Oh boy are there a lot of rumors swirling around Tokyopop! At BEA everyone had one. We’re not going to repeat any until we’ve had a chance to follow up on some of them, but our email is full of tales of woe and horror from creators — some of them frankly quite surprising to us considering the public picture that has been presented. This story is going to bust loose sooner rather than later, and it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Well, now that the moral outrage has subsided a bit, other folks are coming out to say that the Tokyopop Pilot Program pact isn’t that bad.Editors Paul Morrissey and Hope Donovan speak in a press release which manages to both be written in standard English and make some vital points that did not come across in the contract.

We’ve made the contracts generic, to include as many creators as possible, and what you see is the same deal extended to everyone. We’re proud to be able to present these contracts as they are, so that love it or hate it, we’ve empowered potential manga creators to understand the terms long before they propose a project.

Making the contracts available to all is just the first positive step for TOKYOPOP that the Pilot Program represents. Of course we want our Pilots to be successful, and we want to work with Pilot creators to develop their Pilots into other media. And if we do so, an entirely new contract is drafted for that particular project-whether it be a full-length book deal, a film/TV deal, etc. However, TOKYOPOP realizes that some Pilots will not develop beyond their initial stage. And that’s why the Pilot Program is also progressive in returning rights to creators. For any Pilot that doesn’t pan out, the rights to the project are returned to the creator after the one-year Exclusive Period ends. After that, the creator is free to take that exact chapter created for us as well as the property anywhere they like-whether that’s self-publishing, publishing with another company or putting it on the back burner. At this point, for example, if the creator were to land a film/TV deal based on their Pilot property, TOKYOPOP would have no stake in that venture.

The most evenhanded take on the contract comes from Canadian producer type Brad Fox who points out that a lot of the elements that are so objectionable are actually quite standard, including the lack of “moral rights.”

This is one case where the “folksy” language obscures a very tricky legal issue in North America. The armchair version is that there is a concept called “Droit Moral” (Moral Rights) in French International law that is almost entirely incompatible with North American copyright law - and allows creators under certain situations to completely block or shut down the release of their work. Even if they’ve agreed to it previously. If a company works internationally they almost always need these rights specifically waived to limit claims to their local definitions of “copyright” because otherwise these laws can be (under some circumstances) boiled down to “other people can’t do anything with an artists creation ever if the artist later decides they don’t want to let them”. This (understandably) creates a chilling effect on a publishers ability to do business in the EU, or with any company which does business in the EU.

It’s not fair to tar TP with this brush, as it’s been in most International contracts I’ve ever drafted in my career, or that I’ve seen, be it in print, journalism, literature, art, for hair-stylists, camera assistants, actors, house-painters… anyone I’ve ever engaged on a film, television program, play, internet series… if it has anything to do with Europe (or there’s a hint that it may be sold or displayed anywhere in the EU, or may come in contact with a company which works in the EU) that clause has to be in there. And it’s been signed by each and every one of them (including oscar-award winning actors and directors with oscar-award winning law-teams).

There’s a lot you can blame on corporate avarice - but until the International courts find a way to reconcile two law systems that just have completely different ways of approaching a metaphorical concept like “copyright”… I don’t think you can this in that camp.

It is true that America does not recognize “moral rights” — setting it aside from most of the rest of the Western World. But it is equally true that this is not something that Toykopop came up with — although they did some up with the idea of totally blaming the French for this troubling idea. Fox’s post is well worth reading in its entirety. He comes back to the issue after having heard more about Toykopop’s track record and the low $20 a page rate, but still thinks it’s not such a bad contract:

If there’s value in your premise you can take it to another publisher, or self-publish it, or start serializing it on the web… if there’s not, you can do something else - but either way if you’re smart you can start with a base audience larger than you would have had otherwise. How is that a loss for a creator?

It does mean that creators have to be willing to walk away from deals… and I know firsthand how hard that can be. But there is still value there, and ways for creators to work this particular program to their advantage.

