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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:

Although the road has been rocky for TOKYOPOP of late, you can’t keep a good Robofish down. The company is in the process of reincarnation, with a focus on digital media and Asian pop culture.  Stay tuned – the future awaits!

Going to AX or SDCC? Come check out our panels for cool announcements and giveaways!

Anime Expo:
Thursday, 7/2/15, 12:45PM
LACC Room 409AB

SDCC:
Saturday, 7/11/15, 6:00PM
Room 28DE

All attendees will receive a FREE ‘Knockouts’ comic!

Knockouts, above, is a comic based on a film of the same name, to be directed by Leo Kei Angelos, and from what we can glean produced by TokyoPop. The film is still in the concept stages, so obviously this is all part of getting some capital back drop by drop.

On his blog, Levy expanded on whats going on:

However, I’ve been thinking a lot about TOKYOPOP lately so I might as well let you into my mind (a scary place to be!). In a nutshell, I’m really excited about rebuilding TOKYOPOP.

But “rebuilding” isn’t the right word. It’s a convenient word to describe the process we’re going through now, but it’s not entirely accurate. My goal is not to return to the
TOKYOPOP of previous times; after all, what would be the point? The world has moved on, and our contributions at that time were for that world.

No, if TOKYOPOP is to mean anything in today’s world, we have to contribute something relevant now. And I truly believe we can.

Sure, the odds are typically against comebacks. Bands that have passed their peaks; athletes who can’t play like they could when they were younger; actors who can’t open films anymore; brands and businesses that are no longer relevant — all of these patterns are commonplace. But every now and then a true comeback occurs, whether it be John Travolta in Pulp Fiction; Tina Turner in the early 80’s; Apple from almost bankruptcy to mega-brand; or even Marvel from actual bankruptcy to world domination.

I think we can do it.

Hey, even manga evolves, right?

And the key aspect of our strategy is to EVOLVE.

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This May Fantagraphics is releasing OTHER STUFF, a compilation of various strips by Peter Bagge and his friends like Dan Clowes, Gilbert Hernandez, and R. Crumb. The stories in the book are mostly outside the famed Buddy Bradley saga, but no less hilarious.

Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff includes a few lesser-known Bagge characters, including the wacky modern party girl “Lovey” and the aging bobo “Shut-Ins” — not to mention the self-explanatory “Rock ‘N’ Roll Dad” starring Murry Wilson and the Beach Boys. But many of the strips are one-off gags or short stories, often with a contemporary satirical slant, including on-site reportage like “So Much Comedy, So Little Time” (from a comedy festival) and more. Also: Dick Cheney, The Matrix, and Alien!

Other Stuff also includes a series of Bagge-written stories drawn by other cartoonists, including “Life in These United States” with Daniel Clowes, “Shamrock Squid” with Adrian Tomine, and the one-two parody punch of “Caffy” (with art by R. Crumb) and “Dildobert” (with art by Prison Pit’s Johnny Ryan)… plus a highlight of the book, the hilarious, literate and intricate exposé of “Kool-Aid Man” written by Alan Moore and drawn by Bagge. (Other collaborators include the Hernandez Brothers and Danny Hellman.)

Peter Bagge’s Other Stuff 
by Peter Bagge et al.
144-page color/black & white 7.25″ x 10.25″ softcover • $19.99
ISBN: 978-1-60699-622-5

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If you’ve ever wanted to own the definitive version of Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise saga, it’s available once again in Omnibus form. Originally released as a hardcover, the 2400 page two-volume collection included what Moore considered the final version of the story, with censorship removed, and storytelling smoothed out. However, that edition is long out of print, as Moore explains on his website:

Five years ago 1,250 hardcover edition box sets were offered and sold out immediately. It was grossly underprinted due to low pre-orders. (Pre-orders paid for the printing and that was all we could print.)

Now, finally, we are making an affordable, softcover version. The Strangers In Paradise Softcover Omnibus box set includes the same two 1200 page books containing every page, every story ever printed relating to SiP! The price for this 2400 page collection in a boxed slipcase? $100.

I can’t make it any more affordable than that, folks. That’s 4 cents a page for a labor of love I spent 14 years making.

The cost of printing the softcover Omnibus is shockingly high. But after 5 years Robyn and I have decided it will never happen if we don’t go out on a limb and take the risk. So we are printing the book at great personal risk, because we believe the fans and retailers will support us and buy the book once it is available. I’ve always believed in SiP. Now I’m putting my money where my mouth is. But I need your support.

A different print will be available with books ordered through Diamond.

Could Moore have raised more money to fund the reprint via crowdfunding?

