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NEWS: Tokyopop's Employee Ranks Shrink This Week


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freshkazuki



Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 235
Location: Texas
PostPosted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 10:38 pm Reply with quote
If Stu Levy created the company, he can do whatever he wants with it. Including destroying it. There's nothing illegal about running something badly. Obviously, this guy could care less about what anyone thinks, so why even bother complaining about it. He's gonna do what he wants. If you have a job in the publishing industry, you might as well begin kissing it goodbye. I don't know why Tokyopop is seen as any worse than any of the other publishing houses. They are all doing badly right now. Well, except for e-books. And yes, publishing is slow in catching up to technology. Mainly because the people that run it are old. It's the same with everything really. Old traditional people run things until they are swept away by new tech or new ways of thinking. This is simply survival of the fittest. Do you think Levy is the FIRST screwup to ever run a company?? And WHO is gonna get rid of him exactly? What, is he going to fire himself??
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Sunday Silence



Joined: 22 Jun 2010
Posts: 2047
PostPosted: Thu Mar 03, 2011 11:32 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
I don't know why Tokyopop is seen as any worse than any of the other publishing houses.


Compared to the others, TOKYOPOP seems to garner more venom due to a few facts. Stu Levy seems to court hate because of his stupid antics and penis grandstanding. TOKYOPOP only seems to exist only to promote his name.

Initial D....with music by DJ Milkdud. Princess Ai co-written by DJ Curdled Milk. Van Von Hunter, directed by and co-starring Stu Levy Break. God, does this guy have bi-polar disease?

Yeah, theirs a terminology for this. It's called being an...ACTOR, DIRECTOR, or DJ. Chose one or a combo of the two, but don't use other people's IP to promote your s***.

Let's not also forget their editorial descisions.

Initial D not having the right car specs and horrid use of "street slang" and TOKYOPOOP openly defending the edits. Battle Royale "Giffinized" by a hack comic book writer into a Reality TV show series. I could go on.
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adam_omega



Joined: 29 Aug 2005
Posts: 256
Location: Seven Seas
PostPosted: Fri Mar 04, 2011 4:29 pm Reply with quote
Let's not forget that Tokyopop has a long, long history of mistakes that go waaaay back to when Sailor Moon was moved from MixxZine into SMILE and stand-alone single issues. That was the first of many shit storms that Stu has been a part of...
animenewsnetwork.com/feature/1998-08-14/7

And here's a full history of pre-manga boom Mixx Entertainment/Tokyopop that I wrote for Animefringe way back in the day:
http://www.animefringe.com/magazine/00.06/feature/1/index.php3
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Paploo



Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Posts: 1875
PostPosted: Fri Mar 04, 2011 5:07 pm Reply with quote
adam_omega wrote:
Let's not forget that Tokyopop has a long, long history of mistakes that go waaaay back to when Sailor Moon was moved from MixxZine into SMILE and stand-alone single issues. That was the first of many shit storms that Stu has been a part of...
animenewsnetwork.com/feature/1998-08-14/7

And here's a full history of pre-manga boom Mixx Entertainment/Tokyopop that I wrote for Animefringe way back in the day:
http://www.animefringe.com/magazine/00.06/feature/1/index.php3


Wow, Animefringe nostalgia :) I actually won a Tokyopop prize pack from you guys waaayyyyy back in the day [it had CCSakura comics in it :)]

TP was so odd in the beginning, much of the current fandom is totally unaware of it. MixxZine wasn't that badly put together, but the mix of 2 shojo titles and 2 sienen titles made for an odd choice. Then there was Tokyopop magazine, and the earlier version of Smile- a wierd, marketing-ridden teen girl magazine that just happened to have Sailor Moon comics in it, publishding the SuperS chapters while they also put out a Sailor Moon comic. I kind of wish I'd seen Smile in it's later days, when it was an all-shojo anthology- that was probably more appealing than the wierdness of it's initial phase.