Current Tpop creators have also begun speaking up, at least the bold ones like Rikki Simons:

Given all that, I suppose the question goes, why did Tavisha and I publish with Tokyopop? Why did we sign our (better) contract with TP in 2003 instead, as one Star Blazers douchbag once put it to me, “go with a real publisher?” Because, my Dear Mr. Bag, however Hollywood Tokyopop wants to be, they were then, when we signed our contract in 2003, and still are, a real publisher. They pay a $21,000 advance for each book that I create with Tavisha. We keep our copyright and allow them use of the copyright while they are publishing us (granting them licensing power). We can tell them goodbye and take our book elsewhere if we ever pay back, or when our sales finish paying down, the advance. In the mean time, they get our books into regular bookstores. I am not looking for a movie deal. I am a writer of illustrated books. This, to me, is justice, and for thousands of authors the world over this kind of agreement has been justice for more than a century.

Tintin Pantoja also weighs in:

On other notes, I guess everyone on LJ and beyond has been blogging about the contract stipulated for Tokyopop’s Pilot Manga Program. I don’t feel like I’m in a proper position to weigh in. There have already been better–informed statements in the past few days. As someone who’s currently working for the company in question, no answer from me can possibly come across as unbiased.

I WILL say that those who are skilled in the craft , possess initiative, research their options, have financial and emotional support through the inevitable lean periods, and, most of all, respect their abilities, will probably find satisfactory outlets. I say ‘probably’ because so much is due to sheer luck and circumstance: what language you speak, what part of the world you live in, and the opportunities that happen to cross your path. Thanks to the internet, those opportunities have expanded considerably.

Jennifer De Guzman comments at Johanna’s blog that smarmy language aside, this isn’t even the worst contract on the block:

Thanks for this, Johanna! I was curious about secondary rights and such. This means the Tokyopop Pilot Program a lot less exploitive than Zuda, I think — that contract takes all rights for not much more money, and I don’t recall a response as vehement. It’s probably because the Tokyopop “pact” was just so stupidly written.

We actually received private communiques from people we respect who pointed out that contracts offered by DC, Dark Horse, Oni and so on are just as restrictive at the end of the day, retaining trademarks, co-owning copyrights, holding onto ancillary rights and so on. (That’s a blanket overview and not a universal analysis of any one company’s contracts.) The sad bottom line, as we read it, is that in comics, it is still standard operating procedure to exploit IP in a way that is vastly more favorable to the publisher.

Of course that’s a simplistic generalization. In the book publishing world, where graphic novels are becoming more and more a part of regular publishing, it has long been the enlightened belief that giving best selling creators a bigger piece of the pie is incentive for them to stay with you and keep making you, the publisher, money. It’s a rarified attitude and one that, sadly, we imagine will be going the way of the dodo eventually. The book industry is beginning to look at the ways it has done business. Bob Miller’s new Harper Collins imprint lowers advances in return for a bigger back-end, non-returnability is becoming a more and more talked about alternative, and the business model is rapidly changing in myriad ways. (You can bet we’ll be talking about this over the weekend!)

In the end, we regret not a whit of our righteous anger. The contract is written in an offensive way and the pay is so low that you might as well do it yourself. Luckily, as Tom points out, people have options now.

Always remember that the most successful and admirable creators have become so almost uniformly by not signing contracts like this one. There are so many options today for a lot of what they’re promising you, there are a ton of great publishers and many viable self-publishing options. If your work doesn’t click so that it can find purchase with a company that’s not ripping you off, or it fails to make a name for itself on its own, that’s a strong sign that the company’s interest in you is dependent not on the awesomeness of your talent and ideas but on their ability to screw you over. Please, don’t let them do it.

And yet, reading the responses over on the Tokyopop message board where this is being discussed, it’s hard not to see, as Kiel Phegley put it in the comments here, the young aspirants who really don’t have a fucking clue how to do this. We flash back ourselves to our own first published writing, when a penny a word seemed like a king’s ransom, and just the idea of getting published had the whole family, from Tucson to Nyack, excited. It’s easy to imagine young Eloise “Bonzai Trooper”Jones excitedly telling her parents that Toykopop, the #1 American manga publisher, has accepted her “No, teacher! It’s sore!” manga pilot and the family beaming with pride. They don’t care about $20 a page. They just want to see Eloise in print or on a phone or whatever.

Everyone has to learn their craft somewhere. Some young folks may well learn from the Manga Pilots program. They may learn how to get better at their craft, or they may learn what it feels like to get screwed. Everyone will have a different story, we imagine.

UPDATE: Check out Johanna’s list of Tokyopop’s greatest mistakes over the past two years:

The reviews are in! And Tokyopop’s online contract for the new “Manga Pilot” program has been dubbed everything from “appalling” to “vile” to “the most childish and disingenuous legal document I have ever read.”

