So when whoever posts as Tokyopop asked, “How do you read manga — digitally or as a physical copy? Which do you prefer and why?” I was interested enough to tally up the answers. The responses were almost comically lopsided, with only 18 out of more than 250 commenters preferring digital; some said both, but the vast majority, almost 200, said they liked to read their manga on paper, not pixels.

Of course, what they mean by “digital” is online manga sites, almost all of which are bootleg. People read manga online because it is free and because it’s the only way to read series that haven’t been licensed in English. But they don’t like it very much. Complaints about digital included eyestrain, slow load times, and that you can’t keep the manga or take it with you. Many commenters simply said they liked the feeling of a book in their hands.

It’s hard to tell from the comments whether the readers are reading manga on a computer (which is definitely uncomfortable, especially for long-form stories) or smartphones. Comments about not seeing the fine detail in digital suggest that a lot of manga is being read on small screens; one of the nice things about the iPad is that it is bigger than a standard manga page, so the art looks really good. One thing comes through loud and clear, though: There is widespread dissatisfaction with the current product, even if readers are getting it for free.

Manga publishers have done a pretty good job of offering legitimate digital choices — almost every publisher has some sort of digital presence now — but judging from the responses to the Tokyopop query, readers see digital manga, whether bootleg or legit, as a way to sample and read new series. When it comes to the comics they want to own, paper still trumps pixels almost every time.

“We had a record amount of entries from publishers this year with more than forty-five different titles” said FCBD spokesperson Leslie Jackson. “Retailers on the committee had a tough time deciding on which titles to choose for Gold sponsorship, but we’re sure fans will be pleased with the line-up for next year.”

While the choices may have been difficult, it’s hard to imagine that someone couldn’t come up with something more enticing than what Image has to offer: “An anthology featuring all-new stories with a mix of Image’s old and new best loved characters!” Could you possibly get any vaguer than that? They don’t even have a cover design. If my comic got bumped for that, I’d be steaming. On the other hand, Archaia’s 48-page hardcover, featuring new material (not reprints or bits of something to come) looks mighty sweet, all the more so because they name names: A Mouse Guard story from David Petersen, a Jim Henson’s Labyrinth story by Ted Naifeh and Cory Godbey, a side story from Royden Lepp’s new graphic novel Rust, a Cursed Pirate Girl story from Jeremy Bastian, a Cow Boy story by Chris Eliopoulos and Nate Crosby, and a Dapper Men tale from Jim McCann and Janet Lee. There’s this year’s wow factor.

The line-up actually seemed pretty obvious to me, so I went back and looked at the Gold Sponsors for the past five years. Sure enough, six of the publishers are there every year: Archie, Dark Horse, DC, IDW, Image, Marvel. Since five of these are also Diamond’s premier publishers, and Archie is a newsstand juggernaut, there’s no surprise there. BOOM! Studios has been a Gold Sponsor for the past four years and Archaia for the past three. The other slots vary: Ape Entertainment was a Gold Sponsor in 2011 and 2010 but is missing this year, and Bongo and Oni are back after a two-year absence. Others who have popped up once or twice in the past five years: NBM/Papercutz (2011), Drawn & Quarterly (2010), Viz (2008 and 2009), Dynamite (2008), Virgin (2008), Gemstone (2007), and Tokyopop (2007).

There’s more to come: The Silver Sponsors will be announced next week.

Well, good news: Last week, Quick revealed on her Deviantart page that the third volume of OffBeat will be published in 2012. Quick doesn’t name the publisher, but in the comments to the post she says “it’s a new publisher aimed at young women,” which is good news in and of itself. It’s interesting that she has the rights to the book at all, as most of the Tokyopop global manga creators have not been able to get their rights back and have had to leave their projects unfinished as a result.

Quick has done a significant amount of work on the third volume, but a computer virus wiped out much of what she had done. She will be re-scanning and re-toning the lost pages, and she says she will rewrite and edit them along the way, which should make the book stronger in the long run.

(via Comics Worth Reading)

Occupy Miami

Creators | Sarah Glidden, creator of How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, chronicles her time at Occupy Miami Nov. 15-21 in a sketchbook. [Cartoon Movement]

Creators | Corey Blake follows up on the Bill Mantlo story published by LIfeHealthPro, including some clarifications of issues raised in the story and additional details on various fundraisers over the years to help pay for Mantlo’s care. [Corey Blake]

Creators | Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society Podcast interviews Skullkickers writer Jim Zubkavich about piracy and the Stop Online Piracy Act. [Berkman Center for Internet & Society Podcast]

Creators | Christopher Irving interviews and Seth Kushner photographs creator Alex Ross. [Graphic NYC]

Creators | At the Miami Book Fair, Underwire creator Jennifer Hayden triumphed over an impressive array of novelists and poets to take top honors in the Literary Death Match, a sort of biathlon in which the two events were live readings and a spelling bee. [Knight Arts, via Comics Worth Reading]

Aquaman

Creators | Geoff Johns talks about writing the new Aquaman series, potential appearances by other “aqua” characters and the use of humor in his writing: “I mean, I wanted to make it all about the characters first. When you focus more on character interactions, a character’s humor comes out. I just wanted to make the books a little bit different. If I was just going to write the same books, then it wasn’t going to be a challenge or something new to me. I wanted to look at every book and approach it differently than I would have prior to the relaunch. I think humor is definitely something that there is a time and a place for, and I think humor really grows out of characters. Especially in Justice League when you have all these alpha personalities interacting with one another.” [IGN]

Creators | Hayley Campbell talks to Anders Nilsen about his latest opus, Big Questions, after a comics reading in London that was part of his staggeringly long book tour. [The Comics Journal]

Manga | Jason Thompson has an imaginary dialogue with Shaenon Garrity in order to explain the classic Viz title Midori Days, about a teenage boy whose right arm is mysteriously transformed into a girl who has a crush on him. [Anime News Network]

Commentary | Former Tokyopop editor Tim Beedle revisits the advice he gave aspiring global manga creators back in the day. It’s still pretty solid guidance for anyone who wants to create graphic novels in any style. [Words That Stay]

Zatanna

Comics | As the shine begins to wear off DC’s New 52, Jeff Reid is providing refresher courses on the history of various characters. This week: Zatanna. [iFanboy]

Comics | After hearing about the destruction of the People’s Library at Occupy Wall Street, Sean Kleefeld sent over some of his own books to replenish their collection. Only after he sent off the package did he realize that most of the books were by Frank Miller. [Kleefeld on Comics]

Conventions | John Hogan moderated a panel on graphic novels at the Miami Book Fair, and he came away with an impressive list of recommended reading. [Graphic Novel Reporter]

Conventions | Michael Buntag has a report and some reflections on the seventh annual Philippine Komics Convention (Komikon). [Nonsensical Words]

Humor | Dorian Wright presents the Grant Morrison Bingo Card. [(postmodernbarney.com)]

TOKYOPOP email newsletter

Former manga publisher TOKYOPOP and the pop culture e-newsletter GeekChicDaily announced today that they’re teaming up to launch a new email newsletter, called TOKYOPOP, that will focus on “the hottest Asian pop culture news and trends.”

