Business News

We've been covering the sometimes glorious, sometimes ignominious history of Tokyopop for as long as there has been a Beat. Although its biggest legacy...

Can you sell "used" digital copies of books and music? You used to be able to via services such as ReDigi which allowed you...

Madefire—the VC-funded IoS-based comics starter— and DeviantART, the 7th largest social network on the internet, have teamed up to share art and technology. Madefire...

Holy licensing deal, Batman! It seems that the campy, kitschy 1966 version of Batman—which was long verboten to be mentioned at DC and WB in general due to it's campy, kitschy nature. But as many noted, a line of toys based on the show was introduced at Toy Fair, and now we see that a whole line of merchandise, including a digital-first comic -- is coming.

It came in the night like an earthquake or a car crash: JManga, the digital manga portal set up by 39 of Japan's migegst publishers, is shutting down. As of last night you could not make any more point purchases, as of the 26th you will no longer be able to purchase manga and as of May 30th the entire site goes away -- taking all of the manga you bought with it.

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.