What is it? Basically, Tokyopop has started the next iteration of their “Rising Stars of Manga contest/OEL” method of developing IP and talent, with their “Manga PIlot” program:

In this new program, promising manga creators are selected and hired by our editorial team to create a 24-to-36-page “pilot”—a short-form manga that will be used to determine whether or not a full-length manga will be created. The Manga Pilot will be published online for TOKYOPOP community members to review, rate, and discuss.

The contract for this program is posted at the link above, and it drew sharp, immediate and universal condemnation, starting with Lea Hernandez, for such passages as this:

““MORAL RIGHTS” AND YOUR CREDIT
“Moral rights” is a fancy term (the French thought it up) that basically has to do with having your name attached to your creation (your credit!) and the right to approve or disapprove certain changes to your creation. Of course, we want you to get credit for your creation, and we want to work with you in case there are changes, but we want to do so under the terms in this pact instead of under fancy French idea. So, in order for us to adapt the Manga Pilot for different media, and to determine how we should include your credit in tough situations, you agree to give up any “moral rights” you might have.”

To which Lea wrote:

There you have it, folks: Moral Rights are dumb because the French thought of them, so give them up.

Normally mild-mannered Bryan Lee O’Malley then stepped in with a crushing condemnation:

I’m going to go through this piece of shit with you, because I’m sure a lot of aspiring cartoonists read my blog and I want to do my part to help you all have a future.

Read my bloggy lips: if you sign this contract, say goodbye to THE FUTURE.

I’m not going to speculate about where they’re being untruthful. I’m just going to let them say what they’re saying. It’s bad enough.

(more…)

Tokyopop has signed a deal with Hee Jung Park, a top Korean comics artist. The multi book deal calls for US editions of Fever (March), Hotel Africa (April), Martin and John (July) and Too Long (August). The company will premiere each of these series on its web site (www.TOKYOPOP.com) as well as on its MySpace profile (www.Myspace.com/TOKYOPOP). According to the PR, this will be part of a year-long effort to promote her work in the US. Some hype and descriptions of the four books in the jump.

(more…)

UNDERTOWN, the OEL/OGM manga by Jim Pascoe and Jake Mylar will be the lastest syndicated strip for Tokyopop, as this press release reveals. The book has also been picked up by Scholastic for their book club.

If the first name that comes to mind when you think of Sunday comic strips is Peanuts, you haven’t been tuned into the manga revolution that has been drawing kids back to the funny pages.

Jim Pascoe announced today that his original English-language manga UNDERTOWN will be the new property running in TOKYOPOP’s syndicated slot starting this Sunday, January 6, 2008. Since 2005, TOKYOPOP has provided a rotating selection of manga to Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes comics and columns globally to newspapers.

Over 50 papers plan to carry Undertown, including the Los Angeles Time, Denver Post, Vancouver Sun and Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

(more…)

Pantoja, that is. Here’s a sneak peek at her adaptation of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE coming eventually from Tokyopop.

Long, long ago it was announced that DDGB (aka Gerard Butler) would be starring in an adaptation of the manga PRIEST. At NYAF we heard that this is not happening, although you probably could have figured that out.

Svetlana Chmakova announces that Volume 3 of DRAMACON is in the can and coming out in about a month.

from s-corporation loan shareholder

In many remote regions in loan mortgage calculater world went literally from having no telecommunications infrastructure to having satellite based communications systems.

§ Daily Cross Hatch continues chatting with Paul Gravett and Nick Bertozzi:

Gravett: Exactly. And the point is, these characters—there’s nothing in Japan that’s been artificially kept alive this long, well past their sell by date, and this is one of the ways that manga has kept alert, saying, “what’s going on now in the culture? What do we want to talk about?” It doesn’t have to be completely topical an socially engaged, though. It can also be fantastical. Death Note is a good example. Clearly the stories very often get stretched on, way too long—we all know that Dragon Ball just kept going. We all know that they’re going to keep stringing it along, but we also know that eventually, in one form or another—maybe not successfully—it will come to an end, and there will be no one saying “we’re going to do a sequel,” because the artist has a relative freedom to do something for another audience. Another concept will come along.