So, yeah … it’s a little confusing, if you only knew TOKYOPOP as the manga publisher that went under earlier this year, but TOKYOPOP founder Stu Levy explains why it isn’t completely out of left field.

“Back in 2000, TOKYOPOP magazine introduced all aspects of Asian Pop Culture to the English-speaking world,” said Levy in an open letter. “Over the past decade, the print magazine gave way to other endeavors, but I am excited that through a new partnership with our friends at GeekChicDaily, the original TOKYOPOP magazine concept can be revived and refreshed – rebooted actually – in a much more modern, exciting, and accessible format.”

Ok, so that makes sense, I guess … but what about the manga? Prior to the announcement, TOKYOPOP’s Facebook page became active again, which led to many folks thinking some of their favorite manga might be returning. As fans began asking questions and getting excited about the possibility of the company publishing again, the following appeared on their Facebook page yesterday:

Loyal Fans, we’re very thrilled by your excitement but need to clarify: unfortunately we are not re-launching the manga – those properties have reverted to their owners and are amazingly difficult to get back. We’re launching an all new editorial TOKYOPOP newsletter about all things otaku and Asian pop-culture, powered by our friends at GeekChicDaily. We think you’ll really enjoy the news we’ll be bringing and apologize for the initial misunderstanding.

Which makes it sound like they won’t be publishing manga again … unless you read this passage from Levy’s letter: “The past year has seen the heart-breaking discontinuation of TOKYOPOP’s North American manga publishing operations. It has been a tough time for me personally, for the company, and for you, the fans. I know that you’re all eager to have the same access to your favorite manga titles that we could previously provide and I promise that I am continuing to explore any and all opportunities to relaunch the manga publishing operations of TOKYOPOP’s business, as it was the original heart and soul of the company.”

Or saw that they’ve launched a separate Twitter account, TOKYOPOPmanga, or saw some of the responses on their Facebook page that seem to indicate they’re planning to publish manga again. Right now the language is purposely vague, as you can see in tweets like this one: “And we’re hoping that we’ll be able to release new manga very soon,” or this one: “We’re starting a newsletter and we’re laying the groundwork for publishing new manga again.”

So, will they or won’t they? It seems like they really want to, but probably jumped the gun and started talking about it before they were ready. They’ve gone from “not re-launching the manga” to “we’re laying the groundwork for publishing new manga again” in a day, so I guess we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

This is not the Kodansha Comics Facebook Page

Some manga publishers do social media very well. Others don’t. Kodansha Comics took forever to even put up a website (and the one they have is pretty bare-bones—I think they just added a “News” section this week), and they told fans at San Diego Comic-Con that they expected to have Facebook and Twitter accounts by the end of the year—hardly an ambitious schedule. So an impatient fan has done it for them, creating a Kodansha USA fan page on Facebook, complete with logo and the note “I’m hoping if we can make a good fan page it will inspire the real Kodansha Comics USA will make one for them self.”

The only thing worse than having no Facebook page, of course, is having a bad one. When Tokyopop shut down earlier this year, they redirected the Tokyopop.com URL to their Facebook, which is now populated mainly by teenagers asking plaintively for the next volume of their favorite series. Which, the other teenagers sharply tell them, is not forthcoming (although there’s someone who wants to take up a collection and restart the company). Anyway, under the circumstances, it seems to be in rather bad taste to post pictures of Tokyopop’s booth at the German anime con Connichi. Most of the responses to the pictures are along the lines of “Come back to the U.S., Tokyopop!” but one Ryk Holm expressed the disgruntled fan point of view: “Hey, thanks for leavin’ me hangin’ with unfinished titles. Then your gonna post shit here to show me what you are still doin’ elsewhere. No thanks.”

In the same spirit as the Kodansha fan, someone has posted a link to a Gakuen Alice scanlation site on Tokyopop’s Facebook page so at least those fans can read it for themselves. Too bad Tokyopop doesn’t have someone monitoring the page to catch things like this…

But when a Sailor Moon fan site linked to scans of Kodansha’s new edition, readers who clearly had no problem with posting scanlations were strongly critical of the site owner for linking to rips of an American edition. Here’s a comment that sums up much of the discussion:

This is so sad! The new books are really beautiful and it’s shame to rip them off this way. I understand why the Tokyopop translations were circulated because the copyright expired but this is very different. Really disappointing and I have to say I hope you remove them from your site.

But the person who posted the links, Elly, shoots right back:

LOL glad to see you’re grateful for the years of pirated materials you downloaded from this place.

You people are unbelievable. One day you’re fine with stealing copyrighted material, the next you aren’t because it’s an ~American release~. Guess what? International copyright applies to all the stuff you downloaded in Japanese too. Downloading scanlations makes you just as much of a criminal as downloading Kodansha’s release.

As for the ethics of pirating any work, foreign or domestic, she has a ready answer: “As for personal morals, mine aren’t confused. I’ve never supported copyrights.”

Oh, OK. If I’ve never supported the idea of personal property, can I have your car?

Back to the issue at hand: Many scanlators, especially old-school ones, have an ethical code that prohibits scanning licensed titles; they only translate work that isn’t available in English, and they take down the scans once news breaks that a book is licensed — before it is published. This allows them to justify copyright violation because it’s only theoretical — the copyright holder isn’t losing any sales — and, in fact, it builds an audience for the book, making it more likely that it will be licensed and sell well in the U.S. (Some publishers have made the opposite argument, that scanlations saturate the market and make a work less salable.) What’s not in dispute is that posting a work without authorization is a violation of the copyright.

