Business News

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.

We'll have a more retailed report on this in the morning, but the short version is that shareholders in Platinum Studios—one of whom...

Some recent publishing moves: Carol Burell, formerly editorial director at the Graphic Universe division of Lerner Publishing, ankled the company to join Abrams Comic Arts as an editor last month. As editor, Burell took a small educational publisher's comic line and grew it to produce both outstanding original comics (Guinea Pig) and great international pick-ups (the much lauded Little White Duck: A Childhood in China.) Basically she was there as children's comic became a growing market and helped Lerner become a player in the field. At Abrams, the powerhouse publisher of Wimpy Kid and My Friend Dahmer, she's in a position to do even more. We won't lie: Carol is one of our favorite comics people and this was a fantastic move for Abrams.

This is the third year of our Comics Industry Person of the Year poll, and the winner was pretty much a landslide. Every year we ask the participants in our survey to name who they thought was the person who made an impact or set the pace, and to comment anonymously (or on the record) and it was a clear choice this time out. With many people saying it was the Year of Image, Image publisher Eric Stephenson was the runaway winner—and the Saga team of Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples were definitely the Team of the Year, with a significant number of votes.

Well, it turns out that Tokyopop wasn't really dead...it was just resting. Since the manga pioneer closed up its LA office nearly two years...

Yes, much like the annual tradition of looking at last year's sales lists, it's time for another annual tradition: scratching your head and wondering...

Colleen Doran spills the beans gives some metrics on what everyone knows—Nielsen's Bookscan Numbers are way low. Especially, it seems, where comics are concerned. She cites several books she has worked on, comparing her royalty statements and Bookscan numbers:

You new there were going to be some changes when it was announced that Vertigo was going to be having some changes.  Shelly Bond...

After Image's Jennifer De Guzman played bad cop, and publisher Eric Stephenson played good cop, Image has released a new set of guidelines to...