Business News

Many reports tonight via Twitter that the Atomic Comics chain in Arizona is shutting down, and confirmed on an employee's Facebook page. The four store chain, owned by Mike Malve, was one of Diamond's biggest accounts and a huge, progressive retailer known nationwide for its signings and aggressive, innovative promotions. Atomic and its logo were included prominently in the KICK-ASS movie, after Mark Millar became a fan following a signing. The four stores were located in Phoenix, Mesa, Chandler, and Paradise Valley.

Remember manga? It's still around, even if it isn't the juggernaut it was in the olden days. The big, big news in manga this week was the launch of Jmanga.com, best described as what if Marvel, DC, Random House, Dynamite, and Fantagraphics all teamed up to create their own comiXology. After years of sitting around anxiously watching piracy take a toll, the top Japanese publishers have finally banded together to create their own LEGAL online portal. The site just launched this week, and there been a ton of talk. J.K. Parkin has a great round-up of much of the reaction but it hasn't been universally loved:

Is the comics shop a typewriter or a ball point pen?

Despite a lukewarm (or "dismal" as the LA Times put it) box office reception which is blamed with helping Disney get cold feet over The Lone Ranger *, COWBOYS & ALIENS will live on via licensing, if Platinum Studios has anything to say about it. A new press release has announced a deal with KKM Global Brand Strategies which will license all aspects of the property. Oh, except the movie.

Robert Kirkman's Skybound imprint at Image -- which includes Kirkman's own books and some new ones like WITCH DOCTOR and SUPER DINOSAUR -- will be getting Asian distribution via a deal with Moving Images, an international media company headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles.

Is there a more cautionary tale in comics than that of the failing fortunes of Diamond Comics owner and über-scollectorSteve Geppi? Daniel Best reads through some of the court documents on the Montana Estate vs Steve Geppi lawsuit we alluded to the other day, and they are not too thrilling if you are Steve Geppi, the owner of Diamond Comics and once considered the richest man in comics. In a nutshell, back in 2006, a flush Geppi offered the family or Archie artist $1,000,000 for a collection of original Archie art, while attesting that he was worth $20 million, as the attached exhibit shows. As time went by, a few things happened -- Geppi made a series of very bad deals which ate up his money, especially as the economy and the real estate market tanked; and the art also lost a lot of value:

For artists, (and I mostly mean indie artists) Kickstarter is a blessing and a curse. The upsides for creators have been praised by plenty of others: hey, free money! The downsides mostly boil down to stunting your artistic growth and releasing a substandard product into an overcrowded marketplace. That's not a practice limited to Kickstarter by any means, but it's greatly enabled by risk-free money.

The Smurfs shocked everyone by tying the much hyped COWBOYS & ALIENS at the box office this weekend and we dig into Platinum's stock filings to see what's up at the company. Plus: Who is Ervin Rustemagic?

Founded by Cory Jones (ex Blizzard), John Nee (ex DC) Scott Gaeta (ex Upper Deck) and some other folks, Cryptozoic Entertainment is a newish company with strong roots and, from what we heard at SDCC, lots of things in the works. They're putting out a Walking Dead board game, and have signed with Diamond for distribution. Could there be more products in the works? Keep an eye on them.

Yesterday's ICv2 Conference on Comics, Media, and Digital kicked off Comic-Con with a look at the business side of things. Over at Publishers Weekly, Calvin Reid and I have a brief recap of some of the stats that Milton Griepp presented at his annual White Paper. Some quick hits: GN sales were up 3% so far in 2011 -- up more in bookstores, despite the Borders disaster, than in comics shops -- while periodical sales were down 8%. The peak of sales for comics and GNs was 2006-2007. Coincidentally that was also a peak year for manga sales, which has declined significantly yet again. But the rate of decline has stabilized.

It's official....as everyone expected, Borders, the book chain that spearheaded the rise of graphic novel sin the good years, has failed to find a buyer and will be liquidated, perhaps as soon as this Friday.

First Comics is coming back in a relaunch led by co-founder Ken Levin and Larry Young.