Some people simply don’t care, and the big manga pirate sites routinely post rips of U.S. editions without even pretending they are scanlations. But in this case, the fans are enraged:

This smacks of utter arrogance to me. You knowingly put up scans of something for people to download FOR FREE, and you think you won’t get any legal repercussions for it?

Scanlations are one thing, scanning a legal and official release for “comparison” is another.

I hope you get a cease and desist. In fact, I hope the many emails Kodansha USA get about this issue help shut this illegal action down.

In fact, Elly remarks that since it’s a small site, the fans probably pose more of a risk than the publishers, which is kind of ironic, given the history of manga in the U.S.

It’s clear from the general lack of responses (as well as the spam) that nobody at Tokyopop is actually looking at the page any more, but CEO Stu Levy made an appearance on Friday and asked “If there is a way to bring you Hetalia V. 3 but it’s a bit more limited than back in the old days, would you be interested?” The response was mixed: His post has 530 “likes” so far, but over 100 people added comments, and many of the comments are asking about other books. A number of people said they didn’t want Tokyopop to release volume 3 because that would delay transferring the license to a publisher that would commit to publishing the rest of the series.

Levy returned on Sunday with a few clarifications:

First, “limited” does not mean limited copies – all fans will be able to access the title. “Limited” here means channel (i.e. retail). Second, Hetalia #4 would be published as well. Third, other titles are different rights owners – this project is a partnership with the Hetalia rights owner, but titles owned by different rights owners are unrelated. That means even if TOKYOPOP wants to publish other titles, it can’t.

Levy did dangle the possibility that if this model works, other publishers might jump on board. Buy those books, kids!

My initial thought was that Levy was thinking of a digital-only release. The first two volumes of Hetalia are still available on comiXology (as single chapters), just as comiXology CEO David Steinberger told me last spring. (Another Tokyopop person showed up in comments to the second post to say it would be both print and digital, but that comment subsequently disappeared so it’s not clear that it was genuine.)

Former Tokyopop freelancer Daniella Orihuela-Gruber says that vol. 3 of Hetalia had just finished production when Stu shut the operation down, and other books were ready to go as well:

And there are volumes of Maid Sama, Gakuen Alice, Skyblue Shore and a number of other titles that we had finished production on only a few weeks before Tokyopop’s closure was announced. I was working on scripts for Chibisan Date and Diary of a Crazed Family right before the closure. I had even asked my managing editor to work on Flat after its previous editor had been laid off, but that title was months away from reaching editorial.

As it happens, Maid Sama and Gakuen Alice are two of the titles fans are clamoring for. These are books for which all the work has been done, and the license fee has been paid. There are other series, such as Alice in the Country of Hearts and Saiyuki Reload, that were just one volume away from completion. Tokyopop did say it was letting all its manga licenses revert back to the original owners, but clearly there is at least one exception to that. It’s just not the exception a lot of fans want.

While a number of American companies publish licensed manhwa, they usually don’t brand it as such. Tokyopop and Central Park Media started bringing it over in the mid-2000s to supplement their manga lines, which led many fans to dismiss it as an inferior version of manga. I remember sitting in the CPM panel at NYCC in February 2007, when CPM managing director John O’Donnell asked the crowd of mostly manga and anime fans what they thought about manhwa. Hoots of derision echoed off the concrete walls as fans ticked off the things they hate about manhwa, weak art and fractured storytelling looming large among them.

But that had a lot to do with the selection available; at that time, most of the manhwa available in English were second-string genre titles, and a lot of them did look like crappy imitations of manga. What’s more, people didn’t have a sense of manhwa the way they do of manga; the highest-profile manhwa property in the U.S. is probably Tokyopop’s Priest, especially since the movie came out this year, but people don’t necessarily know it’s Korean. Tokyopop made a good try by publishing a number of manhwa by Hee Jung Park that could hold their own in any selection of American indy comics, but they never found their audience, which is a shame. And no discussion is complete without a mention of Bride of the Water God, the beautifully drawn but oft-delayed series published by Dark Horse.

Since then, however, manhwa has been quietly blossoming in the U.S. Netcomics, an online manhwa site owned by the Korean company Ecomics, has done a lot to bring over quality manhwa, and series like Let Dai, Dokebi Bride, and 10, 20, and 30 have developed fan bases among English-language readers. Netcomics was one of the first online comics sites, and it avoided many of the pitfalls that manga sites are prone to for two reasons: Korean licensors are not quite so tight with the rights, and Korea is a heavily wired country where comics sites are already common, so no one was reinventing the wheel. Netcomics had been quiet for quite a while but recently started updating again.

NBM and First Second have had some success with marketing manhwa to indy comics readers, NBM with Run, Bong-Gu, Run and First Second with their Color of Earth trilogy.

The biggest print publisher of manhwa in the U.S. is Yen Press, which purchased the catalog of Ice Kunion when that company went defunct and has since brought over a number of new series—again, not specifically branded as manhwa. Their catalog includes Goong, one of the most popular girls’ comics in Korea, and the violent supernatural story Jack Frost (which I hate but seems to do very well for them).

So manga is here and there, but outside of Netcomics, it’s not particularly celebrated for what it is. That may be about to change, however, as the Bicof people invited a number of movers and shakers, including comiXology CEO David Steinberger, ICv2 honcho Milton Griepp, and representatives from Bluewater Comics, as well as publishers from other countries, to the festival. If you want to get ahead of the game, check out Kate Dacey’s list of 10 must-read translated manhwa and follow Melinda Beasi at Manga Bookshelf, as she has a longstanding fascination with manhwa in English.

Amazing Spider-Man #666

Publishing | Sales of comic books and graphic novels in July fell 6.17 percent versus July 2010, with dollar sales of comic books sold through Diamond Comic Distributors falling 4.27 percent and graphic novels falling 10.10 percent year-over-year. Unit sales for comics were only down slightly, at .52 percent, which ICv2 points out “indicates that comic book cover prices have in fact declined. The problem is that circulation numbers have not risen enough to make up for the decline in revenue from lower cover prices.” Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man #666, which kicked off the “Spider-Island” event, was the best-selling comic of the month, while League of Extraordinary Gentlemen III Century #2 from Top Shelf topped the graphic novel chart. John Jackson Miller has commentary.

