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Tokyopop has just signed a deal with Diamond Book Distributors for distribution to both comics shops and bookstores. This marks Tokyopop’s return to Diamond after signing a big joint venture with HarperCollins in 2006 for distribution and new products. The deal saw Tpop packaging such bestsellers as The Warriors for HC., but not much seems to have been done of late between the two companies. After weathering the storms of the US manga industry, Tokyopop is still around and the Diamond deal marks another page in its resurgence.

The deal also marks a new interest in manga for Diamond — in a rather unusual development, Tokyopop’s President & COO John Parker is leaving the company to join Diamond as VP of Business Development where, based on the happy comments in the PR, he’ll help make sure Tokyopop products are treated right. PR below:

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TOKYOPOP and Diamond announced today a new sales and distribution agreement between the companies, with a focus on consolidating efforts to build out the manga graphic novel segment across both comic book and bookselling retailers. The new endeavor will commence on July 1, 2011, as TOKYOPOP transitions over its current bookselling distribution from Harper Collins to Diamond Book Distributors.

The new arrangement will become Diamond Book Distributor’s most comprehensive effort to date within the manga space, as TOKYOPOP’s 150+ annual new releases and 2000+ backlist titles will become available through the comic book distribution giant. As part of that effort, TOKYOPOP’s President & COO John Parker will join Diamond in the newly-created role of Vice President of Business Development.

“I’m excited about the opportunities for both TOKYOPOP and Diamond in this new arrangement,” Parker said. “A combination of the strengths of both companies will lead to significant new opportunities in the manga business.”

TOKYOPOP Founder & CEO Stu Levy added, “John has been my right-hand partner at TOKYOPOP for nearly twelve years, and I am thrilled to have him be the one helming our critical new business partnership with Diamond Book Distributors.”

Both comic shop and book retailers will be able to purchase the entire range of TOKYOPOP products from one source, Diamond Comic Distributors, and partake in creative marketing efforts to increase their in-store sales of manga.

Diamond’s Vice President of Purchasing Bill Schanes said, “Diamond welcomes John Parker and the premiere innovators and leaders of the manga revolution, TOKYOPOP. We are excited about our future together.”

For book market retailers interested in more information about the upcoming product line, please contact Moria Trent at Diamond 410-560-7100 ext. 862.

1 COMMENT

  2. So, HarperCollins does not continue their relationship with Tokyopop. Random House dramatically changes its presence in the manga category by axing DelRay Manga (but doing distribution for Kodansha Comics.)

    It’s tempting to read these events as “real” publishers becoming un-enchanted with the manga category that a few years ago was the hot, sexy thing everyone wanted a piece of.

    Of course, Simon & Schuster still distributes VIZ, and Hachette still has its own publishing program thru Yen Press, so I’m probably being prematurely pessimistic. Until another shoe drops, of course…

  3. I know at least one local comic shop dropped Diamond as their manga distributor and switched over to one or more bookstore ones. Diamond was getting books out way too late and kids were buying them in bookstores instead. I wonder how this will affect them. Is Diamond the only one distbuting TokyoPop? That doesn’t seem to bode well if it is. Well, not that Tokyopop had that many big books.

    I know Hetalia recently had a lot of buzz, but the translation and quality got pretty bad reception from fans. A friend of mine who had Japanese editions said it wasn’t well done. I was tempted to check it before I heard that, but noticed pixelation on a number of pages. I asked my friend if that was because it was a web comic first, but she said the Japanese editions looked just fine and it was TokyoPop at fault.

    Meanwhile the only other TokyoPop book I had any interest in recent was Seikon No Quasar and even then it was because it was an over the top Japanese T&A book that was so bad it was a fun read. It’s like Tarot “Your vagina is haunted” bad, maybe beyond since it also tosses in religion with its breast fetish.