§ ICv2 catches up with Tokyopop’s Mike Kiley:

The original English language stuff (I refer to that more as global manga, in this market it’s of course original English language) is the stuff that as a percentage year over year, from our perspective, is growing the fastest. When we began our grand experiment four or five years ago with the first Rising Stars of Manga contest in an attempt to grow our original IP program, we weren’t really sure what kind of obstacles we might be up against. At that point there was a lot of preference for certain kinds of material with certain kinds of pedigree on the part of fandom, and we knew we had a pretty tough road to travel in certain respects.

What’s become clear to us over the past couple of years is we’ve actually built series from scratch, whether they’re things like Princess Ai or Dramacon or I Love Halloween or Bizenghast, that are not only our top sellers, but regularly chart in prominent positions in Bookscan. As a percentage of growth year over year, those things are probably the fastest growing category in my opinion.

Part Two
Part Three

Controversial comics writer Alex DeCampi has been having quite a bit of success in the video field of late. Her video for “Those Rules” by The Schema a became the #1 music video on YouTube.

This week we’re ahead of the new videos by Enrique Iglesias (Universal), the new band Domino is pushing hard (Animal Collective), Ne-Yo, and something involving Pharrell Williams.25,000 50,000 136,000 views. Remember, this is for a video made for £500 on one week’s notice for an unsigned band. I don’t know what to say, except… well, I’m thrilled, mainly for all the people (especially my long-suffering and amazingly talented DP, Guy Routledge) who give up their weekends to work 12-hour days on my shoots for gin, cheeseburgers and a promise of “some day, we’ll make it big”.

The Indiependent has a big article on unsigned wonders tells more of the tale:

I appeal via e-mail and my blog on the www.schema.co.uk website, asking if anyone can help. Within a couple of hours a friend sends me the e-mail address of Alex de Campi, a graphic novelist who is also a budding video director looking to expand her portfolio. We exchange e-mails. She says that she is interested, and – incredibly – she reckons she can turn it around in just over a week. When we met up, her straight-talking, can-do attitude terrifies me; she has already come up with a complete video treatment, combining the paranoid emotions of the protagonist of the song with a meta-commentary on how difficult it is to make a video.

De Campi just directed a video for Thomas Truax, which you can see below.

Alex tells us that her “magnum opus” ADAM IN CHROMALAND part 1 has just been released in France, and KAT & MOUSE 3, “which is by far my favourite in the series”, is also just out from Toykopop.

PR:

The William Morris Agency (WMA) has signed TOKYOPOP, the #1 publisher of manga graphic novels in North America and largest supplier of manga entertainment in the world. WMA will represent TOKYOPOP’s original intellectual property for film, television, digital, merchandising, and game development.

“WMA’s partnership with TOKYOPOP presents a fresh opportunity for our clients and TOKYOPOP to create new characters and ideas through the dynamic world of manga,” said WMA President Dave Wirtschafter. “Our agency’s resources coupled with the unique world of TOKYOPOP, allows for a global exchange between traditional content creators and manga, anime and beyond.”

“We are excited to join forces with WMA as we further develop the TOKYOPOP brand worldwide,” said Stu Levy, the company’s CEO and Chief Creative Officer. “This partnership takes us one step closer to realizing our dream of merging the leading edge of manga entertainment with Hollywood.”

With Levy at the helm and creative executive Noah Stern onboard, the newly-formed TOKYOPOP Pictures is off and running. Film projects in development include the company’s hit properties, Lament of the Lamb, a gut-wrenching horror story of a young man who shockingly discovers he may be the last in a bloodline of vampires, and The Ai-Land Chronicles, a groundbreaking blend of live action and animation based on the company’s successful manga franchise, Princess Ai.

Hailed by the New York Times as “the American pioneer of manga,” TOKYOPOP, the company responsible for igniting the worldwide manga boom, is proud to celebrate its 10-year anniversary in 2007. From the introduction of the first-ever extensive manga publishing program in North America, to the development of its manga-originated intellectual properties into film, television and digital entertainment, TOKYOPOP is recognized on all fronts as a trailblazer in the manga business and a true global pop culture brand.

Oh boy, is everyone teaming with the MySpace Juggernaut? Will no one be left for Orkut? Now Tokyopop will be premiering weekly “webizodes” for four of its OEL manga: I LUV HALLOWEEN (!), A MIDNIGHT OPERA, RIDING SHOTGUN and BIZENGHAST. The animated bits also includes original music.

