Publishers

Tokyopop is closing down its manga line. Not long ago, this company and others like it were sometimes pointed to as the future of comics publishing. I suppose they still might be.

Via The Comics Journal

THOR, Marvel's first movie of this busy summer, had its world premiere in Australia this weekend (it opens in the us on May 6) and so far, critics are hitting the like button. THR has a reaction roundup:

Although the news coming on a Friday afternoon news dump did dampen response a bit, there has been a ton of reaction to Toykopop shutting down its US publishing activities. On the America's Greatest Otaku website, Tpop publisher Stuart Levy recently wrote about his plans to move to Japan and make a documentary, surely not the thoughts of a man looking to revitalize his publishing plan.

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.

Not to be confused with BUTCHER BAKER, RIGHTEOUS MAKER, Joe Casey and Mike Huddleston's scabrous look at superheroes, this july we'll see BUTCHER, BAKER, CANDLESTICKMAKER #1 by Garth Ennis and Darrick Robertson, a miniseries which will reveal the origin of The Butcher, "The most violent man in comics." PR and a three-page preview below. THE BOYS has been Dynamite's most consistent selling comic for several years now; a movie is still in development with Adam McKaye last reported writing a script.

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:

Unlike Spiderman: Turn Off The Critics, the BATMAN LIVE - World Arena Tour is a stunt-show, albeit probably one with more plot than the old second act of STOTD. The story is devised by Allan Heinberg, Stan Berkowitz and Alan Burnett, and cast photos from the production -- which kicks off in the UK -- have just been released. There's also a piece from the BBC which suggests this show will include tons of aerial stunts:

ICv2 has some hi-res photos of Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern  that we had previously missed. Looks a bit like an action figure, no? More in the link.

CBR is reporting a round of layoffs at Dark Horse including editors Shawna Gore and Dave Land and sales assistant Max Sato. The Beat has learned that Tim Ervin, Gore's ex-husband, and another editor at Dark Horse, were also let go.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

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Unit and dollar sales of DC Comics' periodical business remained at the lower end of the spectrum in February, despite a slight recovery from January's all-time low in average unit sales. However, the direct market as a whole has seen better days, and so DC still managed to snatch the three top spots of the chart and six out of the Top 10 in February, regardless of the company's lackluster sales.

For the publisher's mainstream DC Universe line, the absence of major titles Batman Incorporated and Batman: The Dark Knight continued to be a problem, while the hangover from the discontinued WildStorm imprint kept dragging down the average. Average comic-book sales of DC's Vertigo imprint were still hovering above the 10k mark, meanwhile.

See below for the details, and please consider the small print at the end of the column. Thanks to Milton Griepp and ICv2.com for the permission to use their figures. An overview of ICv2.com's estimates can be found here.

Over at The Source, DC is releasing more info on Retroactive, a series of retro one-shots by classic teams starting in July. No final art has been released yet -- the image of Superman below is just style guide art.