Comics

Although the news coming on a Friday afternoon news dump did dampen response a bit, there has been a ton of reaction to Toykopop shutting down its US publishing activities. On the America's Greatest Otaku website, Tpop publisher Stuart Levy recently wrote about his plans to move to Japan and make a documentary, surely not the thoughts of a man looking to revitalize his publishing plan.

The comics publishing culling of 2011 claimed its most prominent victim as it was announced today that Tokyopop is shutting down its US operations, as of May 31. The German office will stay open to handle publishing rights and the film division will continue. Founded in 1997, Tokyopop and its founder Stu Levy were at the forefront of the manga revolution in the US, introducing such hits as SAILOR MOON, CHOBITS, and LOVE HINA to the US market in the "unflipped" format for the first time. Sales surged as the manga bookstore revolution took over in the early part of the last decade. An ambitious program of publishing original manga by creators from around the world -- many of them barely out of the teenaged readership years themselves -- proved controversial and ultimately saw only a handful of successful franchises but introduced a new generation of creators to the comics scene.

This year's edition of the compendium is guest-edited by Alison Bechdel, with series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden.

Not to be confused with BUTCHER BAKER, RIGHTEOUS MAKER, Joe Casey and Mike Huddleston's scabrous look at superheroes, this july we'll see BUTCHER, BAKER, CANDLESTICKMAKER #1 by Garth Ennis and Darrick Robertson, a miniseries which will reveal the origin of The Butcher, "The most violent man in comics." PR and a three-page preview below. THE BOYS has been Dynamite's most consistent selling comic for several years now; a movie is still in development with Adam McKaye last reported writing a script.

Homage! Mike Henderson mashes up some well known cartoon characters and the classic X-MEN #141 storyline for a piece he calls...Days of Future Pixar. There's a lot of other tasty stuff at Henderson's blog if you poke around a bit.

Speaking of Daniel Clowes, he drew a pretend comic book cover for PAUL, the movie about a space alien and Comic-Con. It's signed "Pussey", a reference to Dan Pussey, the cartoonist star of PUSSEY! We'd buy it.

Although we wrote about this here, it was little noticed that NBM, publisher of fine Euro-comix and quirky originals, now has its own book distributor, IPG, a respected indie distributor located in Chicago. Just as with Fantagraphics and Norton, D&Q and FSG, this should be a good match of a dedicated GN line for a distributor that wants to diversify. PR below:

Although we wrote about this here, it was little noticed that NBM, publisher of fine Euro-comix and quirky originals, now has its own book distributor, IPG, a respected indie distributor located in Chicago. Just as with Fantagraphics and Norton, D&Q and FSG, this should be a good match of a dedicated GN line for a distributor that wants to diversify. PR below:

The Walking Dead finally becomes the top selling non Marvel/DC book in the direct market, the second True Blood book from IDW debuts lower than I'd have expected, the Garth Ennis written Jennifer Blood launches from Dynamite, and Dark Horse launches another Conan series.

The Walking Dead finally becomes the top selling non Marvel/DC book in the direct market, the second True Blood book from IDW debuts lower than I'd have expected, the Garth Ennis written Jennifer Blood launches from Dynamite, and Dark Horse launches another Conan series.

From the comments of our "Saving Comics" post, Tim Stoltzfus went back to this Milennium Eve 1999 post by Warren Ellis that had the same message, and a call to arms on other matters:

Publishers Weekly reports that E-book sales were up sharply for February, with TRIPLE digit growth, up 202.3% with $90.3 million in sales, the leading segment as reported by the AAP. Thanks to ebook readers given as gifts over the holidays, ebook sales now equal trade paperback sales.