist, I don't see why Disney has or should have any obligation to make sure everything they have ever published remains continuously as available as possible.

See, I don't really see an answer in what you said about why Disney would benefit from republishing this.

A company not doing something that they have no reason to do is not in any way shape or form censorship. The government telling me I can't yell fire in a theater is censorship. Me thinking it over, deciding that would not benefit me, and then keeping my mouth shut is the exact opposite. That is part of free speech. Deciding what to say, and what not to say. The fact that you have to think about how other people might respond to your free speech by using their free of speech is not a bug, it is a feature. 

So, again, I just really don't see the problem of a person or a company deciding what is in their best interest. Not saying it's perfect, but I really can't think of a better system for determining whether or not things like this should be published. Can you?

Anyone who disagrees with their decision, I issue an open challenge of providing a rational financial reason for them to republish this.

No. I dislike the reason they're doing this for. Obviously the things I can do are complain and vote with my wallet, and right now I'm doing the first. I might do the latter if I end up disliking Disney enough, but it doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon. (What might happen is choosing not to purchase if I'm on the edge though.)

Yup. It might get worse, but I do realize my argument was mostly theoretical (at least in the foreseeable future).

They don't. But they don't also need to commit to not publishing something. It's not clear if this is better than simply not publishing for now and not saying anything about it - it might be, or it might make more sense financially to continue publishing the comics. This is probably the less risky way, but there are some questions marks regarding how much sense this makes exactly.

Probably a little bit of money, but probably not very much. Some goodwill is both gained and lost because of this decision, although I don't know in which ratio.

I chose my words quite carefully, and I specifically did not call this censorship. If you'd like, I could rephrase myself and probably mention self-censorship instead? Or do you already see my point without having to rephrase this very carefully?

People not aggressively ganging up on other people that have views they're personally uncomfortable with when with reasonable effort it can be seen where such views stem from. Kindness, trying to understand the views of opposing parties as well. It doesn't mean you need to let all views be treated equally, but everything doesn't need to be so polarized. This is obviously not realism at the moment, but this is what I will continue to advocate on my part.

I absolutely loathe capitalism. I can see a system having significant capitalistic features as probably being the least bad solution we know of, but you won't find me discussing this on financial terms alone.

I believe the point you're trying to make is that you think it's bad for Disney to not publish it because they are afraid of some perceived potential backlash. This is what you call self-censorship, or earlier, close to censorship. If I'm wrong on that, by all means, correct me.

The problem is that this is just plain wrong. First off, we're not sure why they're not publishing it. So, I do a little stand up. There are some jokes that I told in the past that I don't tell today. These jokes may be offensive to some, but that's not why I don't tell them. I don't tell them because they no longer reflect who I am or what I think. I could see Disney just seeing this and being like, "Ick. I don't feel good about publishing this". If Disney said they were going to publish it, but in my name and give me all the profits that came from it, I'd be like, "ehhhh that's ok."

But, it could also be they are afraid of some backlash. And even then, it's not censorship. They are a consumer company. Their objective is to make money. Choosing to exercise their free speech in a way that they feel is most likely to make them money is their right. This is a *choice* that they are making, not anything that is being imposed on them. Self-censorship is an oxymoron. 

Real censorship is for if Disney... lets say announced their opposition to a particular government law, and the government retaliated by passing laws intended solely to harm them. Of course, nothing like that could ever possibly happen.

As for whether there is a financial incentive to publish this, I think it's kind of silly to argue about that. It's a random Donald Duck comic from 20 years ago. It is not going to contribute any relevant amount to Disney's bottom line.

You said if Disney does enough to offend you, you'll vote with your wallet. And that's a perfectly valid choice that I would support. And, if Disney wants your business, they could change whatever policies offend you, and I presume you would not find that to be censorship or compelled speech. And this is, at worst, that same situation. So, the only problem seems to be that you dislike or disagree with the group that you feel they're catering to. And, you're entitled, but to call it censorship is plain wrong.

Anyway, I probably won't reply any further. Not cause I'm upset or anything, I just feel like I have nothing more to say and have devoted as much time to this conversation as I'd like to. You can still reply if you want, just letting you know I may not read it. Nice chatting with you.

You dislike that companies get to make decisions about what content they want to put out?

First off, this in no way makes it harder to find it. Literally, you can be reading this comic in less than a minute if you desire. But, even if piracy didn't exist, I don't see why Disney has or should have any obligation to make sure everything they have ever published remains continuously as available as possible.

See, I don't really see an answer in what you said about why Disney would benefit from republishing this. A company not doing something that they have no reason to do is not in any way shape or form censorship. The government telling me I can't yell fire in a theater is censorship. Me thinking it over, deciding that would not benefit me, and then keeping my mouth shut is the exact opposite. That is part of free speech. Deciding what to say, and what not to say. The fact that you have to think about how other people might respond to your free speech by using their free of speech is not a bug, it is a feature. 

So, again, I just really don't see the problem of a person or a company deciding what is in their best interest. Not saying it's perfect, but I really can't think of a better system for determining whether or not things like this should be published. Can you?

My heart goes out to all the people who now won't be able to read a 20 year old Donald Duck comic that they didn't know existed until two seconds ago without having to spend 20 seconds on Google. Thoughts and prayers. 

To be fair, in the particular comics mentioned, it's just a brief and really pointless cameo. Could have easily been edited out, or redrawn but then again... why bother with that?

Like with Fantasia, there was a super racist character way worse than this, but they edited it out because Fantasia is an otherwise amazing piece of work and will make them money. Disney has also preserved things like Peter Pan, Gone with the Wind, and so on. So the narrative that Disney is just going to erase everything even vaguely offensive is a deliberately dishonest strawman. It just has to be worth it to them. If you get a cavity on your front tooth you do what you can to preserve it. If you have a cavity on a wisdom tooth you take it out.

Anyone who disagrees with their decision, I issue an open challenge of providing a rational financial reason for them to republish this.