Marvel saw a slight increase in its dollar market share for July when compared to June, while DC’s jumped from 28.03 percent in June to 30.55 percent in July. IDW, the No. 5 publisher in terms of dollar share in June, moved to the No. 3 position in July. The top seven publishers were rounded out by Image, Dark Horse, Dynamite and BOOM! [ICv2]

Darkwing Duck #18

Publishing | BOOM!’s Disney comics officially end in October with the publication of DuckTales #6 and Darkwing Duck #18, for which the solicitation says, “This is it fans, the last Disney single issue from KABOOM! has arrived. It’s the end of an era as we say goodbye to Disney at KABOOM!” [Comics Continuum, via]

Conventions | The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York will hold the 10th annual MoCCA Fest on April 28-29, the same weekend the Stumptown Festival will occur in Portland, Ore. Heidi MacDonald has commentary. [Convention Scene]

Creators | Brian Heater talks to artist Joseph Remnant about illustrating Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland after Pekar passed away last year. [The Daily Cross Hatch]

Comics | Robert Stanley Martin has posted the results of the Hooded Utilitarian’s International Best Comics Poll, which were voted on by 211 editors, journalists, academics and retailers (including Robot 6 contributors Sean T. Collins, Chris Mautner and Matt Seneca). Topping the list is Peanuts, followed by Krazy Kat, Calvin and Hobbes, Watchmen and Maus. [The Hooded Utilitarian]

Organizations | Derek McCaw interviews Dr. Mauricio Heilbron, the Hero Initiative’s medical consultant. [Fanboy Planet]

FreakAngels

Webcomics | Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield’s long-running FreakAngels webcomic has reached its conclusion. [Warren Ellis]

Webcomics | Doug TenNapel has brought his webcomic Ratfist to an end after 150 episodes, and he reveals that a print version is in the works. [Ratfist]

Retailers | San Francisco-based toy and comics retailer Neon Monster will close down its brick-and-mortar shop on Aug. 7 and its online store on Aug. 14. [Neon Monster, via Twitter]

Reviews | Cartoon Brew rounds up commentary on BOOM!’s third DuckTales comic book in a post titled “Is This the Worst Disney Comic of All-Time?” Per CB poster Amid: “Panels are flipped and repeated, characters speak to other characters that aren’t even drawn into the comic, backgrounds appear to be drawn by a twelve-year-old in MS Paint, and even the cover is an uninspired swipe of an earlier Daan Jippes cover.” The comic even inspired one fan to write a song about it. [Cartoon Brew]

Manga | The four-woman manga supergroup CLAMP is resuming work on Legal Drug after an eight-year hiatus. The series was published in the U.S. by Tokyopop, and there is no word yet on whether the new volumes will be published here. [Anime News Network]

Comics | Sean Kleefeld shows off some new pieces of original comics art he just picked up. [Kleefeld on Comics]

Fandom | Chad Rouch remembers the day his brother tossed Captain America’s shield out of a moving car. [Orlando Sentinel]

If you have never heard of Cryptozoic, don’t feel bad — the company was only founded in March 2010 — but now might be a good time to start paying attention. It makes comics, trading cards, and games, and its line includes the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game and The Walking Dead board game. The iPad app, provided by iVerse, also includes IDW’s Locke and Key comics, but the Warcraft and Starcraft manga are a big get, because fans can’t seem to get enough of those franchises.

(Hat tip: Steve Horton, via Twitter)

The PC Weenies

Webcomics | Cartoonist Krishna M. Sadasivam has announced he’s ending his popular webcomic The PC Weenies after 13 years. Thursday’s strip will be the last, “at least for some time.” In a post on his website, Sadasivam cites, among other reasons, a desire to focus on illustration, a plateauing audience and, “the biggie,” bills. “We’ve had a few emergency setbacks recently (two huge car repairs, a crazy water bill from hell, etc.) that are putting the squeeze on us financially. Big time,” he writes. “The time I spend on making the comic could be better spent on other income-generating areas, and right now I have to do what’s best for my family.” [PCWeenies.com]

Publishing | Ahead of the official closing of Tokyopop’s publishing division in Los Angeles on Tuesday, two of the company’s lighted metal signs have popped up for sale on Craigslist. [Anime News Network]

Comic-Con | Spurred by a recent newspaper profile that revealed the offices of Comic-Con International aren’t located in San Diego but rather nearby La Mesa, the city’s business license officer did a little research and discovered that convention organizers have been operating in the suburb for five years without a business license. Comic-Con has until June 2 to comply with La mesa city laws by submitting a business license application and the required fees. [Poway Patch]

Book Expo America

Publishing | Glenn Hauman wonders why DC Comics isn’t exhibiting this week at Book Expo America in New York City. [ComicMix]

Creators | Barbara Kesel discusses her career, Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, The Killing Joke and DC’s view of female creators and characters at that time: “They weren’t looking to exclude women; they just didn’t think about it. It is a natural bias to connect with the character closest to you. At DC at that time, that was usually male writers and artists, so the male characters took prominence. Over the years, when fans who weren’t white males would say ‘Why don’t I see (me) in comics?’ I’d say it was because THEY weren’t making them. The writer works out of his own ego first. The artist works out of his own mirror first, You can remember to work around that natural bias, but that’s where we all start. (Okay, way more artists than writers would include women, but largely as eye candy, and they might include random people on the street, but if you said “draw a hero” without any further instructions, you’d get a while male character.)” [DC Women Kicking Ass]

Digital comics | Darrell Etherington makes the case that “comic books and iPads are made for each other.” [Businessweek]

Comics | Brian Truitt spotlights Marvel’s “I Am Captain America” variant covers, which depict “real-world American heroes.” [USA Today]

Comics | Chris Sims lists eight of the best noir comics, from Criminal to Fell to Sin City. [ComicsAlliance]

Comics | Christopher Monfette names five horror franchises that should continue as comic books. [FEARnet]

The Rising Stars of Manga

There was a time, back in the mid-2000′s, when Tokyopop was a bubbling cauldron of talent. With its Rising Stars of Manga competition and global manga program, Tokyopop was a gateway into comics for many talented newcomers, and many of them continue to work in the industry, creating and editing manga and other types of comics. Tokyopop shut down its OEL (Original English Language) manga program and laid off much of its staff in June 2008. Some of the creators continued to work on Tokyopop’s licensed books, while others moved on to new endeavors, including BOOM! Studios’ Pixar comics and Archaia’s Fraggle Rock anthologies.

