Tokyopop’s publishing arm may have shut down, but that doesn’t mean that creators are about to get the rights to their work back, as The Comics Journal reports:

According to a source formerly at Tokyopop, all but three of Tokyopop’s original series were created under either work-for-hire conditions, or with Tokyopop sharing trademark and copyright with the creators, effectively making the creators unable to reprint or continue their work without permission from Tokyopop… Another former Tokyopop associate, speaking on condition of anonymity, believes that the closure of Tokyopop’s publishing division, and its seemingly inexplicable publishing decisions, are much simpler than they may seem on the surface. “Tokyopop did not die because of pirating or because of Borders,” the source said. “It died because Stu [Levy] was sick of being a publisher.”

The piece quotes East Coast Rising creator Becky Cloonan, Queenie Chan, King City‘s Brandon Graham – “I seem to have gotten away with more than the rest of the artists,” he says, in respect to the revival of his series through Image – and M. Alice Legrow, whose Bizenghast was the only of Tokyopop’s OEL books to survive the 2008 cull of projects. But Ross Campbell may offer up the most appropriate reading of events:

I’d love the rights back but as long as their headquarters and other offices and media stuff is active, I doubt I’ll ever get them back. I always figured that they were holding onto everyone’s rights partly so that even if they became insolvent or completely collapsed or whatever, that they could sell off the catalog of properties to another party and make a quick cash grab before they crashed and burned.

Sad, sad state of affairs. If nothing else, I hope that Graham’s King City experience might allow other publishers to license out and complete some of the books that Tokyopop are keeping hostage.

I like high concepts as much as the next guy, even if the next guy is a rabid otaku, and, let’s face it, when it comes to high-concept comics, Japan’s are higher and more numerous than anywhere else on earth.

But Yu Aikawa’s Butterfly features a really complicated one, which takes a majority of the first, 200-page volume to simply lay out.

High schooler Ginji Ishikawa hates the supernatural and angrily dismisses all aspects of it—from belief in ghosts and curses to horror scope reading. He also dismisses anyone who believes in it. This is kind of odd, since every single night Ginji is visited by the ghost of his dead brother, whom he shouts away with I can’t see yous and There’s no such thing as ghosts.

Ginji’s friend is constantly trying to set him up on dates with girls, although they usually end disastrously because of his ant-occult stance. On one double-date, they visit an amusement park, and when he’s reluctantly pulled into a haunted house, Ginji punches out an actor dressed as a ghost. He manages to avoid legal trouble, but only by committing to paying off the injured actor and park.

An opportunity to make the necessary money presents itself when a mysterious little girl approaches Ginji with a proposition: “Let’s go and kill all the ghosts in the world together!”
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Tatsuya Tsugawa seems to be a particularly pathetic specimen of junior high student when we first meet him in the pages of Aion Vol. 1.  He’s being shaken down by some older students, and a girl in his class has to come to his rescue.

Tatsuya soon finds an even more pathetic victim of bullying than himself, however, a mysterious classmate who repeatedly tells him to butt out since she wants a particularly mean girl to throw her down and kick her when she fails to buy her the right sort of bread for lunch.

Trying to live up to his father’s dying wish that he be “a big man” someday, Tatsuya persists in interfering until he comes across the girl’s secret: She has a weird shadow dragon named Aion that flows out of her finger, swallows evil people whole, and then spits them out, having only digested the evil parasites from the ocean that are living in their brains.

After that, the pair’s lives become intertwined when Tatsuya finds the girl living in a cardboard box in the park and invites her home with him, where she discovers his scheming relatives are hosting evil parasites as well.

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What’s so stellar about the Stellar Six of Gingacho, the title characters of Yuuki Fujimoto’s manga of the same name? Not all that much really, from the outside looking in.

But Mike, who invents the name to refer to herself and her five best friends, sure thinks there’s something special about the half-dozen 13-year-olds and their bond with one another, and that belief—communicated forcefully and energetically by the cartoonist until it starts to infect the reader—is actually something pretty special.

Fujimoto has captured and bottled a very specific emotion common in adolescents—That elation of being a kid who’s leaving childhood and on the way to adulthood, of being convinced of your own special-ness, and absolutely in love with yourself and your friends. And Fujimoto dipped a pen in it that bottle and drew this comic.

