Lots of bold faced names have been moving around over the last few weeks — congrats to all.
• Mark Bernardi (above) will replace Michael Martens as Dark Horses’s v-p of book trade and digital sales
Bernardi will be on hand at the American Library Association annual meeting that opens June 23 in Orlando this week. He joined Dark Horse in 1996 and credited Martens, a longtime comics publishing executive, as a mentor. “Mike originally hired me to work at Dark Horse. He pioneered our focus on libraries early-on in the 1990s and library sales are a real growth area for us,” he said.
“The library market is not just a sales channel, it’s a way for consumers to sample our content and for us to build longtime readers,” Bernardi said.
• Rob Pereyda, formerly of Shifty Look, Henshin and Viewster, has joined Viz as Vice President Business Development as tweeted a few weeks ago:
Excited to say that today I joined @VIZMedia to lead business development & new initiatives. Great brands & people — let's rock this! 😎
— Rob Pereyda (@rpereyda) May 24, 2016
• Tim Leong, who first gained fame as the co-publisher of Comic Foundry magazine, and later the author of Super Graphic has been named the first ever Creative Director of EW magazine.
Time Inc. has named Tim Leong creative director of Entertainment Weekly. He’s the first staffer to occupy that role in EW’s 26-year history. Leong joined EW in 2014 as design director. He previously worked at Fortune, Wired and Complex. EW editor in chief Henry Goldblatt said Leong deserved the promotion, citing his “meteoric rise through the industry.”
• Cartoonist Jessica Abel has been living in France for many years, but she’s returning to the US to take up residence as the Illustration Program Chair at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA. )
Clint Jukkala, Dean of the School of Fine Arts, says, “Jessica Abel is a leading and innovative voice in comics, storytelling and visual communication. She brings a vision to PAFA’s Illustration program that connects our strong fine arts traditions with a focus on empowering students to succeed as both creators and entrepreneurs. We are thrilled to have her join our community and help build this dynamic new program.”
• And Robert Khoo, longtime business magaine for the Penny Arcade juggernaut is stepping down after 14 years. Khoo helped make history at PA, but his future plans are unknown:
Penny Arcade’s President of Operations and Business Development Robert Khoo has stepped down from the webcomics company after 14 years. Although Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik created the popular webcomic strip, Khoo is widely-attributed to have guided the then-budding franchise’s business model and masterminded its successful expansion into merchandising, conventions, and its popular charity.
“Robert’s been with us basically forever, and the work we’ve done together speaks for itself,” said Holkins. “I had the chance to watch him accomplish the impossible more times than I can count. I would wish him luck, but he’s never needed it. He makes his own.”
Holkins and Krahulik will be jointly assuming Khoo’s role in the company. For his part, Khoo has not disclosed what his future plans are.
