WOWIO, the ebook distribution site, has gone offline and word is going around that the company has been sold. Wowio offered FREE digital distribution of various comics publishers including Lone Star Press, Steve Rude, Digital Webbing and many others. We’d been hearing rumbles that the company was behind slow on its payments to creators, and as of yesterday the site was offline for 2-4 weeks while the acquisition was complete.

Developing.

UPDATE: Well well well. The Diamond figures for the month are out, and Secret Invasion #2 came in at #1 with Final Crisis #1 coming in at #2. We can’t imagine anyone at DC is very happy about that.

The recent departure of Chuck Dixon as a writer at DC has spawned a cottage industry of speculation, but Dixon himself spoke out on The Dixonverse:

Just to counter some nonsense I’ve seen “reported” on other sites.
I did not quit.
I do not believe it had anything to do with politics.
My involvement with Robin ends with issue 174.
I think my BATO run is over with #10.
My Booster two-parter will still be appearing.
Barring unforeseen circumstances, Storming Paradise continues on schedule.
For those keep score, yes, I was way ahead on both of my monthlies. Down the road perhaps I’ll offer those scripts and you folks can help out Books for Soldiers as you so generously have before.

Presumabely the “politics” above refers to Dixon’s generally conservative leanings, whch have sometimes gotten him some hear. However, a long, well-written post by Greg Hatcher speculating on various recent DCU editorial gaffes draws much speculations from fans, and even a few comments from Dixon himself:

Don’t blame my editors.
DC, currently, is run from the top down in a way that makes Jim Shooter’s aegis at Marvel look like a hippie commune.

Oh snap! Dixon continues on with several comments in this vein, closing with:

I’ve worked under tyrants and I can say that I’d prefer to work under a talented, knowledgeable tyrant with a successful plan than a directionless gladhander with a ouija board any day of the week.

Rumors that the state of DCU editorial resembles something out of a Smiths song are pretty much common knowledge these days. So much so that the upcoming Ambush Bug mini even makes fun of the rumors as shown in an upcoming DC Nation editorial page (above, click for larger version, and on link for the whole thing.) Speculating on potential replacements for Dan DiDio are a common pass time around town: A recent column by Todd Allen even ran down a scorecard for candidates:

You may have heard rumblings that DC is in the market for a new Executive Editor. Dan DiDio’s contract is up this year, and its common knowledge on the street that DC has been looking for a replacement. The last rumor I heard was that DC wasn’t happy with the candidates they identified to replace DiDio and are talking with him about a one year extension, while they do a more exhaustive search to find his replacement.

We can state with some certainty that at least one of the most popular candidates —at least in the comic book version of the Hot Stove League—to take over DC should DiDio move on to greener pastures isn’t on Allen’s scorecard, but it’s all pure speculation anyway — as Joe Quesada said long ago when he took over the Marvel EIC job, running a comic book company is a job that comes with a shelf life. There’s a 100% probability that both Quesada and DiDio will be gone someday…it’s just the time frame for someday that’s the question.

§ ICv2 checks in on some of the reports announced at the Licensing show:

In a separate report published in April, License Global Magazine ranked the top licensing companies by global sales of products based on their properties in its Top 100 Licensors list. Disney was #1, with its Hannah Montana and High School Musical brands generating lots of sales.

Warner Bros., parent of DC Comics, Looney Tunes, and many other powerful brand groups, was #3.

And Marvel Entertainment was #5.

Other movie, TV, or character companies in the top 20 were Nickelodeaon/Viacom at #6, Sanrio (Hello Kitty) at #8, MGA (Bratz) at #14, HIT Entertainment at #15, Mattel Brands at #16, Sony Pictures Consumer Products at #18, 20th Century Fox at #19, and Lucas Licensing at #20.

§ Brandweek has a larger overview of the licensing biz in light of the general economic gloom:

Politicians stumping for high office aren’t the only ones talking about the sluggish economy, through-the-roof gas prices and the mortgage meltdown. It’s top-of-mind with property owners and their licensing partners as the annual Licensing International Expo (better known as the Licensing Show) opens this week in New York before its cross-country move to Las Vegas next summer.

