Tokyopop

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.

Following up on yesterday's new about Tokyopop laying off at least three editors, the scuttlebutt has continued to flow. Some sources are telling us that there are only 7 people left on staff, including founder Stuart Levy and president Mike Kiley -- the rest of the duties of getting out a line of manga being assigned to freelancers. Brigid Alverson is about as calm and rational a person as we have ever met, so tosee her unload as she does in this post about Tpop's history is a fearsome thing. The layoffs, the OEL rights disasters, the silly detours into movies and Web-TV, and over it all the seeming cluelessness of Levy -- Brigid nails it all:

Word is going around that LA manga publisherToykopop has laid off several more people -- including editors Lillian Diaz-Przybyl and Troy Lewter. The staff is now reduced to a mere handful of people -- including owner Stu Levy and publisher Mike Kiley. EDIT: Editor Asako Suzuki has also been laid off.

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...

Tokyopop have revealed the teaser trailer for their new show debuting on Hulu in December. You can watch the trailer here on YouTube. The show features Tokyopop's Stu Levy and his team of interns...

Have you ever wanted to see the seldom-screened VAN VON HUNTER movie? Soon you can watch it and other Toykopop-produced material such as their Manga Motion comics on their new Hulu site. Currently showing, Spring and Chaos (Kenji no Haru) is the animated biography of poet Kenji Miyazawa.

Another digital comics deal, as Toykopop has signed with digital newsstand Zinio to sell a selection of their GNs. The line-up includes mostly OEL, such as Earthlight, The Dreaming and Van Von Hunter, and manhwa -- The Tarot Cafe -- although a few manga titles will be available soon. Books will sell for $5.99, cheaper than the print version but more than a comic book. Zinio is a virtual newsstand which sells proprietary downloads for Macs and PCs. According to Caleb Goellner, they use flash, which might be problematic for Apple devices.

A couple of publishing announcements that caught our eye the other day. • Tokyopop will publish Kenji Sonishi's NekoRamen. a manga about a cat who cooks ramen. SOLD. Via Johanna, who has a rundown...

Tokyopop held their scheduled webinar on Wednesday and Deb Aoki has a thorough recap, including some old favorite books coming back, but others not coming back, and more .hack and so on. There was...

Likely top news if not for that other story yesterday, Brigid Alverson dropped the bombshell that manga giant Kodansha is letting its licenses with Tokyopop expire. It's a huge story and as good a...

A LOT of publishing news out there we haven't had a chance to collate due to San DIego Madness™, so let's get going: § Rich Johnston reports that international licensing manager Francine Burke has left...

Over at CBR, the stupendously talented Brandon Graham (see above) talks more about how KING CITY went from purgatory at Tokyopop to publishing at Image: Graham released “King City” Vol. 1 in 2007 through...