We watched the I LUV HALLOWEEN debut because it is, after all, our FAVORITE TPop OEL. The CGI is to Pixar what Hanna-Barbera was to FANTASIA…but it’s still watchable. PR:

MySpace and TOKYOPOP today announced a partnership to premiere four exclusive new shows based on TOKYOPOP’s hit manga series “I Luv Halloween,” “A Midnight Opera,” “Bizenghast” and “Riding Shotgun.” Featuring music from the latest underground acts and cutting edge digital animation from Asian CG powerhouse Menfond Electronic Art, pilot episodes will air the week of July 16, 2007, with subsequent episodes running weekly thereafter. MySpace and TOKYOPOP are strategically launching a TOKYOPOP-branded profile (http://www.myspace.com/tokyopoptv) to host and deliver the shows to create a unique one-on-one relationship with MySpace users.

“We are always looking for ways to deliver unique and innovative content to our community,” said Shawn Gold, senior vice president of marketing for MySpace. “Based on the demand for manga content on the web, we expect the TOKYOPOP profile to speak to users who want to discover and share these exclusive videos.”

(more…)

Time: 6:30 PM

Place: Barnes & Noble Park Slope, 267 7th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

The participants:

Stuart Moore: signing EARTHLIGHT

June Kim: signing 12 DAYS

James L. Barry: signing WARRIORS: THE LOST WARRIOR

Melissa DeJesus: signing SOKORA REFUGEES

Becky Cloonan: signing EAST COAST RISING

More info

Via Anime News Network via ComiPress, a list of 38 new titles coming next year from Tokyopop:

January 8th, 2008
- Aria by Kozue Amano
- Deja vu - Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter by Byung-Jun Byun / In-Wan Youn
- Gakuen Alice by Tachibana Higuchi
- Harukaze Bitter Bop by Court Betten
- King City by Brandon Scott Graham
- The Knockout Makers by Kyouko Hashimoto
- Manga Sutra - Futari H by Katsu Aki
- Monochrome Factor by Kaili Sorano
- Short Sunzen! by Susugi Sakurai
- V.B. Rose by Banri Hidaka

February 12th, 2008
- .hack//G.U.+ by Tatsuya Hamazaki / Yuzuka Morita
- I Wish by Hyun-Joo Seo
- Masque: Gothic & Lolita by Various
- New Petshop of Horrors by Matsuri Akino
- Princess Ai: Rumors from the Other Side
- Shin Megami Tensei (KAHN) by Kazuaki Yanagisawa
- Twelve Kingdoms - Paperback Edition by Fuyumi Ono

March 1st, 2008
- Spy Goddess by Michael P. Spradlin / Rainbow Buddy

March 11th, 2008
- Boku to Kanojo no XXX (formerly licensed by ADV Manga under the name Yours and My Secret) by Ai Morinaga
- Devil’s Bride by Se-Young Kim
- Fever by Hee Jung Park
- FLCL (Novel) by Yoji Enokido
- Seduction More Beautiful Than Love by Hyun-Sook Lee
- The Third by Yuko Ito

March 12th, 2008
- Rose Hip Rose by Toru Fujisawa

April 1st, 2008
- Bad Kitty by Michele Jaffe

April 8th, 2008
- Dragon Sister! by nini
- Element Line by Mamiya Takizaki
- eV by Alfa Robbi / James Farr
- GOSICK by Kazuki Sakuraba
- Hellgate: London by Arvid Nelson / Lee Tae-Hang
- Hotel Africa by Hee Jung Park
- I-Doll by Mi-Ae Choi
- Mamotte Shugogetten! by Minene Sakurano
- Starcraft Anthology by Various
- Warcraft Anthology by Various

May 8th, 2008
- Sea Princess Azuri by Erica Reis

May 12th, 2008
- Ai-Land Collection by D. J. Milky / Misaho Kujiradou

May 13th, 2008
- DNAngel Illustrations FEDER by Yukiru Sugisaki

June 10th, 2008
- Fallen Moon: Daten No Tsuki by Hasumi Toui

See links for commentary.

§ Brigid notes what might be the first appearance of an OEL manga on the USA Today Bestseller list:

The top manga on this week’s USA Today Top 150 Books list is Warriors, Tokyopop’s manga adaptation of the popular YA novels about cats… doing something. Warriors debuts at number 74, while the latest prose novel in the series sits licking its whiskers at number 17. Vol. 16 of Fruits Basket slips to number 98, and vol. 14 of Naruto makes a slow start at number 115.