“Gingacho” refers to the Gingacho Street Market, where the families each of the six come from all have shops and businesses there. Because of this, the six friends—three boys and three girls—all grew up playing together as a little pack, but now that they’ve grown up a bit and gone to school, they’re starting to drift in different directions.

The stories in this first volume are somewhat episodic, with the main thrust of the book being that the six aren’t as tight as they used to be, but are occasionally drawn back together in times of need, like when the owner of the bar they hang out in has a falling out with the best friend he drifted apart from, for example, or when an older lady in the market starts to ail and needs help. (more…)

Hidekaz Himaruya’s Hetalia: Axis Powers finds its inspiration in two rather unlikely sources of humor (Or at least unlikely source of humor for the modern, Western mass media): The events of World War II and ethnic/national stereotyping.

In fact, it’s not hard to imagine many readers stopping cold at the cover, which depicts a winking Italy and his ever-present white flag of surrender along with cute manga characters representing Japan and Germany.

Stopping there would probably be a mistake, since as provocative as the work might sometimes be, it is strongly rooted in the tradition of political cartooning, particularly in its anthropomorphizing entire nations into individual cartoon characters whose personalities and relationships are meant to represent those countries’ places in the world. Hetlaia is political cartoon as comic strip and, now, political cartoon as graphic novel (It began as an online comic strip and was later published as tankobon  in Japan; Tokyopop is releasing the volumes in the U.S.).

The title is itself something of an insult to Italy, as it’s a Japanese portmanteau pun blending hetare (weak, cowardly or incompetent) with Italia. Our title character is first encountered in this volume at a UN-like “Meeting of the World,” where, when given the floor, he shouts: “Pasta!!!” In the narrative, dour, business-like Germany finds Hetalia cowering in a tomato crate.
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Toykopop, along with HarperCollins imprint William Morrow, will be releasing a graphic novel adaptation of the film Shutter Island.

The book will be on sale January 5, and is based on Dennis Lehane’s novel with art by Christian de Metter. Shutter Island, which has been adapted to a feature film directed by Martin Scorcese with Leonardo DiCaprio as the star, focuses on an island hospital with a killer on the loose.

“It’s an honor to publish a graphic novel with an author of such stature as Dennis Lehane,” Marco Pavia, Tokyopop Associate Publisher, said in a press release. “In all candor, I’m a huge Lehane fan, and I was stunned at how De Metter’s artwork enhanced the prose experience, adding a discernable layer of anxiety to this unnerving and, ultimately, profoundly moving story.”

The book was apparently first printed in France, where it was a 2009 Official Selection at the Angoulême BD Festival.

Are you chomping at the bit for some more manga madness? Have no fear, as Tokyopop has revealed its publishing lineup from January through April!

In January, the publisher is printing the shojo romantic comedy Happy Cafe by Kou Matsuzuki, which chronicles the stories of the employees at Cafe Bonheur.

Meanwhile, February has a ton of new releases: first off, there’s Portrait of M & N, which follows masochistic high schooler Mitsuru and her narcissistic pal Natsuhiko. Then there’s going to be a strange, Tim Burton-style remake of Alice in Wonderland called Alice in the Country of Hearts, followed by a series of romantic stories called Remember, a full-painted book by Orange creator Benjamin.

And let’s not forget Deadman Wonderland (Tokyopop’s trailer is seen above), which follows a high schooler who witnesses the deaths of his classmates — and then is sent to death row for it!

March, meanwhile, starts out with a .HACK//CELL novel by Ryo Suzukaze and Akira Mutsuki, and continues with Hanako and the Teller of the Allegory, which follows a detective who investigates physical manifestations of people’s beliefs in urban myths. Probably the solicit that looks most amusing is Haru Hana, by Million Tears creator Yuana Kazumi, which follows Hana Yamada, a girl who has just moved to Toyko — and who breaks out in hives every time an attractive guy touches her.

Finally, trailing out in April, Tokyopop will release the comedy .HACK//4KOMA, as well as Kokaku Detective Story, which follows the flashy, chili-pepper-eating samurai Kokaku.

Clearing out my review pile, here’s a look at some relatively (and I do mean relatively) new books for the tween-age set.