MixxOnline was like a wierd precursor of social media, and I remember being so happy when they changed their website over to one with book information instead. But I guess it was just a foreshadowing of their current mess of a website :(

Wow, that ANN editorial has a reference to SOS. Now I'm having late 90's flashbacks. It's kind of scary that much of TP's editorial staff is completely gone now- they were the ones who managed to save TP's image with many fans, did a lot of the PR work since the MIXX days ended, and distracted most folks from the odder stuff. I kind of wonder if with them gone we're now right back to the old Mixx days, and are going to see Stu take a more public role.

Interesting time to be a manga fan I suppose.
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The Xenos



Joined: 29 Mar 2004
Posts: 1519
Location: Boston
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:25 am Reply with quote
Jaymie wrote:
I don't think Stu Levy cares anymore. He's just an insane middle-aged man bent on self-destruction. He squanders Tokyopop's money to produce garbage like Van Von Hunter and America's Greatest Otaku, and he fails to realize that Tokyopop is, first and foremost, a manga publisher.

It's like letting a child run a giant company. It's all fun and games for him, while the people below him are being fired left and right due to money shortages that he caused by spending their limited funds on custom tour buses and t-shirts!
Funny, I'm reminded of this recent article about that dumb 'Otaku' show.

http://www.comicsbeat.com/2011/03/02/tokyopop-follow-up-is-stuart-levy-the-charlie-sheen-of-comics/

Though personally, I think that's an insult to Charlie Sheen. Sheen actually is an accomplished actor who sometimes acts like a child or a man off the rails. Levy's a horrible puslibher who thinks.. well.. He wishes he was Charlie Sheen.
bglassbrook wrote:
Sunday Silence wrote:
the whole Rising Stars of Manga/OEL Manga Bullcrap....

Considering that a fair number of them (more than one or two) have moved on to other publishers and continued doing well, I think it shows that program at least had potential.
No. It shows the creators had potential. The program was a giant turd. It was a waste of their time. The creators would have been much better off at most any other publisher. Sadly those things happen in the industry. Hell, Becky Cloonan just posted online her pages for the never published Vol 2 of East Coast Rising. And that's even after TokyoPop told her to cut it down from 3 volumes.
Jaymie wrote:
Stu's problem is the fact that he's trying to turn Tokyopop into some kind of multimedia empire.
Manga? Check. Anime? Check. OEL? Super "hip" Cine-manga? Notebooks, stickers, and pens? Music? Live action films? Reality television? Tokyopop's done it all. And it didn't go very well, to say the least.
If Tokyopop goes into video games, it'll be the death of it.
Thank you. I'm glad someone remembers all these horrible ideas. Yeah they did the non-flipped manga first and dropped the price point. Yet they also have a million bad ideas. Hell, anyone remember their awful anime line? Remember the Initial D fiasco? Those Cine-manga books made me puke. What a waste of paper an a glut on the market. I picked up one with Paris Hilton out of a bargin bin or something just to have proof of the bullcrap TokyoPop stamped the world 'manga' on.
Paploo wrote:
Anyhoo, at least Dark Horse and Vertical had great growth in the past few years. And hey, DH's been publishing OEL manga for decades before anyone even used the term OEL. Adam Warren's currently on the 6th or so volume of Empowered, which is a big hit for them, and they've done similar manga-styled titles throughout their history. TP's problems seem to be moreso the company in general than domestic-manga-styled-comic stuff, which are doing fine elsewhere.
Speaking of remembering stuff. Hells yeah someone remember the 90s. I first got into manga influenced US artists before I got into the real thing. Back then they didn't feel the need to call their work by some bs name like 'OEL manga'. Amerimanga was kinda tossed around a bit, but never stuff except for some fringe Japanophiles getting off to Antarctic Press books. (This was also before Weeaboo became a thing, thanks 4chan word filter and Perry Bible Fellowship!) Adam Warren. Joe Mad. Even J Scott Campbell. Back then I thought they had an 'anime style'. Now i realize how cliche and stereotyping that was, but back then I remember that wave of if Japanese influenced American artists. And they weren't even the first. You had Frank Miller and the Elfquest, creators among others, in the 80s. So by the time Stu came up with his 'OEL manga' like this was some brilliant new idea, we've already seen a number of generations doing exactly that.
ZeetherKID77 wrote:
Stu Levy wrote:
I brought manga to America.

