Tag: Tokyopop

As I noted a few weeks back, Tokyopop, the company that came in changed comics and then crashed and burned, suspending publication for the most part back in 2011, is coming back as announced on a panel at Anime Expo with plans to begin publishing again in 2016" announced by founder Stu Levy.

This is an old link, but Robort Boyd has posted a slideshow he delivered on Comixploitation! that rounds up some of the more egregious examples of horrible artistic rip-offs in comics over the years,...

Founded in 1997, TokyoPop was one of the most influential publishers of the Aughts, driving the manga boom in the US as the first publisher to print manga in its original right-to-left format, a move that helped cement its authenticity among young readers. Later on their "original English language manga" line developed an entire generation of young creators working in a manga style, including Becky Cloonan and Amy Reeder Hadley. But it all came to an end in 2011 when the company shut down except for the German office. Owner and founder Stuart Levy went on to make a documentary about the Tohoku earthquake, even amidst continuing controversy about the reversion of rights to creators However there have been flickers of life since then, with some new digital publishing, licensing OEL books like King City to Image, and a TokyoPop-branded newsletter that was part of Nerdist's adventures in that area. Since TokyoPop never went bankrupt, it's entirely possible that Levy can bring it back, as promised on the company's about page:

Guten Tag! Germany... it's a bit of a conundrum in Continental comics. Smack dab in the middle of Europe, it gets a lot of comics imported from other countries, mostly from neighboring Belgium and France.  It...