Knights of the Lunch Table: The Dodgeball Chronicles
by Frank Cammuso
Scholastic, $9.99.

The idea of grafting the King Arthur mythos onto a modern-day “boy makes good and new school” tale (a la Diary of a Wimpy Kid) seemed a bit forced to me at first, but Cammuso (Otto’s Orange Day, Max Hamm) does a good job creating an engaging, funny story that thankfully doesn’t force its metaphor the way say Tokyopop’s Avalon High series does. (more…)

IcV2 has a big two-part interview with Tokyopop Associate Publisher Marco Pavia about the company’s recent reorganization and their plans for the future:

Drilling down into Tokyopop-specific questions, you mentioned earlier about cutting back on the number of titles.  Can you tell us where you are on that in terms of monthly output, and what are you looking at for 2009 for release flow?

We’ve adjusted our publishing program.  We had been publishing around 40 or so volumes each month, and we cut that down to closer to 25 volumes per month.  We adjusted the release frequency of certain series, so instead of publishing bi-monthly or every three months, we’ve been stretching them out a bit to maybe every four to six months so we’re not shoving so much product out each month.

Just to be clear (I know there have been a lot of Internet rumors), we have not cancelled any series; we’ve really just adjusted the release pattern of certain series.  This allows us to have a more narrowly focused and fiercer list. I was just looking at the BookScan report from last week and we had a pretty healthy growth over the prior week with titles like Loveless,+Anima, and .Hack and even some of our more niche-y products, some of our yaoi, books like Junjo Romantica have charted in the top 50 in BookScan and we’re seeing great success with our Warcraft and Starcraft programs.  Our Gothic and Lolita Bible has really taken off; it’s something a bit different for us, but through our various marketing efforts we’ve really been embraced by the Gothic and Lolita community.

Pavia goes on to state that the company is pulling in a profit, and that they plan to publish two new series by Fruits Basket creator Natsuki Takaya in the coming months: Phantom Dream and Tsubasa: Those With Wings.

As Watchmen continues its leisurely drift down the USA Today bestseller list, the 31st volume of Naruto arrives at No. 24, which Anime News Network says is the highest-ever debut for a manga.

It’s also the third-highest spot held by Masashi Kishimoto’s popular fantasy-adventure series.

In its eighth week on the chart, the collection of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ 1986 miniseries slipped six places to No. 26. The trade paperback peaked at No. 13 last month.

But Naruto and Watchmen aren’t alone on this week’s chart. Matsuri Hino’s Vampire Knight, Vol. 5, debuts at No. 100, Tite Kubo’s Bleach, Vol. 22, at No. 105, and Warriors: Into the Woods at No. 135. Jeff Kinney’s hybrid Diary of a Wimpy Kid holds to No. 74 in its 59th week on the list.

USA Today’s chart tracks all genres and formats of books sold in some 4,700 brick-and-mortar and online stores.

Writing for PWCW, Brigid Alverson reports that all those rumors of Tokyopop cancellations that have been circulating the Net recently are just that:

As part of its recent restructuring, Tokyopop cut back its publication schedule from about 500 volumes per year to between 200 and 225. As a result, Tokyopop postponed some scheduled releases so the rights could be renegotiated. Tokyopop notified retailers in June that 28 titles solicited in the July previews would be canceled, and many bloggers posted that list. In addition, PWCW’s Heidi MacDonald reported in her comics industry blog, The Beat, that 11 more that were slated for January had been pulled.

However, Pavia says the books on both lists were postponed, not permanently canceled. “We obviously have restructured our publishing program and are going month by month with fewer titles,” he says. That requires going back to the license holders to discuss the new schedules. “We are talking about either revising the schedule or looking at alternatives such as online [publication],” he says. While he did not rule out dropping some titles, he says, if that happens, “We will certainly let everyone know.”

What’s more, they’re planning some new releases as well:

Meanwhile, Tokyopop continues to release new series, and its August releases include four double-size volumes at different price points. Pavia says the reasons for the thicker volumes vary from title to title. The science fiction series Jyu-oh-sei was released in double volumes in Japan, Pavia says, so Tokyopop opted to keep the original format. On the other hand, the two-volume bindup of the manhwa Jade of Bango was strictly a marketing decision. “It’s a shojo action fantasy series,” he says. “We thought binding it up at a good value price would encourage new readers.”