Probably.

But this way, he just has to print and ship his books, and not worry about all the reward fulfillments that have bogged down many a post-Kickstarter creator.

Artist Ashley Wood ruminates on the occasion of a collected edition of Automatic Kafka, his surreal but energizing collaboration with writer Joe Casey, most recently lauded as part of the WildStorm heritage. What Thrillerwas the the 80s this was to the Aughts, and it’s fantastic that it’s finally been collected. Only one catch…it’s in French.

This is my Watchmen, Joe and me really put our hearts and souls into this, and is actually a very layered story which was canceled well before its conclusion. Of course it was panned from the get-go, reviewers followed each others lead and wrote it off as drivel traditionally a good sign in my books.

But Joe and me carried on, we knew it was special, and still do. I think it has more fans now then then ?

This book pretty much ended my career at DC/Wildstorm, not such a bad thing, but my dreams of Batman were taken out back and shot three time in the head.

Over the recent holiday weekend we had occasion to spend a fair bit of time going through posts from the Old Beat, clearing out some spam and trying to clean up the database for various purposes. Along the way we were forced to violently relive the last few years of the last decade. It all seemed so simple once. So many news stories that never went anywhere — a few we jotted down for future investigation, but there were also things like this fellow who spent money in 2007 to announce his new blog. Now it’s only a reseller placeholder. They had such big dreams, but those big dreams crawled under a rock to die.

Here’s a pretty interesting post from June, ‘07, three years ago, in which Tom Spurgeon identified contemporary industry issues, namely:

1. The Greatest Issue Facing the Direct Market?

2. Syndicates and Self-Knowledge

3. The Mainstream Comics Event Comics Publishing Dilemma

4. The Alternative Comics Serial Comics Publishing Dilemma

5. Manga’s Publishing Dilemma

6. Loss of the Professional Class?

Which is a pretty good snapshot of where our heads were at a mere three years ago when it was all so simple, and people were launching comics blogs. Anyway just to quickly contemplate the trajectory since then:

1. This had to do with the great swaths of the country not serviced by comics shops. Strange to think that in 2007 digital comics was right up there with ethanol and trepanation as crazy ideas held only by crackpots. Luckily, digital came along and solved all our distribution problems.

2. Digital also solved all the problems of syndicated strips, that is, if you consider what William Munny did to Little Bill at the end of UNFORGIVEN as solving problems.
3. The Mainstream Comics Event Comics Publishing Dilemma — still with us undiminished!!!!
4. The Alternative Comics Serial Comics Publishing Dilemma — Diamond solved this one in William Munny fashion.
5. Manga’s Publishing Dilemma — Tom wrote:

Is there an expectation of a broader but still significantly vital market driven by mid-level hits? The US manga industry has really never communicated a sense of its own publishing future, in a way I think such silence actually detracts from the ability of some market mechanisms and some readers to fully invest in what they’re doing.

And then #6 — I guess NO ONE ONE COULD HAVE PREDICTED that in 2007 we were actually in the beginning stages of The Great Recession, and all this worry about making a living for cartoon types would spread to cover, oh, the entire US workforce. Good one.

Blogger Hunter Phillips has assembled a “Definitive” Best of the ’00s comics list by toting up the published “Best of” lists:

THE DETAILS:
• Compiled from over 60 “Best of the Decade” lists.
• Only those books that made at least 5 lists are included on the master list. Organized by number of mentions.
• Limited to comics books and graphic novels released between 2000-2009. 38 comics in all.

The list is perhaps a bit surprisingly mainstream — no Jason, no Seth? — and manga oblivious, so you indie/manga guys and gals better get out there and make those lists! This isn’t over yet!

WOW, lots of reading to do to get your ready for the new year!

§ You will be dumbfounded with amazement at Douglas Wolk’s list of exciting books coming out in 2010 like (above) Dan Nadel’s Art in Time: Unknown Comic Book Adventures, 1940-1980, a follow-up to his Art Out of Time anthology.

§ Then you’ll gaze in awe at Shaenon Garrity’s rundown of candidates for Greatest American CartoonistPart One and Part Two, with more, surely to come.

§ THRILL! as Sean T. Collins and Jog briefly debate Urasawa!

§ GASP! as Brian Hibbs of the the San Francisco comic shop Comix Experience uses his POS system to see what sold in his store in 2009. Overview

Books

Comics

§ We ran out of adjectives so just read Marc Sobel’s best of 2009 at Trouble with Comics.