The toy business, thought to be somewhat recession-proof, has been hit by higher costs for essential materials, manufacturing and shipping, along with recalls that continue to take a bite out of marketers’ revenues. Consumer spending is down, especially for discretionary items, and retailers are more cautious than ever about taking risks on licensed goods, often preferring their own private label products. (As a result, the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers Assn. is reporting that manufacturers in North America paid $5.98 billion for rights and royalties in 2007, which was down slightly from the previous year.)

[We’ll have a fuller report from the show with pictures later on.]

§ While not really comics-related, we’ve been following the story of the International Fight League for some while. Now it looks like the IFL , which was co-founded by Wizard’s Gareb Shamus and featured prominently at recent Wizard shows, has cancelled its August show, and may be headed for bankruptcy :

While the IFL has drawn tepid interest from fans, official acknowledgment by the company that it potentially faces bankruptcy if it can’t stop the financial bleeding is worth noting. Despite a presence on TV, a handful of talented fighters and a retooling of the brand under former Showtime executive Jay Larkin, the IFL just hasn’t connected with a large enough fan base, and its stock has taken a beating as a result.

Shamus exited the company last year.

Rich Johnston is the recipient of a letter sent by Platinum to its creators from President and Chief Operating Officer, Brian Altounian:

Hey folks. I wanted to personally send out a note to all of you addressing some of the most recent communications flying around about Platinum Studios. First and foremost, I want to thank each and every one of you for continuing to honor your confidentiality commitments under your contracts with us throughout this process. It is no secret that Platinum, like many companies dealing with this tough economy, has had its share of financial challenges. I promise you that we are doing everything we can to get on top of the situation and we hope to have some good news for you in the next couple of weeks. Please know that we are NOT “going under” - ours is definitely a long-term perspective and you are all part of our long-term plans. We acknowledge that we owe you past due amounts and we intend to honor all of our obligations to you.

Read the rest of the letter in the link. Developing.

Over on his blog, Howard Cruse reveals that foreign reprints aren’t always a cake walk:

Which is more than I can say for Dolmen Editorial, La Cupula’s competitor, which licensed Stuck Rubber Baby years ago, produced as a beautiful a Spanish-language edition as any author could ask, boasted about the Saló del Còmic de Barcelona Award my book garnered, and then (according to a DC insider) allegedly sabotaged everything by being so recalcitrant and uncommunicative about the book’s sales figures that DC Comics ultimately rescinded the translation rights, leaving yet another of my books in limbo.

The same thing happened with the Italian collection called Happy Boys & Girls, whose publisher Coniglio Editore screwed the 2006 anthology’s six lesbian and gay contributors in one stroke with nary an apology or response to complaints. In that case it was not only “My Hypnotist” but my story “Dirty Old Lovers” and a bunch of Wendel strips that got stolen. As was true with the Spanish Stuck Rubber Baby, the book itself was nicely produced, which gives one mixed feelings as one nurses one’s wounds. It’s easy to imagine that at least a few copies of Happy Boys & Girls were purchased by innocent Italian readers who had no knowledge of Coniglio’s lack of ethics and assumed that the book’s contributors were being treated respectfully.

More in link.

Yesterday’s Journalista had some harsh words for my analysis of Marvel’s bookstore sales, especially my mention of Marvel having several entries in the PW graphic novel bestseller list:

Most of that paragraph is at least debatable, but that last sentence has two crossed fingers behind its back. What you need to remember is that the Publishers Weekly bestseller list is a combination of estimated figures from both the bookseller and comics-shop markets. Marvel and (to a lesser extent) DC own the latter, and thus can rack up huge sales numbers thanks to their continued ownership of the Wednesday Crowd. The former is another matter, and the notion that “three items on PW’s list” is proof of Marvel’s success in bookstores is far less believable. The proof? Scroll up a bit to the ICv2 link. You know, the Bookscan list? Note that three Western-published books did make the list… and that none of them were from Marvel. Marvel’s three books almost certainly made the PW list due to their sales in comics shops. So why is this relevant to a bookstore-oriented discussion? Answer: It isn’t.

Well, sure except that Marvel HAS had success in bookstores: with Stephen King and Laurell K. Hamilton, of course, but also Marvel Zombies, Civil War, Captain America, Planet Hulk and many others. The rest of Dirk’s rant is just flat out wrong. Marvel IS going after the bookstore market with their best-selling author series, with Omega the Unknown by Jonathan Lethem, with the Marvel Illustrated line and yes even superheroes. I’m sure no one wants to see Dirk and I go into our usual snipery so let’s just say he has his ideas about what constitutes success and I have mine.