One of my favorite comics of 2007, Brandon Graham’s King City overcame spotty distribution to earn critical acclaim, and an Eisner nomination for its creator. Unfortunately, the much-anticipated second volume has become a casualty of Tokyopop’s OEL constriction, so its future looks grim.

According to Bryan Lee O’Malley, Tokyopop won’t allow Graham to take King City to another publisher. However, that won’t stop Graham: He’s posting a chapter a week “until it goes to print in English or until it doesn’t.”

“I try not to be snotty about all this,” he writes. “Right now this is what I can do.”

So go now and read the first 12 pages of King City, Vol. 2.

I hope that, one way or another, we’ll eventually see it in print.

– Suit up!

– Bill Watterson is writing the forward to the first Cul de Sac book.

– Marc Bell has a blog now.

– Neil Gaiman sings the praises of Jules Feiffer. Speaking of which I interviewed Feiffer about the new collection of his Village Voice strips, Explainers, here.

– Here’s an interview with Jennifer Holm, author of the Babymouse books.

– Tom Spurgeon talks with Bob Greenberger, author of the new Batman Encyclopedia.

– Don’t hate the superhero, hate the game.

– Brandon Graham is waiting to hear from Tokyopop on what’s going to happen with the second King City volume.

– The L.A. Times reviews Blake Bell’s Ditko book.

– James Jean creates posters for AIDES, a European HIV/AIDS charity, which win an award. (NSFW)

–The New Yorker presents Antiheroes, the opposite of Heroes. Via.

– Hip hop, medicine and comics collide in Tha’ Hip Hop Doc and the Legion of Health.

– Funnybook Babylon on the legacy of Bill Jemas.

– Craig Thompson breaks down a page of his upcoming graphic novel Habibi.

– Larry Young talks about making the cover to the Black Diamond trade.

Compiled by JK and Chris.

Hotel Africa Vol. 1 by Hee Jung Park, Tokyopop, $12.99.

Fever Vol. 1 by Hee Jung Park, Tokyopop, $9.99.

Several months ago, back before Tokyopop entered the “going under for the first time” phase of their corporate career, much ado was made of the company signing a multi-book publishing deal with Korean author Hee Jung Park, dubbed by ICv2 to be one of the country’s “top female creators.” Here’s what TOKYOPOP Editor-in-Chief Rob Tokar had to say in the initial press release:

“Hee Jung Park is a phenomenal talent as well as a manga superstar. Along with her bestselling sequential art, her work has been collected in art books and gallery shows around the world. “Inventive”, “unusual” and “sophisticated” are words that often arise in discussions about Ms. Park’s manga classics and we are both excited and proud to publish them.”

A quote like that is just setting itself up for a fall, isn’t it?

Here’s the thing: I haven’t had too much luck with manhwa. While I understand there are some highly regarded titles out there, most of the Korean comics I’ve read have been noticeably sub-par — mediocre at best, sloppy and excruciating to read at worst.

So I was curious, would Park’s work prove to be the exception? Would it be the work that finally woke me to the splendor that is manhwa? (more…)

Cartoonist Dan Hipp announced this morning that the third volume of his Tokyopop series Gyakushu! is among those titles to be released initially online as part of the publisher’s restructuring.

On Friday, Steady Beat creator Rivkah revealed that nearly all of Tokyopop’s non-licensed books — the bulk of its OEL line — will go directly to the web. However, RE:Play creator Christy Lijewski since has said that the third volume of her series still will be released in print as planned.

Tokyopop hasn’t made an announcement about the online move.

The second volume of Hipp’s bloody revenge tale was released in February. Hipp, who’s probably best known for his work on The Amazing Joy Buzzards, is about half-finished with the third volume of Gyakushu!

He writes on his blog:

No, it’s not a good thing, but not really worth crying over. There have been some other things going on with the book, so it’s very possible that we’ll see it at some point, in a better format. Save your tears, I have no use for them (unless you had none, in which case, you are heartless, sir/madam!).