I believe this is the first time a global manga has made the list. I checked Megatokyo and Dramacon, and neither is in the USAT database. So this could be a first!

We’re not surprised at WARRIORS high debut…it’s all about a brave warrior kitty and his journey to escape from “twolegs” and a life as a kittypet, and it’s cute as heck. Plus its based on a best selling novel series. So the moral? You can never go wrong with a kitty and a puppy!

¶ Yet Another Comics Blog joyously notes the return of YOTSUBA&! from ADV this July. To know why everyone is happy about this, you must know that YOTSUBA&! is from Kiyohiko Azuma, whose other book is Azumanga Daioh. These are true all-ages manga, with the same strand of warmth and insight as classic kids comics like Little Lulu or Peanuts. Yotsuba is a little green-haired alien girl whose enthusiasm for EVERYTHING in life leads to humorous scrapes and adventures in the great comics tradition. It’s gentle, good-natured fun that everyone can enjoy.

And look, she likes KITTIES! We told ya so!

We’ll end our brief foray into onscreen comics with a legit freebie, the first chapter of Anike Hage’s Gothic Sports, a new manga from Tokyopop. The premise is really “Why didn’t I think of that?”: Goth kids playing high school sports. Click on the image for a full-sized spread, and note the reason that manga is so immediate and immediately appealing to readers: You get the premise in the very first panel.

“I’ve been dying to transfer into this school for years, and this summer I finally made the cut.”

It’s high school, and goths and jocks don’t go together. You don’t need to read up on Wikipedia to know this is going to be a bumpy road.

(You will need a free registration to read the whole thing.)

Tokyopop has announced the winners of the 7th Rising Stars of Manga competition. This is our AMERICAN IDOL, people! Give them a hand!

BEST OF ACTION
Ares Maier
by Daniel Lucius Cross

BEST OF COMEDY
B is for Bishie
by Margaux Hymel and Russell Herrick

BEST OF DRAMA
Melody
by Stacy Nguyen

BEST OF FANTASY
Fortune Finders!
by Jerry D. Garcia

BEST OF HORROR
Gagaku Berceuse
by Erick Melton and William Ruzicka

BEST OF MYSTERY
Scratched
by Crystal Hawkins

BEST OF ROMANCE
I’ll Be Waiting
by Lanny Liu

BEST OF SCI-FI:
Argosy
by Megan Spence and Erin Simpson

PEOPLE’S CHOICE WINNER
BlueBlood
by Ryan Mauskopf

A few have web pages or you can see all entries here.

Tokyopop is set up at booth #731 with creators including Eric Wight, Rivkah, Svetlana Chmakova, T Campbell, Amy Mebberson, Joanna Estep, Melissa DeJesus, M. Alice LeGrow, Federica Manfredi, Shannon Denton, Dan Hipp, June Kim, Frank Marraffino, Stuart Moore, James Barry, Joshua Ortega, Drew Rausch, Amy Hadley, Megumi Cummings, Steven Cummings, Jamar Nicholas, Rob Steen, and Armand Villavert. They’ll be having panels right at their booth, and signings. Schedule in the jump.
(more…)

Tokyopop and Harper Collins are teaming on a new manga series based on the bestselling fantasy books by Erin Hunter: KITTY!!!

TOKYOPOP, the leader of the Global Manga Revolution and HarperCollins Publishers, one of the top English-language publishers in the world, are pleased to announce the May 2007 release of Warriors: The Lost Warrior, the first graphic novel series to be launched under the two companies’ recently announced innovative co-publishing deal.

Drawn from Erin Hunter’s #1 nationally best-selling Warriors books, The Lost Warrior features a very special note from the author to Warriors fans. Warriors: The Lost Warrior manga series, created by Dan Jolley and James Barry, tells the untold tale of the feline hero Graystripe: his life with humans and his ultimate quest to be reunited with his clan. Graystripe’s story in the manga series bridges the gap between Hunter’s “The New Prophecy” and the next installment of the Warriors novel series “Power of Three.”

As Erin Hunter writes to Warriors fans: “Manga brings out the best in Graystripe. The drawings are so powerful and so direct. Alongside the punchy dialogue, they speak volumes. I love them, and I am so proud of the all-new action Graystripe. Well done, Graystripe! Well done, manga!”

In a word from TOKYOPOP Publisher Mike Kiley, “It is truly an honor to bring such a wonderful children’s series to manga form. Dan Jolley and James Barry have reveled in the Warriors universe I think the end result does this very special story proud.”

