For manga fans, this news literally just broke.
Tokyopop is shutting down their American publishing branch on May 31st.
Good overview of the news and notes from Stu Levy here:
http://www.comicsbeat.com/2011/04/15/en ... ting-down/

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Kris: that's Han Solo
Nix: That guys always smoking foo's
Nix: He be all "Nigga Vada please!"
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Kris: aww, thanks Wayne

Goodnight, sweet prince.

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Official Forum Mom

Goodnight, unreliable prince.

NEVER PUBLISHED A GODDAMNED VOLUME OF ECOLE DU CIEL FOR THE PAST 3 YEARS EAT MY SHIT

Ahem.

I wonder if my complete collection of BLAME! will go up from $300, now that it's not only in short supply and out of print, but that the publisher's out of business.

Hmmm.

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Well this sucks.

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Grivous.

Is this related to scanlations?

It's most likely related to Borders. Borders owes a lot of publishers quite a bit of money, and it seems that seriously hurt Tokyopop. It also has to do with Stu Levy, who really had no business running the company.

_________________
Kris: that's Han Solo
Nix: That guys always smoking foo's
Nix: He be all "Nigga Vada please!"
Darkstar Studios
----------------------------------------------
Wildcard: Kris is the most beautiful man alive
Kris: aww, thanks Wayne

And who knows, maybe their reality TV show just flopped THAT hard.

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At least they finished GTO.

Well some people are simply crap at running a business, even if they have a wide customer base. There is this sort of adversarial behaviour towards business types from both creative and analytical people for different reasons. Penny Arcade is the perfect example. When Jerry and Mike were running it, PA barely made any money and they were heavily in debt even though they had a huge fan base, it was month to month and they had to ask for a lot of money from fans. Robert Khoo took over and it is a multi-million dollar entity. Stu Levy is a lawyer not a business man. Although he may have just had bad luck, and it is tough to get a juris doctorate, but being smart does not necessarily translate to business savy. Still if you are a creative type with a large fan base and no business sense. Hire someone like me who is terrible at the creative stuff but good with business stuff.

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I love you Zeph. You and your simple yet humorous topic-breakers. ~Coos
Zeph has left me inspired. ~Mathias
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Zepherin for forum queen and writer of the best seller "how to screw your brethen up for dummies". ~ The Mirak

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You're no Robert Khoo.

Stu Levy is a visionary with lots of good ideas. He was always one step ahead of everyone else, and picked up on trends quickly. The problem was that he lost interest almost as quickly. He'd start up projects, but not commit and see them totally through. And, quite frankly, his "farewell letter" reflects that. It has a fairly flippant tone to it, and reads like "Well, that was fun, but I'm bored now, so see ya!" The guy's not even here. He's running around in Japan already working on his next big project. It's hard not to look at him and cast blame, even knowing the financial difficulties they have been facing. Which carries it's own sick humor, since Tokyopop basically had no real employees. The company is almost entirely run on unpaid interns and freelancers.

_________________
Kris: that's Han Solo
Nix: That guys always smoking foo's
Nix: He be all "Nigga Vada please!"
Darkstar Studios
----------------------------------------------
Wildcard: Kris is the most beautiful man alive
Kris: aww, thanks Wayne

I have a job,.. Robert Khoo just has a better one

_________________
Zeph do you ever tire of being perfect? ~Dave
Zeph is still awesome though. ~Rival
I love you so much right now Zeph. ~Yoshi
I love you Zeph. You and your simple yet humorous topic-breakers. ~Coos
Zeph has left me inspired. ~Mathias
Zeph is so awesome even soulless bits of binary worship him. ~Wizard
Curse YOU ZEPH! CURSE YOU! ~JesusChrist
WE ARE SORRY THAT WE ARE NOT AS PERFECT AS YOU, ZEPH! ~Stufflikehearts
Zepherin for forum queen and writer of the best seller "how to screw your brethen up for dummies". ~ The Mirak

Who's and what's left, then? Are there any other publishers there to pick up the slack? Darkhorse, maybe? Or is this essentially the first nail in the coffin for official manga releases in America?


Geez, don't tempt me.

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Sort of. The more profitable ones will likely get produced from Viz, but a lot of the less popular mangas won't be. Occasionally the US comic book industry picks up a Japanese property.