My heart goes out to all the other creators affected by the changes at Tokyopop. I’m still grateful for the opportunities I’ve had and the connections I’ve made through this book (which isn’t over anyway, so seriously, stop crying!). I’ve been to the other side of the world because of this book, and seen it printed in Italian and Russian (so far). The Thief is not dead.

Update: Brigid Alverson has word that the sixth volume of Shutterbox is still heading for print, while the fate of Psy-Comm is unclear. Heidi MacDonald, meanwhile, reports the third volume of My Cat Loki didn’t make the cut.

Steady Beat creator Rivkah reports on her LiveJournal that her editor told her Tokyopop’s non-licensed material won’t be published, but will now go straight to the web:

Just got off the phone with my editor, and it looks like not-so-good news for Steady Beat. In fact, it looks like not-so-good news for anybody who’s working with TP right now. I’m not sure how much I should say for fear of causing an outright panic with other creators, but essentially, nearly all of Tokyopop’s future books will be going straight to web. This wasn’t a case-by-case scenario. Neither I nor any other single creators were singled out. It looks like the whole line of non-licensed material will cease printing and be promoted online only.

However, this does not mean “Steady Beat” will never see print. Borders on the verge of bankruptcy hurt a lot of people, but it doesn’t mean the end of the world. There are other publishers, other outlets, other venues. Tokyopop could in the future still print the third volume of Steady Beat.

In spite of this potential, however, I am going to try to negotiate print rights back from Tokyopop until such a future time as they choose to bring my books back in print. In the meantime, should Tokyopop fail to follow through with their promise of at least web print, I will put full “previews” of all the books online myself.

Via The Beat

Lots more folks weighing in, including:

Heidi MacDonald:

Chris Butcher:

A reorganization is considerably better than bankruptcy protection, and I know a few people who thought that was what was coming down the pipe. Which isn’t to say that it won’t, but it hasn’t, and there’s a big difference.

Matt Blind:

As Tokyopop isn’t a publicly traded company (and doesn’t have to play these investor games if they don’t want to), I have to wonder why bother with a reorganisation at all, unless of course one expects a part of the business to tank, tank hard, and tank soon.

Johanna Draper Carlson:

But it remains to be seen how many of those books will be put out in future. Part of the announcement was that Tokyopop was cutting 39 positions from their publishing arm (out of how many? dunno) and radically reducing their release schedule, going from over 500 books a year to as few as 200. Says Stuart Levy, CEO, “Few releases will allow for less cannibalization at retail.” Which seems to imply that they think people aren’t buying TP book 1 because they’re buying TP book 2. I don’t think that’s right, based on my own experience: instead of buying TP book 1, I buy a Viz or a Del Rey or an Aurora (when it comes to josei) title.

Rivkah:

Honestly, I’m happy this happened. I was expecting bankruptcy by November 2007. Instead, for perhaps the first time ever, Tokyopop has made the right move by cutting back on how much spagetti they throw at the wall to see what sticks. I don’t doubt the turmoil will take several months to settle down and many of us creators will be cut, but from a business perspective, this means that in the long run, they could potentially be better off. They cut back also by deciding not to exhibit at San Diego or Anime Expo which means less time spent going to conventions and more time focusing on actual creative material; it’s the little things that count, and when employees run up a thousand dollar tab just on drinks, that hurts not just the company but the creators as well.

Tom Spurgeon:

It’s harder to do that in book publishing, although with Borders shedding personnel and a future of digital rights publishing looking like it will come without the comforting and profitable-to-many infrastructure that’s developed around print, it’s hard not to be slightly disturbed by strong moves like this one. In fact, you could look at Tokyopop as another specialty publisher having to make changes or risk dying off altogether, and not much of a unique news story at all.

Brigid Alverson has more links, of course.

With the flurry of news last week over the Manga Pilot contracts, many wondered exactly how well Tokyopop was faring. Now, IcV2 reports that the company will spin off its “comics-to-film” and digital units to a new company, to be named Tokyopop Media LLC:

Publishing production will be reduced by roughly 50% through the rest of the year, reducing output to roughly 200-225 titles per year from a planned total of over 500 titles. Tokyopop CEO and Chief Creative Officer of the Tokyopop Group, Stuart Levy, explained the reasons for the reduction in output. “The time is now for us to focus our publishing business to overcome current market challenges. Few releases will allow for less cannibalization at retail.”