The Lost Warrior is the first of a trilogy. The second book will release in December 2007.

Via Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat a comment thread wherein OEL manga-ka, and now Minx creator Ross Campbell reveals that at least one contract at Tokyopop ended a bit sadly:

Alas for The Abandoned 2, i sorta quit Tokyopop after the first book, i had a crummy experience with them (requiring a long rant to explain, heh). but i’m pitching the sequel’s material to another publisher, but unfortunately without Rylie because Tokyopop owns the rights (d’oh!). so hopefully that’ll get picked up, and also hopefully in the future i’ll be able to get the rights to Rylie back and she’ll make a triumphant return in my third zombie apocalypse book. keep your fingers crossed!

Tintin wonders why, and this leads to sleuthing from Johanna, which takes us to Campbell’s blog. If you hit the link you will be greeted by gruesome pictures of his colonoscopy, but here’s a selection:

what happened when The Abandoned was being put together back in December, my previous editor took a big holiday vacation early, and left all this unfinished business on the book. so to make the print date, a bunch of other editors had to finish everything my editor left. there was some stuff i had to fix so the book would print correctly, and everyone was rushing around being insane trying figure out what to do. so meanwhile, i pretty much had no editor for about 2 weeks or something, so nobody had a “go-to” guy for anything, and although it should’ve been me obviously, that’s not what happened. considering the amount of confusion and craziness surrounding The Abandoned in that time, i guess i’m surprised the thing made it out as good as it is.

And

my first problem with the book is that on every page, there’s a black bar at the bottom, like where the graphics people put the page numbering, and it covers up varying amounts of the panels on the lowest row.

More in the link…and colonoscopy photos. Only love can break your heart, kids.

spotted on the Variety job board:

The Gig:
TOKYOPOP is currently looking to hire a TV/Film Development Associate to work from its Los Angeles based office. The primary functions of this position are:

• Participate in early development of manga properties to deliver creative input that would facilitate transition from book-based graphic novel into film, television and/or integrated media.
• Extract the essence of the Company’s manga properties, properly reflecting such in written documents such as treatments, synopses, pitches, outlines, concepts, and other appropriate development material.
• Identify programming opportunities based on current cultural trends, scheduling opportunities and positioning titles to meet the needs of studio and network buyers, creating materials (such as written, visual and multimedia presentations) reflecting that positioning.
• Develop, foster, and maintain close relationships with a broad spectrum of members of the creative community (agents, managers, writers, casting agents, actors, directors, and studio executives), pro-actively meeting with such members of the creative community to potentially package the Company’s intellectual properties with such talent attached.
• Collaborate with editorial and marketing team members in the creation of presentations, including website development and title specific sales materials.
• Heavy reading, coverage, and involvement with new manga properties that are under consideration for development and distribution by the Company.
• Work with members of the executive team to attend presentations, participate in tactical and strategic discussions and generally assist the Company’s goals as needed and directed.

Christopher Butcher has his RSS feed working again and the Beat rejoices. Now it is not so easy for us to miss stuff like this, where he reveals the dangers of reviewing OEL:

It’s funny, but the most difficult thing about reviewing any Tokyopop OEL manga is that you have to be ready for the creator to e-mail you within 12 hours of the review going online. Well the creator… or their fans. It’s easy enough when it comes to North American creators working outside of “global manga�?; if you write something they just bitch about you on a friends-locked Live Journal post, or send an e-mail cursing your name to a couple of their buddies. This has not been my experience with Tokyopop’s “not-Japanese-manga-creators�?. The absolute worst example of this happened to my buddy Scott Robins, who was screamed at by (frankly) rabid Peach Fuzz fans for daring to suggest some of the imagery and language used in the book wasn’t 100% appropriate for their target audience of “very young�?. It’s not like Scott doesn’t determine such things professionally, every day, at Scholastic Books. To her credit though, Peach Fuzz creator Lindsay Cibos did step in and calm them down after a little while…

Luckily brave Chris faces the danger and reviews FOOL’S GOLD, as well as non-OEL’s KAMPUNG BOY and SHIRTLIFTER in the past few days.

Via B o n e v i l l e:

Another interesting thing to note: in Germany, the black & white manga version of BONE is for younger readers, and the color version is for adults; while in the US it is the complete opposite. Scholastic’s color editions are aimed mostly to kids,