_________________
Zeph do you ever tire of being perfect? ~Dave
Zeph is still awesome though. ~Rival
I love you so much right now Zeph. ~Yoshi
I love you Zeph. You and your simple yet humorous topic-breakers. ~Coos
Zeph has left me inspired. ~Mathias
Zeph is so awesome even soulless bits of binary worship him. ~Wizard
Curse YOU ZEPH! CURSE YOU! ~JesusChrist
WE ARE SORRY THAT WE ARE NOT AS PERFECT AS YOU, ZEPH! ~Stufflikehearts
Zepherin for forum queen and writer of the best seller "how to screw your brethen up for dummies". ~ The Mirak

Manga companies still in business:
Bandai Entertainment (not likely to pick up TP's books)
Vertical (even more likely not to)
Dark Horse
Viz Media (biggest possibility)
Seven Seas (some possibility)
Fantagraphics (no way in hell)
Kodansha (but they already pulled any of their titles from TP a while back)
Digital Manga Publishing (slight possibility they'll at least pick up the BLU line from TP)
Yen Press (some possibility)
Net Comics (nope; even if they last)

And there's a couple other companies that occasionally publish manga titles, like Drawn & Quarterly, but they aren't likely to publish TP books either.

_________________
Kris: that's Han Solo
Nix: That guys always smoking foo's
Nix: He be all "Nigga Vada please!"
Darkstar Studios
----------------------------------------------
Wildcard: Kris is the most beautiful man alive
Kris: aww, thanks Wayne

Yen Press is around.

Also didn't realize Del-rey got replaced by Kodansha US, lol.

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Dammit, how did I forget Yen Press? My bad. Was trying so hard to remember them all, I forgot one of the bigger ones.

Del Rey basically shut down its manga division, as Kodansha came over and was all "Hey, give us back our shit, we're gonna do it ourselves."

Oh, I also forgot Net Comics.

_________________
Kris: that's Han Solo
Nix: That guys always smoking foo's
Nix: He be all "Nigga Vada please!"
Darkstar Studios
----------------------------------------------
Wildcard: Kris is the most beautiful man alive
Kris: aww, thanks Wayne

We've had all of 2 publishers of manga here, and one of them went under when it became readily obvious our country is way too small to support two. It's not too bad, but it does mean there's less niche stuff coming out of the woodwork.

Sounds like this'll be the same thing. More shounen, less odd stuff, like OEL.

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Fuck it let's start a manga publishing business. We'll do a limited run manga books, because fans buy that shit. The more niche stuff. Like a thousand a pop. Then use cons and amazon as a distribution set. The cost would be limited if it were just focused on the books. I need to find someone elses money to invest.


P.S. I'm totally loaded right now

_________________
Zeph do you ever tire of being perfect? ~Dave
Zeph is still awesome though. ~Rival
I love you so much right now Zeph. ~Yoshi
I love you Zeph. You and your simple yet humorous topic-breakers. ~Coos
Zeph has left me inspired. ~Mathias
Zeph is so awesome even soulless bits of binary worship him. ~Wizard
Curse YOU ZEPH! CURSE YOU! ~JesusChrist
WE ARE SORRY THAT WE ARE NOT AS PERFECT AS YOU, ZEPH! ~Stufflikehearts
Zepherin for forum queen and writer of the best seller "how to screw your brethen up for dummies". ~ The Mirak

1/2 Prince could work. There seem to be a decent number of readers, and it's Chinese sourced, so the price you can negotiate for the licensing might be cheaper compared to the prices you'd get with Japanese publishers.

Alternatively, maybe go purely for one-shot/short series? It'd solve the issue some publishers have with irregular release rates which piss off readers.

Of course, that means you might not capture a steady readership.

Also, what do you think about backing up the limited print releases with some sort of digital release, like through Kindle or something?

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I like the already complete series thing that way there is no fluctuation. Each release is the full series in book form.

And once you get the license you essentially pilfer the work already done by scanlation release groups edit it for errors and continuity and so they don't catch on, or offer them a piece of the sale. Whatever to keep things cheep. Also with licensing you can sell t-shirts and plushies.

Still startup capital would be necessary to fill the void and it would be a niche market with someone having to go to the cons and hock wares in the dealers corner.

_________________
Zeph do you ever tire of being perfect? ~Dave
Zeph is still awesome though. ~Rival
I love you so much right now Zeph. ~Yoshi
I love you Zeph. You and your simple yet humorous topic-breakers. ~Coos
Zeph has left me inspired. ~Mathias
Zeph is so awesome even soulless bits of binary worship him. ~Wizard
Curse YOU ZEPH! CURSE YOU! ~JesusChrist
WE ARE SORRY THAT WE ARE NOT AS PERFECT AS YOU, ZEPH! ~Stufflikehearts
Zepherin for forum queen and writer of the best seller "how to screw your brethen up for dummies". ~ The Mirak

Dave should do it as an extension of Shark Robot lolol

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I would totally do this if I was being paid.

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Official Forum Mom

PPDGD isn't realeased as a book or comic yet? I'm sure there'd be a market.

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