The news that Tokyopop will be shutting its doors on May 31 inspired many creators to post their thoughts about the Tokyopop experience, and we reached out to some others for their own memories.

Former editor Tim Beedle, who was on staff at the time, looked back with mixed feelings:

There were certainly times where working at Tokyopop could be a frustrating experience. Like most of the editorial team, I came to Tokyopop because I had a genuine interest in comics and manga and wanted to play a role in bringing some great titles to American graphic novel fans, whether they were licensed from Japan or produced in the United States. And I think we did just that while we were there. I’m proud of just about all of the titles I worked on, especially the OEL ones. However, as time went on, the company’s interests and priorities seemed to shift. All of a sudden, we weren’t simply manga editors—we were film developers, magazine contributors, social media website operators and reality TV producers. All of which are worthwhile career pursuits, but what’s wrong with being editors? I think Tokyopop was at its best when its focus remained on publishing, and for all the time I was there, that’s what I focused on.

However, despite all that, I look back on my years at Tokyopop with affection. It was a fun company to work for and the employees were some of the greatest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. It was one of those offices where you genuinely had fun each day you were at work, something that I haven’t experienced at any of the offices I’ve worked in since. I made some great friends while I was there, both within the office and without. I think we all did. I’m proud of the books we’ve published, and while the original manga program might not have been the financial success we wanted it to be, I believe it played a key role in shaping our current comic scene. In fact, in spite of all the things Tokyopop accomplished for manga in the US, I think its most important legacy may prove to be the talented men and women who rose through its ranks and are now occupying key positions at comic book publishers, game studios and production houses nationwide along with the extremely talented artists and writers who got their start drawing OEL titles for Tokyopop.

Queenie Chan, writer and artist of The Dreaming:

Looking back at The Dreaming, my experience with TOKYOPOP has been a comparatively happy one (compared to other creators who worked for them). I’m one of the few who got all 3 volumes of my work out with them, before moving onto my current work with a different publisher (Del Rey and Dean Koontz, and The Dreaming was directly responsible for that), and I got an Omnibus out of it as well, so I don’t really complain. Things haven’t been managed as well as I hoped (especially in publicising The Dreaming), but overall, I learned how to do one volume of graphic novel after another, and learned to pace myself in my work and all. Because I was able to complete all 3 volumes of The Dreaming before I moved onto other work, it gave me a solid piece of work to display on my resume, so at least for that, I gotta thank Tokyopop for the opportunity they gave me, and the doors that it opened. I also got a lot of fans in foreign countries—The Dreaming has a lot of fans all over the world, and I often get emails from them. I also got a chance to go to Turkey on a 10-day trip to do talks at Turkish schools, so at least Tokyopop helped in selling the rights to as many overseas companies as they can.

Jim Pascoe, writer of Undertown:

I will forever be grateful to Tokyopop, and specifically to my editor Paul Morrissey, for helping me bring Undertown into the world. There were many great things that came out of this—the book sold through over 58,000 copies (that’s AFTER returns), was serialized in about 50 newspapers world wide, and has attracted praise from numerous fans, including Coraline screenwriter/director Henry Selick, who called it “a dark, fun, bittersweet display of incredible imagination.”

Undertown is a deeply personal story, based in large part on my dad’s heart transplant. I signed the contract within a week of my dad’s operation, and it was one of the great joys of my life that my dad lived to see the first volume published. I’m also thrilled that he is still alive today, and while very little can take away from that gift, I’m sad that he has not been able to see all three volumes fully realized, even though the second volume is done and the third is completely written.

As for the future, I am looking at many different options for the best way to re-present Undertown to the fans, both old and new. I hope to have news to share soon.

Sho Murase, who illustrates the Nancy Drew graphic novels for Papercutz, would like to finish her series me2; Tokyopop published the first volume, dropped the series, and left her in limbo:

It has been sad to answer to the readers , whom after so many years , still ask me when the next volume is coming out. As a reader I feel entitled to have the option of buying the continuation of the first book I purchased.

As a writer /artist I wanted to oblige, but was unable to.

Post cancellation syndrome was no fun – and along with money spent on lawyers -(To attempt to negotiate rights to finish the series under a different publisher)-costly.
…

Coming from the animation industry , I have nothing against the use of comics and manga IP for other media, however, I often wondered if those cancelled books may have sold more if Tokyopop would have done a little marketing on them. There was next to none for ME2 .

There were great things about woking on Me2.
Working with Troy Lewter was great . He is an awesome editor , and a good writer.
I did learn a lot about writing working with him.

At her blog, Ink and Thunder, Becky Cloonan reflected on missed opportunities:

A lot of people blame TP’s downfall on Borders closing- though I want to talk about something different, about how they stopped being a publisher and started being an IP hoarder. To be a successful publisher I would have thought you’d have to make publishing a priority- and by canceling so many books and concentrating harder on their media developments over the promotion and production of the comics they published, they signed their own death warrant.

That’s not to say it’s bad to cultivate options for a property outside of comics, but it seemed, for my book and from my perspective at least, that they put zero effort into marketing East Coast Rising. I had issues with the design of the book that went unheard. I even heard that they didn’t stock my comic in many stores. I felt like they were more excited when my book garnered attention from animation and video game companies than when it got an Eisner nomination. To me, I don’t really care about media rights. Money is great and everything, but I’m in it to make a good book. And I think that’s where our interests were divided.

The picture that emerges, on and off the record, is startlingly consistent: Lots of talent, caring editors, not enough attention to follow-through, and a sense of loss over projects that now cannot be finished—although the remnant of Tokyopop has little to gain by hanging on to the rights at this point.

On the other hand, a lot of talented creators got off to some sort of a start, even if they learned a few lessons the hard way, and they will be shaping the comics world for a long time to come.

Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One

Awards | Adam Hines has won the graphic novel category in the 31st annual Los Angeles Times Book Prize for his debut book Duncan the Wonder Dog: Show One. The other nominees were Dash Shaw’s Bodyworld, Karl Stevens’ The Lodger, Carol Tyler’s You’ll Never Know, Book II, and Jim Woodring’s Weathercraft. [press release]

Conventions | More than two years after canceling its Los Angeles convention, Wizard World announced it will return to the city Sept. 24-25 with Los Angeles Comic Con, to be held at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Big Apple Comic Con, which previously had been scheduled for those dates, will be moved to the spring. [press release]

Publishing | Robot 6 contributor Brigid Alverson talks with Viz Media Vice President Alvin Lu about the expansion of the publisher’s iPad app to include iPhone and iPod Touch. [Publishers Weekly]

You & Me, Etc.