This is, however, as good a place as any to talk about what I discovered was a pretty significant aspect of the graphic novel boom at BEA: comics shops, yes, lowly, smelly comics shops.
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Okay as you may have heard by now, while we on the road, Tokyopop announced its split into two divisions: a publishing arm and a movie/multi-media line, called Tokyopop Media. They alaso announced the layoffs of 39 people, and a 50% reduction in their publishing line. A bunch of people have weighed in on this, including:
Chris Butcher
Brigid Alverson
Matt Blind
Simon Jones
Johanna Draper Carlson

We recommend reading all of these entries, but a few points jumped out at us. Blind and Butcher have excellent business analyses of the move, with Blind adding:

Typically a reorganization and spin-off is done to isolate risk, maximize business potential of individual units, and present clear options to investors for business segments that, while related, depart radically from a firm’s core business. AT&T from ‘95-’97 springs immediately to mind (even over the breakup of the Bells, which was ordered by the courts) as the AT&T-NCR-Lucent division was done voluntarily — and presumably was purely a business decision.

So it’s just business, not the end of the world.

As Tokyopop isn’t a publicly traded company (and doesn’t have to play these investor games if they don’t want to), I have to wonder why bother with a reorganisation at all, unless of course one expects a part of the business to tank, tank hard, and tank soon.

In addition, Alverson has this observation:

Tokyopop suffers from an extreme lack of focus—they toss out a lot of ideas, some good, some bad, and then don’t follow up. I also agree with Lori that more focus on the global titles is not a bad thing, if they pick strong books and give them the support they need.

Our email is still overflowing with behind the scenes dirt, but the above seems to be an important piece of the puzzle: over the last few years, TP has launched a lot of initiatives — OEL, OGM, The Harper Collins deal. manga on phones, manga in newspapers, a manhwa launch, comics on MySpace, comics on YouTube, movies, tv, etc etc etc…but it hasn’t really stuck with any of them long enough to make them work. We’re reminded, sadly of CrossGen towards the end, another company run by a charismatic and talkative “visionary.” As one CrossGen employee told us as that company cirdled the drain “We call it ‘Comic on the Moon’…what are they gonna come up with next?”

A fact reported by PW, but not picked up much elsewhere: Tokyopop has pulled out of San Diego, and is rumored to be pulling out of Anime Expo as well. Yet another sign of cost-cutting.

One thing that has emerged from our email is that part of the problem is that TP has burned a lot of bridges, including, surprisingly, in Hollywood, where they seem to have developed a bad reputation, with several people telling us the usual reaction to the name of Tokyopop being brought up in meetings is “eye rolling.”

And what about all those OEL/OGM books slated to came out? From what we’re hearing, no one knows what is happening, with phone calls and emails to editors unreturned or else big time confusion still ruling.

BTW, we’d be checking up on some of these rumors for comment, except that we have no idea who to ask. While no one has said who exactly was laid off, Director of PR Susan Hale was among those let go– she sent out a letter to industry friends yesterday. Hale had no staff or assistant, and no replacement has been announced, so we’re clueless as to who to go to anymore.

As for who else was let go, a Facebook group for those laid off has started and looking at it, we get the following names (most unknown to us, and most layout artists, we’re told):
Stephanie Duchin, Mike Estacio, Paul Kersh, Chelsea Jane Windlinger, Michelle Prather, Christopher Tjalsma, Keila Ramos, Lauren O’Connell, John Lo, Michelle Nguyen, Holly Slear, Trond Knutsen, Shannon Watters, Jessica Chavez, Gavin Hignight

More as it comes in.

Just a few little notes here and there from stuff we picked up on the road over the last few days. Our sushi-sharing pal Matt Maxwell has a fabulous write-up of BEA which is a must read that includes this:

You’d also be out one farm. The only place Shellhead appeared was in the SECRET INVASION crossover. No name brand Iron Man material. No monthlies, no trades. No. Trades. The only big, lasting name they had out was THE ULTIMATES (in a pencil art variant that’s more likely to end up on Ebay than to convince any booksellers of the book’s quality). There was some AVENGERS/INVADERS crossover material, and some Classics Illustrated material. But there were no books. There was nothing to indicate that Marvel was going to be capitalizing on their media tie-ins.

