Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett looks at D23, DuckTales, and Doctor Who.

In case you missed it, last weekend Disney’s D23 Expo, the convention for all things Disney and Disney-adjacent, was held.  The “D” is of course for Disney, ‘1923’ the year Walt Disney left Kansas City to try his luck in Hollywood and “Expo” because it’s an exposition, though there is some debate about that.

Now me, I’m always up for a good International Exposition (a.k.a. World’s Fair; for the record they still have them, there just hasn’t been one held in North America since Expo ‘86 in Vancouver) but I’m not entire sure that D23 Expo actually is one.   Because included the usual suspect panels, presentations and cosplay, at some point the parent company naturally parades a bunch of (lowercase) stars in eveningwear in front of the press to help draw attention to their upcoming slate of projects/products.  Because entertainment “news” programs and glossy celebrity magazines appear to be incapable of ignoring a Red Carpet.   All of which, sadly, sounds like a modern comic book convention to me.

Still, I’ve always kind of wanted to see one for myself, but never more than this year, after I read about “The DuckTales Experience” in the piece “Remember the coin vault from Disney’s DuckTales?  Like Scrooge McDuck, you can dive into one at the D23 Expo.”  In this attraction, done of course to promote the new version of DuckTales, “Visitors stand on a platform, decorated like the door of the coin vault, and jump into a big pool of giant plastic coins while a set of cameras takes a 180 degree GIF of the jump. Jumpers get to email themselves the GIF free of charge once they climb out of the pool.”

The piece, which repeatedly refers to Scrooge’s Money Bin as a “coin vault,” suggests there are still a few kinks in the Experience that need to be worked out.  For instance, some patrons reported losing things in the Bin, while others found it much easier to get into than out of.  But given that people were apparently willing to wait three hours in line for their turn suggests Disney may have inadvertently come up with a new attraction for all of their theme parks.  Or even something that could replace ball pits in amusement centers all over the world, especially in countries where the Disney Ducks remain incredibly popular.

While I personally can see the appeal of diving into a facsimile Money Bin like a porpoise and burrowing through it like a gopher, I don’t know if I’d be willing to wait three hours in line to do it. But then, according to the piece “D23 Expo: Fans frustrated by long lines, sold-out merchandise; Disney responds,” extremely long wait times were common at D23.  The average wait to get into a panel was two hours and one attendee, 76-year old Joyce Thompson, reported she had to wait four hours just for the opportunity to buy merchandise.  She’s quoted as saying, “I’ve gone on nine Disney cruises, I can tell you how special those are but this - I’ve never had this kind of treatment.”

Disney’s response came from Michael Vargo, vice president of D23, who said, “This is the quickest we’ve ever filled the house.  We are very pleased and very proud that we got people in in a timely manner.” So, this could just be a case of someone that isn’t used to the harsher realities of attending this sort of event.   But I consulted with a friend who not only had attended 2011’s D23, but who also regularly went to both Disney theme parks and comic book conventions.  His conclusion; D23 wasn’t an “Expo”, it was a comic book convention.  A badly run one.

Another thing I took away from that three hour wait for the DuckTales Experience; I had completely underestimated just how much interest there was out there for a revival of DuckTales.  Here’s a confession; while I have always appreciated the Carl Barks comics upon which the original animated series was based, they’ve never been among my favorites.  I could never quite figure out why this was, until the other day it suddenly occurred to me; the stories are about a family where the only love ever demonstrated was Scrooge’s love of money.

Which is why I was gratified to read the piece by Susana Polo that appeared on Polygon,  “In the new Ducktales, Donald Duck is the Louis C.K. of Duckburg,” by Susana Polo. From the comments in it from show creator Matt Youngberg and story editor Francisco Angones, it’s clear that both have spent a lot of time thinking about the characters and developing the family dynamics of the Duck family.

Finally, as you’ve all no doubt already heard, the BBC announced the next actor to play The Doctor will be a woman (see “Thirteenth Doctor Who Announced”).  So far, I’ve been lucky enough to not encounter the negative responses, almost exclusively from men, first hand, but friends on Facebook assure me that they’re out there.  To "Those Opposed", I’d first point out usually the creator out-votes you in these sort of things, then suggest they read this piece that appeared on Bleeding Cool, “Sydney Newman, Co-Creator of Doctor Who, Told The BBC To Cast A Woman In 1986”.

But anyone wanting a shorter response, I’d recommend going to the Mashable website.  There are quite a few there for you to choose from, but my favorite made it into the headline of this piece, “Merriam-Webster had the perfect response for internet trolls after the 'Doctor Who' announcement.” As Merriam-Webster pointed out on Twitter:  'Doctor' has no gender in English.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.