Publishing | Margaret O’Connell looks at the role Tokyopop played in bringing boys’ love manga to the English-language market. [Sequential Tart]

Publishing | In the past two years, $943,118 has been raised for comics projects through Kickstarter. [Bleeding Cool]

Passings | Margalit Fox pens an obituary for comic strip historian and archivist Bill Blackbeard, who passed away March 10 at age 84. [The New York Times]

Creators | Veteran writer Roger Stern is interviewed in advance of his Free Comic Book Day appearance at Chautauqua Comics in Jamestown, N.Y. [The Observer]

Creators | Carla Speed McNeil discusses bringing her acclaimed Finder series to Dark Horse. [Sequential Tart]

Comics | In light of the recent uproar, here’s a look at Superman’s history of “un-American activity.” [Comicbook.com]

The news that Tokyopop is shutting down seems to have taken many fans by surprise. On Wednesday, the www.tokyopop.com URL started redirecting to their Facebook page, which now features a long string of surprised and dismayed comments from readers mourning the demise of their favorite site.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, manga blogger Deb Aoki wondered aloud what would happen to Hetalia: Axis Powers, the only Tokyopop manga that is currently being carried by a digital service—it’s on comiXology.

I asked comiXology CEO David Steinberger if users who had already bought Hetalia would still have access to it after Tokyopop closes. His answer:

Yes, forever, in fact. Even if we were to stop selling Hetalia (and there’s no reason at the moment to think we will), users will continue to be able to re-download it from the My Comics area of the apps and comics.comixology.com. We will continue to allow people who bought Hetalia to re-download it.

One of my questions was whether this will continue to be the case if another publisher takes over Hetalia’s license (which seems likely), but David said his answer covered all my questions, so I assume that means another publisher can’t take away your access to the earlier edition. And he made it clear in a subsequent e-mail that they will continue to sell Hetalia after Tokyopop closes its doors, although he couldn’t say more than that. (Remember that Tokyopop is actually two companies, and only the book publishing half is shutting down; the digital Hetalia may be handled by Tokyopop Media, LLC.)

This is interesting, and somewhat reassuring, because one of the fundamental questions of digital comics is to what extent the purchaser actually owns the comic. Amazon actually removed a bootleg edition of George Orwell’s 1984 from the Kindles of people who had downloaded it, and comiXology once locked a Marvel comic that was accidentally released a week early. For more on this topic, check out David Brothers’ excellent essay about ownership of digital comics.

But you can relax, because Hetalia is safe for now.

Planetes

The announcement last week that Tokyopop has closed its publishing division (at least in North America) has led to a lot of thoughtful critiques about the company’s legacy, both good and bad.

Less discussed is their vast array manga publications and the aesthetic qualities that may or may not lie therein. Having offered a memorial of sorts to the Mome anthology last week, it seemed only fitting to do something similar for the house that Sailor Moon built today.

But first an apology/explanation of sorts. The honest truth is I came a bit late to the manga revolution and didn’t immerse myself much in Tokyopop’s oeuvre, not because of a dislike towards shojo or manga in general as much as a general feeling that most of their offerings were heavily contrived and derivative, whether aimed at a male audience or a female one.

Also, my budget being what it is, there were plenty of titles I missed that I probably would have included on this list had I had the resources to track them down, like Aria and Happy Mania. Consider this more of a starting point for an ongoing conversation then, and feel free in the comments section me know what an idiot I am and what books I missed.

So taking all that into consideration, here are the six titles that I feel justified Tokyopop’s existence:

Lupin III

1) Planetes by Makoto Yukimura. While I’m not the biggest sci-fi geek in the world, I do have a fierce appreciation for hard science fiction, especially when it’s done as well as it is in Planetes, a manga about an outer space garbageman of sorts who dreams of owning his own ship and attempts to join a crew making a historic trip to Jupiter. Yet as well thought out as the science stuff is, it’s ultimately the characters and their conflicted emotions as they try to juggle their love for family and friends with their driven need to explore the solar system that makes Planetes such a exemplary and moving work.

2) Lupin III by Monkey Punch. Monkey Punch’s super suave thief, a much-beloved character over in Japan, is probably best known on these shores as the main character in the Hayao Miyazaki film Castle of Cagliostro. The source material, however, is much sillier — in a good way — than the movie would suggest. His rough-hewn line (think of it as Mort Drucker by way of Osuma Tezuka), quite unique compared to other manga-ka it seems, refuses to keep it’s tongue out of cheek resulting in one of the most gloriously slapstick-y comics I’ve read in a long time.

3) Dragon Head by Minetaro Mochizuki. Anyone who’s read my meager writings over the years probably knows that I’m a big fan of horror manga by the likes of Kazuo Umezu and Junji Ito. Throw Mochizuki’s apocalyptic 10-volume tale on the “fave” pile as well. Beginning with an absolutely terrifying train wreck, the series maintains a deep sense of tension and claustrophobia as the three survivors attempt to figure out what happened and how to get out of the enormous underground tunnel they’re trapped in. The series deteriorated a bit in scares once they made it to the outside world, but those first few volumes are some of the best horror comics around.

Life

4) The Abandoned by Ross Campbell. Unfortunately I still haven’t gotten around to reading Becky Cloonan’s East Coast Rising or Brandon Graham’s King City (shameful I know), so let’s let Campbell’s great zombie comic with the zaftig women stand in for all the solid North American cartoonists TP introduced readers to during their big OEL push. There was a lot of dross among those titles, but books like The Abandoned made the experiment worthwhile.

5) Life by Keiko Suenobu. I haven’t read the later volumes of this shojo series that takes a hard look at teen self-mutilation, bullying and suicide, but I remain impressed with the first volume, which dealt with such touch issues with grace and and sensitivity and, perhaps most important of all, without ever once coming off like a maudlin TV-movie of the week melodrama.

6) Welcome to the NHK by Tatsuhiko Takimoto and Kendi Oiwa. Despite (or perhaps because) of my own nerdish, socially awkward personality, I’m all for making vicious fun of nerdy, socially awkward people, especially when they exhibit distasteful attitudes towards women. Which goes a long way towards explaining why I so enjoyed NHK, a rather savage at times satire about an unemployed shut-in whose life starts to change when he meets a young woman who takes a curious interest in him. Basically, anything that makes fun of the whole “moe” movement is going to be tops in my book.