IDW had a bigger and more professional booth than Marvel did. They featured trades prominently, though had some singles out for consideration. In short, they looked a lot more like a book company than a comics company (though to be fair, they were touting a lot of Transformers stuff with sticky window decals and signage all over the convention center). If I was one of those “Now what’s all this about comics not being for kids?” folks, I’d as sure as shooting have gravitated towards IDW and blown Marvel off. Oh, and I’ll add that it was pretty cool to get a chance to chat with Cory Doctorow (he of LITTLE BROTHER and BOING BOING fame) and to read over an issue of his recent IDW comic, which, believe it or not, was a great single comic that didn’t read like an isolated chapter. That’s how you get me to read singles.

If you’re wanting to take scores, DC came out smelling like a winner. Marvel, not so much so.

We heard this quite a bit: that Marvel’s dinky set-up, manned only by Jim McCann (whom we adore and who is truly one of the hardest working men in comics), was not very effective given the size of the show. In fact, Marvel sent everyone else to the sporadically attended Wizard World Philadelphia show and chose that venue to make its big Stand announcement (above). This shows a certain lack of investment in the book industry side of things, and everyone was commenting privately on Marvel’s tiny showing, especially compared to DC’s giant booth. However, Kuo-Yu Liang of Diamond Books, is a big defender of the “size doesn’t matter” view: ““Traffic doesn’t matter if you’ve got appointments with the people you need to talk to,” said Liang. The fact that marvel had THREE titles on PW’s latest Comics Bestseller list (not yet online) shows they are doing something right.

Also from PW, there’s this piece by Laura Hudson on how the success of Iron Man has broken the “movies don’t sell floppies” jinx:

For nearly a decade, comic book movies have been big business, with film franchises like Spider-Man and X-Men pulling in hundreds of millions of dollars per movie. Unfortunately for comics publishers, translating that big box office to comic book sales hasn’t been easy–at least when it comes to superheroes. But the recently released Marvel Studios film Iron Man has proved doubly successful; it’s not only earning of hundreds of millions in ticket sales, it’s also pulling off what most superhero movies never found a way to do: Sell a lot of comics.

The bottom line is that Marvel seems to be stumbling from success to success. Chronically understaffed and hamstrung by their own internal budgetary concerns and corporate hierarchies, Marvel’s long term strategy of just throwing things against the wall is paying off — for now.

Sill, you’d like to see a LITTLE more dedicated manpower for the book industry from Marvel. One other interesting rumor from the BEA floor: Marvel is hiring a new Bookstore Sales manager.

It’s here. And it’s a lot like a giant entertainment website.

But it does look very, very nice. Is it functional? No time to find out now, although we will note that it FINALLY has RSS feeds, although none of them are working in Net NewsWire…yet.

We’ve had some fun at the expense of DJ Coffman over the years, but he has always been a good sport about it, so it give us no gloating thrill to report that Coffman, who has been the biggest supporter of Platinum Entertainment over the years, now sadly announces that he has suspended HERO BY NIGHT because of ‘financial issues,” apparently non-payment:

It makes me very sad and depressed to report this news, but I want to be as transparent with the fans and supporters of Hero By Night as possible here. The ongoing print series has been suspended BY ME due to financial issues at our publisher. I couldn’t keep this on my schedule, because frankly it’s gotten to the point where I need to make hard decisions to be sure my time is spent on projects that pay me on time and have some security to them. Up until this point, Platinum has been rock solid and something I could bank on contractually and I enjoyed that security. While the plan had always been to stay on schedule through Issue 7 (a Christmas issue), and the book hadn’t been officially canceled by Platinum Studios, I couldn’t in good faith keep going when behind the scenes I knew that there would be books solicited that would not be coming out on time– our issue 4 wouldn’t be coming out because Jason had to make the hard decision to stop coloring Hero By Night for the same reasons, so my book was sitting uncolored and i knew we’d be missing the print deadline dates. 

Coffman goes on to reiterate that Platinum has always been great to him, and how this has slowed up many of his other plans, so we can definitely sympathize. Colorist Jason Embury has also stopped work on the book, and Coffman is negotiating to get the publishing rights back.

