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More on recent changes at Dark Horse with publisher Mike Richardson.

More on recent changes at Dark Horse with publisher Mike Richardson.

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.

Although we wrote about this here, it was little noticed that NBM, publisher of fine Euro-comix and quirky originals, now has its own book distributor, IPG, a respected indie distributor located in Chicago. Just as with Fantagraphics and Norton, D&Q and FSG, this should be a good match of a dedicated GN line for a distributor that wants to diversify. PR below:

Although we wrote about this here, it was little noticed that NBM, publisher of fine Euro-comix and quirky originals, now has its own book distributor, IPG, a respected indie distributor located in Chicago. Just as with Fantagraphics and Norton, D&Q and FSG, this should be a good match of a dedicated GN line for a distributor that wants to diversify. PR below:

Over the past few years I've become very skeptical of all the talk about "saving comics" -- and I say that as someone who actually started a non-profit organization whose motto was "Here to save comics!" While this could be chalked up to my own ennui, I prefer to think of it as being practical.

A tiny bit of justice at last. A ton of people this week commented that writing about how hard it is to make a living doing comics while simultaneously not paying your cartoonists is a seriously dick move. And Village Voice editor Tony Ortega has decided to scramble up all that egg on his face and give everyone some breakfast:

As mentioned in a previous item, this week's Village Voice is the Cartoon Issue, and the centerpiece is a longish article called If Cartoons Are So Big, Why Don't They Pay?; it's one of several recent prominent articles -- like the recent Marvel profile in the em>NY Times -- that focus on the rather frugal level of profits one can expect from publishing comic books in America.

[Chris Sotomayor is a successful and well known colorist for Marvel and other publishers. Recently he began a series of interviews he called "The Dirty Dozen" where he asks industry figures questions about their careers from a business standpoint. The themes are among those that we've recently been exploring here at The Beat as the career paths for cartoonists become more tangled -- here is more opportunity than ever, but the way to get there is not always clear. Although the interviews appear first at his site, Chris has graciously allowed The Beat to reprint them. Up this time, writer/artist Jimmy Palmiotti.]

In spite of all the gloom and doom you get from looking at sales charts, in reality the comics business is holding its own, mostly due to the perseverance and savvy of retailers such as those polled by Ada Price in this long piece for PW. The bottom line: Although times are tough, by being cautious, stores are staying healthy:

Back in August, 2010, we told you all about the story behind OBLIVION, a graphic novel concept by director Joe Kosinski (TRON: LEGACY) that was optioned to Disney Studios for a cool $500,000. It seemed like a lot of money for yet another "celebrity comic" so what was so hot about it? At the time we wrote:

Now this is kind of interesting. Avatar, publisher of some of the greatest writers in comics, like Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis and so on, is switching distributors from Diamond to...BOOM!? Wait, BOOM! is a distributor? Not really, but they have their own distributor deal with Simon & Schuster for the US and HarperCollins for Canada. Avatar will be tagging along on BOOM!'s truck route for a unique partnership. We had the chance to chat informally with several Avatar personnel about this move at C2E2 -- and it's definitely a good one for them. Moore and (to a lesser extent) Ellis are perennial bookstore bestsellers, so being able to hop on that bandwagon should definitely help their trade program. Although not noted by anyone, really, Avatar significantly slowed their trade collection release schedule over the last few months; this deal enables them to get it going again.