This statement makes me laugh, because he didn't just bring manga to the US, he butchered it beyond all belief. Way to go, Stu.
Yeah, I know. He should tell that to Viz and Dark Horse and some others already on the scene, the hack. Was he even the one starting TokyoPop / Mixx? I've heard conflicting accounts on that. He sure the hell didn't start it up alone.
Sunday Silence wrote:
Quote:
I don't know why Tokyopop is seen as any worse than any of the other publishing houses.

Compared to the others, TOKYOPOP seems to garner more venom due to a few facts. Stu Levy seems to court hate because of his stupid antics and penis grandstanding. TOKYOPOP only seems to exist only to promote his name.
Initial D....with music by DJ Milkdud. Princess Ai co-written by DJ Curdled Milk. Van Von Hunter, directed by and co-starring Stu Levy Break. God, does this guy have bi-polar disease?
Yeah, theirs a terminology for this. It's called being an...ACTOR, DIRECTOR, or DJ. Chose one or a combo of the two, but don't use other people's IP to promote your s***.
Let's not also forget their editorial descisions.
Thank you. I was going to talk about how damn unprofessional they have been on a number of accounts. In particular how the whole company bends over backwards for these dumb pet projects. Hell, Mike Richardson at Dark Horse has done some writing himself and pursues projects he personally likes, but damn if those are done with a much much more professional manner. He didn't even need some bs DJ alter ego to hide what he was using his company for. Richardson and company along with the people who run Viz and even now Yen Press are a hell of a lot better publishers than TokyoPop even in their best years.

Oh and you forgot about the creator contracts TokyoPop had for one of the later waves of OEL books. Everyone in the US industry commented how horrible it was. It's funny since Japan was known for having better creator rights and control than mainstream US comics like DC and Marvel, yet TokyoPop's was worse than even theirs.

Oh and also their website was trying too hard to be a second rate MySpace instead of being a competent publisher's website. Why did Stu need all those personal profiles of young underage teens anyway? (What? Too much? Wink )
Quote:
Initial D not having the right car specs and horrid use of "street slang" and TOKYOPOOP openly defending the edits. Battle Royale "Giffinized" by a hack comic book writer into a Reality TV show series. I could go on.
Hey hey hey. Yes, Giffin made a big big mistake. Yet it was what the publisher asked of him, so I can't fault him alone. If TokyoPop had been serious about translation like every other professional manga licensor, he would never have been hired to rewrite it in the first place. Plus the man invented the main man Lobo. Not to mention co creating an amazing and unique run of Justice League. Don't make me go Max Lord on you. Bwa ha ha.
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RestLessone



Joined: 02 Aug 2009
Posts: 1426
Location: New York
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 9:39 am Reply with quote
The Xenos wrote:

Oh and also their website was trying too hard to be a second rate MySpace instead of being a competent publisher's website.

This. I hate Tokyopop's website. No, despise it. It's confusing and filled with these useless services and options. I like sites that are more like Yen Press'; everything is easy to get to, it isn't too flashy, the news updates are right there. Tokyopop's catalog has improved a little bit, but it's still messy and annoying to navigate. Also, they're missing certain series.

In this day and age, websites are important. I have know idea how someone, let alone a new fan, is supposed to be able to properly navigate that site and get a good feel for what TP is. If TP wants to have a place for their fans, then they should keep it away from their publication pages. Forums are one thing; what they have is another.
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ZeroGee



Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Posts: 43
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:04 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Levy's a horrible puslibher who thinks.. well.. He wishes he was Charlie Sheen.