Do you see a pattern emerging here at all?

DramaQueen is one of a number of small manga publishers that has sprung up in the past few years, specializing in boy’s love and other female-targeted manga. They’ve been around since 2005, but haven’t published a book since Sept. 2007. Recently, publisher Tran Nguyen told Brigid Alverson that they would be back up on their feet this month. One of their translators spilled the beans on a more accurate picture on the locked Drama Queen forum but the Boys Next Door blog picked up the posting. The jist is that DQ is still looking for investors, but hasn’t found any, and they may actually be looking at shutting down if something doesn’t come through.

We don’t follow the BL/yaoi end of things as closely as we could, but it seems that between this and the odd goings on at Yaoi House, there’s a bit of a shakeout in the category. While these aren’t necessarily related to the all the financial woes at Borders — the biggest American supporter of Yaoi — the whole thing does fit together to present some rocky patches in the future for this particular category.

Newsarama adds up the costs of this year’s big crossover events and finds they do not come cheaply. For SECRET INVASION, after toting up all the tie-ins and spin-offs and whatnot, comes to this conclusion:

November Subtotal: $6.98 The Whole Shebang: $316.98, or just about airfare from Chicago to San Diego and back for Comic-Con ($359)
Total Book Count for this event (to date): 85 official, and 18 unofficial tie-ins, for a total of 103 Secret Invasion tie-in issues.

For FINAL CRISIS, it’s much the same:

he Price So Far: $115.14, or about 29 gallons of gas (based on the current national average)

Total Final Crisis book count (to date): 30.

Or, if you’re one of those people who are looking at both, and we know you’re out there, together, both will set you back $432.12 for 133 books from now through the end of the year.

And that’s WITHOUT all the tie-ins that they haven’t announced because they haven’t thought of the them yet.
Valerie weighs in:

This just doesn’t work. Readers can’t be forced to follow this many books to understand the story. I’m not saying this because I think huge events like this are wrong from a personal standpoint. But from a business standpoint — this publishing model only really benefits from the hardcore readers who were buying all the books anyway. Any new reader is going to view their checklist and freak the f**k out and say “this is way too much of an investment for me.”

While it certainly isn’t new-reader friendly to begin with, for the faithful, surely they already have a bit of money set aside for comics every month, so this is all budgeted for. Of course, rising prices for gas and food may impact that budget as the year goes on.

Or, as we’ve always said, if folks at comics companies were forced to buy their comics for a little while instead of getting them all for free, they would have a different feel for the economics of it all.

Archaia Studios Press had a big hit with Mouse Guard, and critical acclaim with The Lone and Level Sands and founder Mark Smylie’s Artesia, and recently announced a ton of new titles. But like many small presses, they’ve also had some problems getting books out on a timely basis, and now they’ve announced a restructuring and the departure of co-publisher Aki Liao for “personal reasons.”

It’s been a busy couple of years here at Archaia Studios Press as the company has produced a growing catalog of award-winning and critically acclaimed comic books and graphic novels. But ASP has also run into a few growing pains along the way—as does any new publishing company—and today must announce that it must take a moment to restructure following the decision of Aki Liao, ASP’s co-publisher, to step back from an ongoing role at the company for personal reasons.

“Mark and I started ASP Comics as a hobby business in classic ‘two-guys-in-a-garage’ fashion, and that hobby business has grown well beyond its initial size and scope. In fact, well beyond my expectations,” said Aki Liao. “Along the way, we’ve built up a line of comic books and graphic novels of the highest quality. It’s been an amazing ride, and I enjoyed meeting a lot of wonderful people along the way, especially the talented group of creators that I’ve had the good fortune to work with. It is with a sad heart that I depart as I’m no longer able to give the company the kind of commitment it requires and wish everyone at ASP the best for the future.”

Ken Light, an investment banker at the DAK Group specializing in small to mid-size company divestitures, sales, and acquisitions, will be assisting ASP in the search for an outside investor or strategic partner to acquire Aki’s stake in the company.

As part of the reorganization, the company will also take the opportunity to address internally the publishing delays that have plagued it of late to ensure a smooth schedule that satisfies not only its own standards but also that of its creators and the expectations of fans and retailers.

