Marvel and DC Comics have something in common. And we’re not just referring to men (and the occasional woman) running around in tights and capes: It’s superhero Alice Donenfeld, a big name in the comics world, who’s going to be celebrated as the International TV Distribution Hall of Fame honoree in the MIP-TV Issue of VideoAge.

Alice first became familiar with the comics world through her second husband, Irwin Donenfeld, who was the son of DC Comics founder Harry Donenfeld, and the company’s executive vice president. While she never actually worked for DC, she did serve as VP of Business Affairs for rival Marvel, before becoming an EVP at Filmation, a company with a large catalog of DC Comics programs. Later, she went solo with the eponymous Alice Entertainment.

At Marvel her biggest challenge was to get superhero characters into theaters.

“Each production executive,” she recalled, “assured me in no uncertain terms that there was no market for superheroes in the feature film business since they were just for kids, and the theaters that carried them would be dark after 6 p.m.”

VideoAge first became acquainted with Alice during her time at Filmation, which was then part of Group W Productions. In 1989, when France’s Parafrance/Paravision, a division of L’Oréal/Nestle, acquired the Filmation library, Donenfeld went solo with Alice Entertainment and, later, with Alice4TV.com. She retired in 2005.

Nowadays, Alice is busy writing novels and dividing her time between California and Mexico. “I still maintain a residence in the U.S. because my daughter insists on it, but Mexico is my home,” she told VideoAge‘s Dom Serafini (pictured above with Alice) during a lunch meeting in Santa Monica, California.

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