The company is reducing its workforce by 39 positions in connection with the changes. “We must adjust our overhead to properly execute this new business plan,” Levy said. “We are doing it with a heavy heart,” he continued. “It involves saying goodbye to 39 of the most talented, creative and compassionate people I’ve ever known.”

In addition, several executive positions will be restructured. It’s too early for me to say what this means for the company or what titles will exactly be cut, but feel free to speculate in the comments below.

Just about everyone is offering their opinion on Tokyopop’s contract for their Manga Pilot program. Very little of it is nice:

Johanna Draper Carlson (who’s been covering the hell out of this story by the way) already has a statement back from the company. Note this little piece:

Making the contracts available to all is just the first positive step for TOKYOPOP that the Pilot Program represents. Of course we want our Pilots to be successful, and we want to work with Pilot creators to develop their Pilots into other media. And if we do so, an entirely new contract is drafted for that particular project—whether it be a full-length book deal, a film/TV deal, etc. However, TOKYOPOP realizes that some Pilots will not develop beyond their initial stage. And that’s why the Pilot Program is also progressive in returning rights to creators. For any Pilot that doesn’t pan out, the rights to the project are returned to the creator after the one-year Exclusive Period ends. After that, the creator is free to take that exact chapter created for us as well as the property anywhere they like—whether that’s self-publishing, publishing with another company or putting it on the back burner. At this point, for example, if the creator were to land a film/TV deal based on their Pilot property, TOKYOPOP would have no stake in that venture.

Meanwhile, here’s John Jakala:

I really don’t want to be promoting a company that engages in (let’s phrase this charitably) extremely questionable business practices at the expense of creators. In fact, I’ll take it a step further and suggest it’s time for a general boycott of Tokyopop until they get this contract mess straightened out so it’s more equitable for creators:

Chris Butcher:

WHAT ARE YOU DOING TOKYOPOP?! I WANT TO LIKE YOU BUT YOU’RE MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE. I may no longer want to like you. (more…)

Sunday at the New York Comic Con, expectedly, was a little bit slower on the news front than Friday or Saturday, which gave the comic sites a little bit of time to catch up and post a lot of stuff from yesterday’s panels. The big news today, it seems, is the show itself; Lance Fensterman reports on the NYCC blog that they surpassed last year’s attendance numbers:

So what do we know?

At least 64,000 people attended New York Comic Con this weekend. We have more details to pour through from retailers and on site tickets sales, but as of tonight we know that at least 64,000 attendees were in the building over the weekend. That’s an intense jump from 49,000 last year and it seems to say this crazy little party we call New York Comic Con continues to grow as fast as a speeding bullet.

Stay tuned for final numbers in the next few days.

Some other folks found time to blog today as things were winding down. Peter David gave an update on his wife, who was in a car crash while he was at the con on Friday:

Kathleen was in one piece: As anyone who’s read her blog knows, Kath was in an auto accident. Fortunately she’s fine, albeit a bit achy and bruised. Upon learning of the accident Friday, I immediately headed home, rendering me unavailable for the Marvel autograph session and also the Mondo Marvel panel. I left word at the Marvel booth, but somehow they didn’t get the message to panel moderator Jim McCann. On stage he noticed my absence and wondered aloud where I was. When one of the panels whispered in his ear what had happened, a startled Jim said “Oh my God!”…right into the open microphone, causing some degree of confusion and alarm for the audience which he quickly had to undo.

And Mark Evanier talked about the Steve Gerber tribute panel … which Gerber was able to attend:

Friday, I did two panels — one about the work of the late/great Will Eisner; the other, about the state of the animation business. Saturday morn, we had a nice public memorial panel about our pal, the late/also great Steve Gerber. Many of Steve’s fans and friends were there, along with members of his family. And Steve himself was present as you can see from this photo…

I guess you can’t read the label so I’ll tell you what the top line of it says: “This Package Contains the Cremated Remains of Stephen R. GERBER.” That’s right. We had his ashes there. Morbid, I know…but Steve wouldn’t have wanted to miss a whole panel about himself. It was announced that immediately following the panel, we’d be taking the ashes down and flinging them in the faces of certain editors.

More coverage of New York Comic Con:

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