“Our growth in the last year has clearly strained our workflow capacity,” said ASP co-publisher Mark Smylie. “Lateness has historically been a problem with many creator-driven and creator-owned titles, but our own workflow issues have exacerbated the situation. We are as frustrated with our struggle to get books out on time as, I’m sure, are our readers, and we want to make sure we come out of the reorganization with a better workflow and solicitation process model. So while there will be some further delays in the release of recently solicited titles as we restructure, we also want to make sure we emerge in the next few months from our reorganization with a release schedule that we can hit on a regular basis, as guaranteed as possible. We can only ask that our many supporters, retailers and fans alike, be patient with us during this time.”

All ASP titles are available worldwide at finer comic book shops, bookstores, amazon.com, the ASP Store at Indie Press Revolution (www.indiepressrevolution.com) and electronically at DriveThruComics.com. ARTESIA is now available at WOWIO.com, with other ASP titles to follow.

Elizabeth Genco, whose graphic novel Blue was recently announced, does a lot of heavy lifting by surveying several indie friendly retailers to find out how on earth to get publicity for a lone indie book these days:

The fact that Blue is in Previews doesn’t mean bupkus. There are a squillion books in Previews. The fact that someone other than me is printing Blue doesn’t mean bupkus. Ordering new books is a financial risk. How do I get a harried, pressed-for-shelf-space retailer to take a chance on me, a first-timer with no track record? That’s the question I posed to four of my prospective customers, indy-friendly retailers. They are: Rory Root, owner of Comic Relief (Berkeley, CA), Alex Cox, owner of Rocketship (my home store here in Brooklyn, NY), Andrew Neal, owner of Chapel Hill Comics (Chapel Hill, NC), and Ben Trujillo, owner of Star Clipper (St. Louis, MO). Boy, have they got answers.

Among the commons sense dispensed: suggestions on marketing, packaging and important design issues, such as this from Neal:

* Bad design both from a visual standpoint and a financial one: an unreadable spine, an unattractive cover or a cover that doesn’t reflect the interiors in some way, a title or price that’s impossible to find. You need to have an ISBN on there, too, even though it’s not pretty.
* A lack of consideration for the details that add up to the overall product: bad lettering can ruin an otherwise attractive book.
* Bad (or no) editing: incorrectly spelled words and bad grammar can hurt a book, too.

You’d be surprised how may publishers violate these seeming no-brainers.

Diamond sent out a press release yesterday confirming that Fantagraphics is going exclusive to the comic shop trades with Diamond. You can read the whole thing in the jump. While Norton’s exclusive with FBI to bookstroes remains untouched, Diamond Books will sell them in Canada. The main reasons for the move are covered in a very lengthy report at The Comics Reporter, including the ability to offer a higher discount to comics shops, and the growing costs of selling direct to over 3000 retailers. Or as Tom sums up:

As for why Fantagraphics made this move, the fundamental reason is likely to be found in what they describe as the declining fortunes of the DM side of their overall business and what they as a small company with limited resources is able to invest in that side of their business in order to give it the best chance running smoothly and perhaps enabling it to grow.

As much sense as it makes, there is a feeling that you can’t escape the Diamond monopoly any more, and that just doesn’t make sense on principle. Chris Butcher leads the loyal opposition:

We really wish that Fantagraphics had consulted us as their retail partners before they made this move, because we would have said “Good God No, Don’t Do It.” We’re very sympathetic to the general indifference of the Direct Market to good comics, including those that Fantagraphics publishes, and we understand the reasons they made their decision. Speaking from our point of view though, we like the opportunity to deal directly with Fantagraphics, because if Fanta has a book in print, then they will have it in stock. That is not the case with Diamond. Even on the largest publishers that have moved their Direct Market business exclusive with Diamond, publishers like Viz and Tokyopop, our fill rates on in-print books are less than adequate. We hope that Fanta knows what they’re in for on that front.

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The TCJ board floats the rumor that Fantagraphics is going exclusive with Diamond for the DM — if true. Norton would continue to be their bookstore distributor, of course. Barry Rodges emails Tony Shenton, FBI’s indie sales rep, and has this cryptic comment:

This does make sense from a business standpoint, but Shannon’s right in saying that it’ll probably alienate some retailers. Tony mentioned that since they are such a big client for him, retailers ordered a lot more minis, etc, from him because they were with him, so this might hurt a lot of us who already have a hard time getting into stores.