TokyoPop changed that. Why pay six bucks a page when there’s this kid here who will do something vaguely resembling a “translation” for five bucks a page? Or four? Or even three?

I was stunned when I first heard that there were kids at TokyoPop working for three bucks a page. That’s not even close to a living wage.

The practice was cynical on many levels. Obviously, it was exploitation of the translator. But it also revealed a contempt for the reader: These kids can’t tell the difference between good writing and bad, so why pay more for better writing?

Before Tokyopop’s “100% authentic manga” format change, manga volumes were bigger and more expensive. There were also standards for translators and editors, and Matt describes the sort of screening and feedback that were involved. Bringing the price down to less than ten dollars a volume helped make manga a popular phenomenon, but the tradeoff was lower wages, which in turn resulted in lower quality work. And it wasn’t just Tokyopop—Thorn says that while Tokyopop was the lowest payer, they helped depress wages for the whole industry.

The Digital Manga Guild is the logical conclusion of this: Digital Manga is signing groups of “enthusiastic otaku” and paying nothing up front; if their books make money, they will get some payment on the back end.

Scanlators, of course, make nothing at all; they work for love, not money, and one of the justifications that scanlation readers use for their habit is that fan-translators do a better job than those who work for commercial publishers. Hearing that Tokyopop was paying bottom dollar for its translators makes this argument a little easier to believe.

Addendum: Read the comments section on Kate Dacey’s post for a description of life at Tokyopop from freelance editor Daniella Orihuela-Gruber, as well as a lively discussion of whether fans would rather have their manga cheap or good.

Amazon Kindle

E-books | Amazon announced it will allow Kindle users to read e-books from more than 11,000 libraries, marking a reversal of the company’s policy. Previously library users who borrowed e-books could read them on Barnes & Noble’s Nook, the Sony Reader and other devices, but not the Kindle. “We’re excited that millions of Kindle customers will be able to borrow Kindle books from their local libraries,” Jay Marine, Amazon’s director of Kindle, said in a statement. The Kindle Library Lending will debut later this year. [The New York Times, press release]

Publishing | Several DC Comics staff members laid off as part of the sweeping corporate restructuring — among them, editors Mike Carlin and Pornsak Pichetshote — have been hired by DC Entertainment’s newly formed Burbank-based Creative Affairs division, which operates alongside Creative Services. [Bleeding Cool]

Legal | Japanese police have arrested a 25-year-old man suspected of using Share file-sharing software to upload about 28,000 manga and anime files without the copyright holders’ permission. [Anime News Network]

Tokyopop

Publishing | Sam Humphries and J. Caleb Mozzocco join in the reflection on the closing of Tokyopop’s U.S. publishing operations. [Comics Alliance, Every Day Is Like Wednesday]

Publishing | IDW Publishing is auctioning all 83 variants of Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #1, with the proceeds going to AmeriCares to benefit the victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. [IDW Publishing]

Retailing | Borders Group, which is closing 226 superstores, is paying a dozen consultants more than $500 an hour to guide the company through the bankruptcy process. [AnnArbor.com]

Retailing | Kevin Czap tours Cleveland’s comic stores. [Comix Cube]

Far Arden

Creators | Far Arden creator Kevin Cannon has been dubbed the best cartoonist in Minneapolis. [City Pages, via Top Shelf]

Creators | Matt Fraction talks about the new Mighty Thor series: “Is he a superhero, is he a god? Is it a little g or a big G and what does that mean? Is my god better than your god, and does Jesus live somewhere? It’s also fun to refer to big Gs and then cut to Galactus.” [USA Today]

Creators | Jonathan Valelly spotlights Chester Brown and the official book launch for Paying For It. [Xtra]

Creators | Cowboys & Aliens co-writer Andrew Foley discusses the upcoming movie adaptation. [Edmonton Sun]

In the days since Tokyopop announced it would stop publishing manga, a few pundits have responded what struck me as a disturbing note of glee, a sort of satisfaction that that manga thing is finally over with. Doug Wolk has a piece at Time Magazine with the headline Manga Revolution Apparently Over: Tokyopop to Shut Down. And here’s Tim Hodler at The Comics Journal:

Tokyopop is closing down its manga line. Not long ago, this company and others like it were sometimes pointed to as the future of comics publishing. I suppose they still might be.

I’m a little mystified by that last bit. Is he saying that the future of comics publishing is that everyone will go out of business? Well, everyone dies. But Tim and Doug seem to have missed an important point, which is that Tokyopop (and the other manga publishers) did in fact change comics publishing; Tokyopop may be no more, but ten years ago, it was the future. Graphic novel sales quadrupled between 2001 and 2007, and at the ICv2 graphic novel conference in February 2007, ICv2 editor in chief Milton Greipp singled out manga as the reason for that increase:

I think the biggest factor was Tokyopop’s expansion of their authentic manga line and bringing in original material for girls. Suddenly there was huge growth in a business that was usually flat, and it opened up new opportunities for other categories as well.

The emphasis is mine. That was at the peak of the manga boom, and sales have declined since then, but that surge of new readers has changed comics in many ways, all of them for the better.

Ten years ago, “comics” meant superheroes, newspaper strips, and a handful of artsy graphic novels. Comics were a niche medium, and they were hard to find outside comics stores. Manga brought about two structural changes that have affected the market in a lasting way. One is bringing girls and women to comics en masse—there have always been women who read comics, don’t get me wrong, but in the 1990s the vast majority of comics were made by and marketed to men. No one was wooing girls and women as a distinct market, or setting out to publish comics that would appeal to them. Say what you like about Stu Levy (and I have!), he knows what girls like.

The second factor was bringing comics into bookstores, where casual readers could find them. Would that have happened anyway? Maybe, but probably not. Bookstores only give shelf space to books that sell, and manga sold by the boatload (some of it still does). Superhero trades don’t look good in bookstores, where they are usually shelved spine-out; art-comix are expensive and have a small readership. But manga? Just a few years ago, my daughter’s idea of a grand Saturday night was going to Barnes & Noble with her friends, buying five or six volumes of InuYasha, then staying up all night reading them. And she was not unusual; individual manga volumes often made the USA Today bestseller list, holding their own against Tuesdays with Morrie and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. Furthermore, manga are like Harlequin romances—if you buy one, you will probably buy more. Bookstores started carrying them in bulk because the numbers were there.

