Ariel (The Little Mermaid) released a four-issue "The Little Mermaid Limited Series" comic book series. In 1994 Marvel Comics released its own title, "Disney's The Little Mermaid", which ran for twelve issues. All these comics are prequels to the film, and feature Ariel a mermaid living under the sea having adventures with Flounder and Sebastian, and thwarting villains that wish to take over or destroy Atlantica. In 2000, Ariel became an official member of the newly launched Disney Princess line, an umbrella franchise that includes various Disney princesses under its banner. Ariel is one of the original 8 characters that were included at the
The Little Mermaid (1989 film) shots failed because the machine was reputedly in dilapidated condition. The multiplane shots were instead photographed at an outside animation camera facility. "The Little Mermaid" was the last Disney feature film to use the traditional hand-painted cel method of animation. Disney's next film, "The Rescuers Down Under", used a digital method of coloring and combining scanned drawings developed for Disney by Pixar called CAPS/ink & paint (Computer Animation Production System), which would eliminate the need for cels, the multiplane camera, and many of the optical effects used for the last time in "Mermaid". A CAPS/ink & paint prototype was used