But, if this is indeed false, or I shouldn’t have posted this, I’d hate to get Tony in trouble with anyone, so whoever has the power can delete this thread if they want. I just hoped the Fanta big wigs would come out and comfirm or deny the story. As Tony pointed out, the 2 times they were in trouble (and probably more times than that) it was the retailers and fans that helped bail them out. So I guess I kinda feel like it’s okay to pose the question of whether or not this news is true…

So far no one from Fanta has disputed the rumor. Over at the NSFW Icarus blog, Simon Jones ponders the meaning of he potential move:

Fantagraphics is one of the few big comics publishers that have resisted exclusivity, perhaps in part because its wide-ranging catalog was better served by not signing solely with the once cape-centric Diamond. On that front, Diamond has improved; the success of non-superhero trades in bookstores pretty much made sure they had to improve. So if this rumor turns out to be accurate, there are some compelling reasons for the decision, not the least of which is the practicality of having centralized fulfillment. But there is also a strong emotional and psychological aspect to this, given the perception of Diamond as a Galactus-like monopoly which, fairly or not, is already on heavy display in the thread.

After yesterday’s real estate listing for Wizard HQ rocketed through the inboxes and AIM windows of the comics industry like a hot knife through butter, ComicMix called up to get the scoop, or at least what would pass for scoop:

When asked for comment on the posting, a representative of Wizard identified only as “Ed” said that the publisher was simply “checking our business options.”

Additionally, when asked about the company’s plans should the building find a new owner, the Wizard representative responded, “We may not go anywhere. We may sell the building and stay as a tenant. We may sell the building and move across the street.”

Whatever the case, the building seems to come with a Kiel Phegley, a sure-to-be valuable add-on in any real estate deal.

You can read Marvels’ entire press release on their Q1 results here. Here’s the relevant portion on publishing:

Marvel’s Publishing Segment net sales declined by $1.0 million or 4% to $26.5 million in Q1 2008 principally due to the timing of major publishing initiatives. Q1 2008 net sales reflected a decline in comic book sales within the direct channel and lower advertising and custom sales, offset in part by continued strong growth in the Mass Market channel. The year-over-year decline in direct channel sales principally reflects strong sales of high profile titles Civil War and The Death of Captain America in the year ago period, versus no comparable specialty titles in Q1 2008. Operating income in the Publishing segment declined by 14% on a year-over-year basis to $9.9 million in Q1 2008 with an operating margin of approximately 37% compared to approximately 42% in the prior-year-period. Based on its planned slate of publishing initiatives, including the release of the Secret Invasion series in late Q2 2008, Marvel expects its Publishing segment to return to traditional margins for the full year 2008.

The link also includes all movie and TV stuff in the pipeline. Although it’s trye taht MArvel Studios won’t have a movie out in 2009, it won’t be Marvel-less at the movies: WOLVERINE opens in May.

MORE: Earnings Call Transcript

ALSO: Marvel stock continues to climb, up 9% yesterday.

The headline says it all: New comic book team faces challenge:

But Sparky Greene, a writer and film producer from Malibu, wants a piece of that market. He and a small group of designers and artists have created a fantasy universe with a new graphic novel, “The Age of Insects: Not Human,” with characters they say are more appealing in some ways than the old heroic archetypes.

Greene is shown here with one of his hissing cockroaches.

Now public Platinum has announced it’s 2007 financial results:

For the year ended December 31, 2007, Platinum reported net revenues of $1.96 million compared to net revenues of $0.18 million for fiscal year 2006, representing a year-over-year increase of more than 1000%.

The increased net revenues were primarily attributable to an increase in option and acquisition fee revenue of $0.86 million and first look revenue of $0.45 million. The Company is currently focused on exploiting its large library of intellectual property. The option and acquisition fee revenue is the result of a major Hollywood Studio’s interest in one of these properties. For the year ended December 31, 2007, cost of revenues was $0.28 million compared to $0 for the year ended December 31, 2006. The increase is primarily due to printing costs for comic books. In 2006 printing costs were included as part of the licensing agreement with Top Cow Productions, Inc. and thus, printing costs were not incurred by the Company in 2006.