There’s more. Librarians quickly realized that manga brought in the teens (both boys and girls), and they became avid supporters of graphic novels as a medium. This in turn led to more acceptance by educators and parents. Again, without the manga phenomenon, this might not have happened; graphic novels would still be shelved in the art section and only a handful of people would know they were there.

By bringing comics to young people, manga opened up more possibilities for publishers. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine something until you actually see it, but once publishers saw teens and tweens lining up for graphic novels, marketing to that demographic became an easier sell. Would First Second Books exist in a world without manga? Would Kazu Kibuishi’s Amulet and Raina Telegemeier’s Smile be the successes they are? Again, maybe, but I think the Manga Revolution helped grease the skids. Stylistically, those graphic novels owe no obvious debt to manga, but manga helped build the market for them, got kids reading comics and got teachers, librarians, and parents on board with the medium.

Finally, take a look at the young creators that Tokyopop signed to their global manga program and you will see the face of comics today. Amy Reeder (Madame Xanadu, Batwoman), Svetlana Chmakova (Nightschool), Queenie Chan (Odd Thomas), Amy Mebberson (The Muppets, Strawberry Shortcake)—all got their start with Tokyopop and went on from there. More are waiting in the wings. Pick up the Fraggle Rock anthology or one of the Pixar comics produced by BOOM! Studios; both are chock full of fine work by Tokyopop alums. And that’s not to mention creators like Faith Erin Hicks who don’t make global manga but were first drawn to comics by manga.

It’s not just that those creators started reading comics because of manga, it’s that they started making comics as well. The superhero comics establishment isn’t particularly welcoming to new creators, but Tokyopop encouraged them through its Rising Stars of Manga program. There were flaws in the program, no doubt, but they got a lot of young artists and writers to think seriously about making comics at a professional level. It helps that manga is a medium that fans talk back to—it’s part of the culture to make comics and write stories about the characters. That gets readers into a deeper level of involvement with the medium and encourages them to create original comics.

Some of these changes might have happened anyway. There were certainly worthwhile, female-friendly comics being made in the 1990s, but there was no mass market for them. There have always been aspiring comics artists, but they didn’t have places that would accept their work or much of a community in which to discuss it. Webcomics, DeviantArt, the internet in general, all have opened up the comics world to new readers and creators alike, but manga gave the comics market an organizing principle for a while. It encouraged bookstores to stock graphic novels, young people (and adults) to read them, and artists to create them.

Here’s the thing about revolutions: They change the world, but they seldom achieve the revolutionaries’ original vision. Who knows what Stu Levy had in mind when he coined the phrase “manga revolution”; most likely, he was just being facetious. But manga did transform the comics world. It took comics out of the hands of fanboys, collectors, and hipsters and made them a truly mass medium.

No one, not even Stu Levy, expected that we would all throw over our American comics for Japanese ones. Japanese manga were significant in their own right, sure, but they were also a catalyst, bringing a new way of reading, creating, and marketing comics to the U.S. If every publisher dropped manga tomorrow (not likely, by the way—there are plenty of manga that continue to sell well, and niche markets are better served than ever), the comics landscape would still be forever changed—for the better. Viva la revolution!

Duffman

Legal | The Lithuanian publisher of The Simpsons comic has been fined for breaching laws banning the advertising of alcohol with its depiction of Duff Beer, the fictional brand consumed by Homer and other residents of Springfield.

Although Simpsons creator Matt Groening has never licensed the Duff trademark out of concern that it might encourage children to drink, companies in several countries have released beer using the Duff name (Fox and Groening sued an Australian brewery for doing so in 1995, forcing the product to be pulled from shelves and destroyed). The existence of unlicensed Duff beers apparently was enough for a government watchdog, who handed down the more than $4,000 fine. The publisher said it has stopped publication of The Simpsons while it tries to address the Duff matter — a major issue, considering that Bongo Comics reportedly doesn’t permit content changes to licensed titles. [The Australian]

Mike Richardson

Publishing | Dark Horse President Mike Richardson talks frankly about recent layoffs, subsequent comments made by a former employee, recent publishing decisions and the company’s digital strategy: “We have a very large staff for a comic book company, probably as large or larger than Marvel or DC. As we look going forward, in recent years we’ve had to resort to wage freezes as we try to bear the brunt of the health costs and rising business expenses. As we see those rising we have to figure out how to deal with them. We made some very hard choices and did the best we could over that. Rather than considering wage freezes and passing on more health care costs, I made a decision to do it a different way. One element of that cost-cutting was reducing our payroll and staff. On a personal level, it’s horrible. On a company level, it’s something you have to do from time to time. It’s not the first time and probably won’t be the last time, but for now we’re hoping it is, obviously.” [Comics Alliance]

Retailing | Retailer Steve Bennett recounts the accomplishments and failures of Tokyopop: “Publishers, Tokyopop chief amongst them, kept putting out an increasing number of titles that were entirely too similar to what was already on the shelves (especially when it came to supernatural romance harem comedies). Our store didn’t have the resources to order half of them and increasingly we were stuck with unsold, and frequently unsellable, product from what we did order, while simultaneously trying to put in reorders on the most popular series.” [ICv2.com]

The Amazing Spider-Man #1

Comics | Mary Lynn Smith profiles Gary Dahlberg, a 62-year-old Minneapolis man who died last summer in a house fire that spared his meticulously maintained comic collection that’s estimated to be worth between $1 million and $2 million. “As he got older, my mother would ask, ‘What are you going to do with all those books?’ My mother used to say they couldn’t be worth anything,” Dahlberg’s sister Wendy Kulper says. “I think my mom is now looking down and saying, ‘Sorry, I didn’t know.’” [Star-Tribune]

Retailing | Bill Lai, owner of Anime Castle in Flushing, Queens, is profiled. [WNYC]

Digital comics | Todd Allen surveys the market for kid-friendly downloads. [Publishers Weekly]

Creators | Eva Volin interviews ElfQuest creators Wendy and Richard Pini. [Good Comics for Kids]

Comics | A vacant building in downtown Haverhill, Mass., cartoonist Bob Montana’s inspiration for Riverdale, is being considered as the location for a possible comic-book hall of fame. [Eagle-Tribune]

Comics | The origin of Hulk villain The Leader. [Big Shiny Robot]