Business News

A couple of interviews with more information on Make That Thing, the new company that helps successful Kickstarter campaign actually send out all their rewards. it's a division of TopatoCo, the webcomics's merchandising company which already has a formidable infrastructure—a fork lift!, warehouses, employees!—and manufacturing contacts to help their cartoonists sell their merch. The program is rolling out slowly as an in house project.

Time Warner has found its magazine division all too quittable: after an unsuccessful attempt to sell off the print division which puts out Time, People, Sports Illustrated, it has decided to just split it off into its own business, and hope stock investors come along who like to look at glossy magazine. It's a similar to the move Mr. Burns Rupert Murdoch pulled recently, splitting Fox into two divisions: The Fox Group, which includes movies and TV, and News Corp., which includes the newspaper division.

In the wake of disappointing holiday sales, Barnes & Noble is rethinking its Nook strategy, the NY times reports, citing anonymous sources. As physical bookstores have become a beloved, adorable but untenable endangered species, kind of like the panda bear, since 2009 B&N has smartly attempted to move its core business into the digital segment. Their Nook e-reader is widely though of as a competitive (maybe even superior) platform to the Kindle, but recents sales have been down, proving making a cool gadget is no panacea, and maintaining your cool gadget is an ultra competitive field.

I just don't think Diamond gets digital.  They're trying, but they keep throwing some really odd things out there.  This latest bit has me...

Not meaning to bury this news in the Friday afternoon graveyard, but wanted to get it out there: the long awaited Black Mask Studios transmedia/alternate distribution comics company set up by writer Steve Niles, producer Matt Pizzolo (Halo 8) and Epitaph Records' Brett Gurewitz has finally gone live and announced its debut projects.

§ Viz evp of Publishing Alvin Lu has left the company after 13 years, ICV2 reports.

Lots of news emerged from Warner Bros. yesterday besides getting a new CEO. On the most germane to our continuing investigations, Amazon, the Wonder Woman pilot being scripted by Allan Heinberg, has been put on hold for a while. It hasn't been killed, but it "needs more time." On the plus side, an off-season pilot may be ordered so it can go in as a midseason replacement. On the non-plussed side it's yet ANOTHER superhero project that WB has put on hold or dithered over or fretted about.

In what has to be considered a shock, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Kevin Tsujihara has been named CEO of Warner Bros. replacing Barry Meyer and beating out TV head Bruce Rosenblum and film head Jeff Robinov, The three has been locked in an internal battle to see who could outlast who, and Bewkes went with the far less known Tsujihara. Nikki Finke has some of the gory details, which seem as intent on causing Rosenblum and Robinov's privates to shrink to post-icy-dip size as much as business considerations:

Short version, the last remaining book retail giant plans to close as many as a third of its stores over a 10-year period—although that may be an optimistic projection, as well. Slowed by the rise of digital and a lack of new malls, B&N oipened only two stores in the last fiscal year, and it's end of year profits were well below what was expected. While the Nook ereaders has been a bright spot, sales there have slowed as well. So a leaner meaner BN seems to be in the cards.

By now, it seems a lot of people have taken advantage of Kyle Baker's decision to put his stellar body of graphic novels up for free online. While it's a windfall for readers, at Robot 6, Corey Blake asked "Does ‘free’ devalue comics?" While free sampling is a staple of marketing, it also has drawbacks:

Following the announcement that iFanboy founder Ron Richards would be moving over to Image Comics, moie changes at iFanboy were announced today. Longtime iFanboy contributor Paul Montgomery will be filling Richards' editorial duties at the site, including joining the podcast.

As we reported last night, the story of Platinum Studios, the bizarre IP company founded by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg on his peripheral involvement in having published the MEN IN BLACK comic book, has gotten seriously bizarre, with shareholders and acting president Chris Beall banding together to attempt to oust Rosenberg from the company after a series of what they claim are flagrantly fraudulent money shifting and credit card embezzlement—all from the coffers of the publicly traded company. While we don't know the whole story, we can piece together some of it.