The Company also reported an increase in operating expenses of $2.0 million or 63% for the year ended December 31, 2007 to $5.2 million, as compared to $3.17 million for fiscal year 2006. The increase was due to increases in payroll, promotion and merchandising costs, which were incurred to support the growth of the Company. Research and development costs increased $0.19 million or 26% for the year ended December 31, 2007 to $0.96 million, as compared to $0.76 million for fiscal year 2006. The increase was due to development of additional intellectual properties.

Much, much much more inn the link.

[This post was supposed to come up immediately after the rise of the manga one, but then all hell broke loose.]

Despite the huge huge market for manga and things manga right now, comics shops, by and large haven’t been able to sell them or capitalize on the boom. While Naruto sells in Watchmen-like numbers overall, it’s not even in the top 10 on Diamond’s graphic novel charts.

Retailer Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Ohio talked about this in a widely-linked to piece at ICv2 in which he targets the direct markets failure to join on the manga bandwagon in clear, resigned terms:

By now I imagine a lot of you have filed this column into the category of “what does this have to do with us?” — and you’d have a point. We don’t sell manga and from the retailers I’ve spoken to over the last couple of months, it’s clear most of us can’t sell it — not in significant numbers to justify the floor space it’s taking up. But we used to; no one talks about it, but it was the American comic book industry that introduced manga to America.

(more…)

Yesterday’s announcement that Borders was having a tough time coming up with financing for expansion and was contemplating a potential sale led to a bad day on Wall Street, but the outlook for chain book stores isn’t all that rosy over all says Marketwatch:

Shares tumbled more than 20% in morning trading [for Borders] ahead of the rescheduled conference call, and are down more than 70% for the year. Borders’ quandary would have seemed less gloomy in 2006, or even a year ago, when private-equity firms were falling over each other to snap up specialty retailers.

Meanwhile, its top rival Barnes & Noble Inc. posted a 9% decline in quarterly profit and said it expects fiscal first-quarter same-store sales at its namesake stores to be “slightly negative.” Its shares climbed, but it’s looking at a loss of more than 20% of its market value for the year.

Many things led the bookstores to this gloomy place. A book is the ultimate retail commodity, so shoppers either go for the lowest price — which leads to margin-killing price wars — or the best shopping experience.

According to the piece, both chains are rooted in their 90s heyday which saw consumers flock to the “third place” ambiance of free reading, comfy chairs and coffee bars.

The San Jose Mercury News asks if the shaky economy could lead to slashes in sales for all those movie spinoff toys that are coming out based on Indy, Iron Man, Prince Caspian etc etc? Not necessarily.

Longtime Bay Area comic book store owner Joe Field said comics and graphic novels - a core piece of the spring merchandising push - are classic “counter-economy” products.

Comics and some related items, Field said, become “inexpensive nesting entertainment” when budgets are stressed. Field, who owns Flying Colors Comics in Concord, said people decide they can’t afford the theater, concerts or eating out, so they stay home reading, playing games and returning their attention to neglected hobbies.

Amazon toy manager Sarah Wood states that their toy sales have been growing thus far this year.

Jim Milliot at Publishers weekly is reporting that the Borders book chain has hired J.P. Morgan and Merrill Lynch to help them look into a possible sale in order to get more cash to move forward with restructing.

CEO George Jones said that given the tight credit market it was becoming expensive, and at times impossible, to find new funds. To help ease that situation, Pershing Capital, the private equity firm that has a large stake in Borders and two board seats, has agreed to lend the company $42.5 million. In addition, Pershing has agreed to acquire Borders’s Australian, New Zealand, Singapore and Paperchase subsidiaries for $125 million if Borders cannot find another buyer at a better price. A deal to sell the Australian/New Zealand unit fell apart last week.

The infusion of capital from Pershing will give Borders enough money to continue to revamp its operations. Still, Jones said the completion of its turnaround may take longer than expected. “Overall, we believe that the 2009 financial targets we set back in March of last year remain attainable, yet within the current economic environment, we will be slowed in our progress and expect that we’ll reach them later than originally anticipated. Still, we believe our strategic plan remains the right path toward achieving these goals,” Jones said.

Borders has had many economic woes in recent years; any blow to its bottom line would be a blow to, certainly manga sales.