Tokyopop held their scheduled webinar on Wednesday and Deb Aoki has a thorough recap, including some old favorite books coming back, but others not coming back, and more .hack and so on. There was some talk of manhwa and classic manga:
Prospects for reviving dormant Korean manhwa titles look dim now, but possibly the only other category of manga that has even fewer prospects for future publication at TokyoPop is older manga or “classic” manga titles.
“If by older titles you mean classic manga, the answer is no,” said Diaz-Przybyl. “The manga audience seems very heavily driven toward what’s the latest and greatest from Japan. I would love to do some classic series; VIZ Media has, and so has Vertical. It’s great to see it out there, and the more manga you read, the more you want to understand where this medium comes from.”
Kodansha pulling all its licenses was also discussed, but editor Lillian Diaz-Przbyl mentioned that they had had a lot of time to prepare.
Indeed. A few people have told us that Kodansha announced they were pulling their licenses almost a year ago, and it has been kind of an open secret since then, so they really have had a long time to brace.
