A couple of updates on the dispersion of various Tokyopop books, print and digital.
Brigid Alverson wonders what will happen to HETALIA, the only TP property to be sold digitally through an outside vendor, and it turns out, you can still buy it! and keep the copies you bought!
I asked comiXology CEO David Steinberger if users who had already bought Hetalia would still have access to it after Tokyopop closes. His answer:
Yes, forever, in fact. Even if we were to stop selling Hetalia (and there’s no reason at the moment to think we will), users will continue to be able to re-download it from the My Comics area of the apps and comics.comixology.com. We will continue to allow people who bought Hetalia to re-download it.
Well, that makes sense. We own tons of manga from now-vanished publishers and no one came to our house to take them back if they switched publishers.Over at The Comics Journal, Sean Michael Robinson re-introduces that site to news reporting with a story on the messy rights situation with their many original properties:
Tokyopop will not be reverting rights back to their creators of original content, and is in discussion with certain creators regarding contract buyouts, a source told the Comics Journal this week.
This backs up what we’ve been told by several creators in recent days. Robinson talks to M Alice LeGrow, Queenie Chan, and Ross Campbell, and everyone has a different story – LeGrow’s BIZENGHAST will continue to come out under the German arm of Tokyopop, while Chan and Campbell don’t expect to see their books come out at all any more.Frankly, this is just the beginning. Tokyopop’s almost-total shutdown looks to be the messiest publishing conclusion in many years, so nobody should be surprised if the issues involved spin out for years to come.
Man, Tokyopop seems to have no class whatsoever. They should give creators their rights back at the very least. I would hate for King City to be out of print forever. The property can’t be worth much. It’s not really movie material (but then again, that doesn’t stop Hollywood).
Of course, the followup question is what happens to the books you’ve bought if Comixology goes out of business…