§ A similarly-themed list from J. Caleb Mozzocco

§ Robot 6 had a trickload of awesome content over the weekend, including the The 30 Most Important Comics of the Decade Part One and Part Two.

§ Vanetta Rogers gets folks at Marvel DC and beyond to talk about publishing trends in 2010.

§ Where did we leave off linking to The Comcis Reporter’s holiday interview series, featuring critics talking about important works of the Aughts? Hopefully here:
Jeet Heer On Louis Riel
Chris Mautner on Scott Pilgrim
Tim Hodler On In The Shadow Of No Towers
Noah Berlatsky On The Elephant And Piggie Series
Tucker Stone On Ganges

§ If you’re still interested in last year, I rambled incoherently with Brian Heater at The Daily Cross Hatch<

Graeme McMillan rounds up 100 Amazing Comic Covers From The Last Ten Years. Was this the Greatest Decade in Comics History or not?

Star Trek: The Mad Generation via Derek Kirk Kim. This could sum up either the 00s, the 80s, the 60s or the 24th century.

We’re about to get out of town and looks like most everyone else has, but there are a couple of good links to keep you going over the holidays.

Tom Spurgeon is running a series of interviews with prominent comics critics, each examining one of the most prominent comics of the decade. So far: Sean T. Collins on BLANKETS; Frank Santoro on MULTIFORCE; and Bart Beaty on PERSEPOLIS. The approach is more personal than rigorous but that’s partly a function of the interview format itself.

ALSO, The Cool Kids Table is examining their comics decade as Rickey Purdin, Ben Morse, and Kiel Phegley look at the decade via the lens of a single comic. This is even more personal than the foregoing, but given the career trajectories of the participants — all former Wizard staffers, currently, respectively, marketing rep at DC, assistant editor at Marvel, news editor at Comic Book Resources — the result could be titled “The Making of the comics worker.”

To celebrate their 20th anniversary, film magazine Empire recently commissioned a photo gallery of stars reprising their iconic roles. Although it’s been 10 years since they made the LORD OF THE RINGS films — surely one of the most successful creative undertakings of the ten year period about to pass — Boromir and Aragorn (aka Sean Bean and Viggo Mortensen) still look mission to Mirkwood ready — and smokin’, as well.

Also in the gallery: G.Butt, now in his “I’m wearing pants now, ma” phase.

If you thought yesterday’s A.V. Club Best Comics of the Aughts list was going to tiptoe by unnoticed and uncommented on, you were wide of the mark by a fair bit. Sean T. Collins delivers a total smackdown, from the lack of manga to the last of KRAMERS ERGOT to the lack of an ordered list.

By simply listing 25 books in alphabetical order, this list avoids making difficult and absolutely crucial distinctions regarding quality, dodging the hard work necessary to back those distinctions up with considered criticism. I don’t know what good a Best of the ’00s list that sits The Goon right next to Louis Riel does anybody under any circumstances, but at least a countdown would provide context; juxtaposing two books like that through sheer alphabetical accident provides us with no window into its authors’ critical worldview(s), and actually may do more harm than good in terms of articulating what matters. Frankly, I feel like it’s a cop-out.

This ties in somewhat with yesterday’s George Gene Gustines/Marc-Oliver Frisch discussion on whether mainstream media should offer negative reviews of graphic novels. Alarmingly, I was going to mention the A.V. Club as a place that seemed to be mainstream, fairly comics literate and wide ranging and gutsy enough to deliver low grades in their comics reviews. The Onion A.V. Club is one of the few online outlets that offers anything like the authority of print in its heyday; it’s a a Pitchfork that stopped listening to Grizzly Bear for a few minutes.

Perhaps the sharpest lessons can be gleaned from the comments section at the list — at 500+ messages, it’s not for everyone, but I would strongly urge anyone who is sick and tired of Newsarama message boards to give it a look. Unlike the superhero apologists who get, like, totally defensive when you don’t put Amazing Colon: the Rise of the Duodenum on your best-of list, the commenters at the Onion seem to me to be a pretty representative group of the expanded universe of comics readers these days — they like Brian K. Vaughan (a LOT) and Joss Whedon , they’ve read CRIMINAL and PERRY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP and JIMMY CORRIGAN. In short, they’re kind of an eclectic group, even if somewhat middlebrow. This is the audience we need to expand — and further educate.

The A.V. Club’s Noel Murray makes many appearances in the comments to explains this or that part of the list, including the fact that, as suspected the A.V. crew just didn’t get manga. Murray also pounds a stake through the heart of the post-Thunderites with this:

I think you touched on it: the art-school-comic aesthetic. A lot of the KE and KE-like anthologies look l

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