Full of coke and on his way to becoming the next John Belushi?
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Paploo



Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Posts: 1875
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 10:35 am Reply with quote
I kind of hope TP can fix thier website, but with most of their staff now gone, suspect it will be left as is for the time being. Such a wasted opportunity.

Stu commented on the Borders situation in a manner that actually made sense-
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/19551.html

I suppose TP could of planned around the Borders situation, but i also wonder if many publishers honestly thought they'd be able to get themselves turned around- Borders apparently had a history of CEO's who made lots of hype/plans and lots of bad choices, so I wouldn't be totally surprised if some pubs didn't' see it coming. Still, a sad situation however it is.

The Xenos wrote:
Speaking of remembering stuff. Hells yeah someone remember the 90s. I first got into manga influenced US artists before I got into the real thing. Back then they didn't feel the need to call their work by some bs name like 'OEL manga'. Amerimanga was kinda tossed around a bit, but never stuff except for some fringe Japanophiles getting off to Antarctic Press books. (This was also before Weeaboo became a thing, thanks 4chan word filter and Perry Bible Fellowship!) Adam Warren. Joe Mad. Even J Scott Campbell. Back then I thought they had an 'anime style'. Now i realize how cliche and stereotyping that was, but back then I remember that wave of if Japanese influenced American artists. And they weren't even the first. You had Frank Miller and the Elfquest, creators among others, in the 80s. So by the time Stu came up with his 'OEL manga' like this was some brilliant new idea, we've already seen a number of generations doing exactly that..


Yeah, comics around 1996 were an exciting time. Too bad that Superman/Dirty Pair crossover never got made. What I liked most about it is that it really changed the styles of domestic comics, and suddenly, cartoony artwork was both acceptable and cool. Humberto Ramos's Impulse run, the assorted Cliffhanger books, Ed McGuiness's early days on Deadpool, JoeMad influencing Chris Bachalo to change styles on Generation X, leading it his current mindblowing style [he's colouring his own work on the new X-men title at the moment, and on the Gambit/Storm one-shot from a few months ago- AMAZING stuff, with insane layouts and vivid artwork]

It's kind of too bad Marvel/DC shifted gears a bit and hyperreleastic is now in demand [I have mixed feelings about Greg Land- pretty artwork, but so much lightboxing of photographs, reused poses, and generic expressions]- just look at Impulse's switch to Kid Flash to suit Geoff John's* "let's make it classic!" regime [though am glad the Impulse moniker got reused on WallyFlash's daughter]

Anyhoo, I kind of wonder if they'd been best without the OEL moniker, but 2004 was a different time, and many of the artists are still working, Gold Digger's still being published non-stop with it's own cult following, and someone posted an old interview Frank Miller did with Lone Wolf and CUb's creators in the 80's last week [comicsreporter.com linked to it]. Manga/Comics are way more interconnected then many anime fans suspect, and I imagine those influenced by manga will continue to find venues for their work whatever peopel say about it.

*mind you, I generally like Geoff John's comics [read his JSA run for ages], so while I find the retcons odd.....I still read some of em.
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Sunday Silence



Joined: 22 Jun 2010
Posts: 2047
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 1:33 pm Reply with quote
The Xenos wrote:
Quote:
Initial D not having the right car specs and horrid use of "street slang" and TOKYOPOOP openly defending the edits. Battle Royale "Giffinized" by a hack comic book writer into a Reality TV show series. I could go on.
Hey hey hey. Yes, Giffin made a big big mistake. Yet it was what the publisher asked of him, so I can't fault him alone. If TokyoPop had been serious about translation like every other professional manga licensor, he would never have been hired to rewrite it in the first place. Plus the man invented the main man Lobo. Not to mention co creating an amazing and unique run of Justice League. Don't make me go Max Lord on you. Bwa ha ha.


Defend him all you want, he still ruined what should've been a great Dystopian story into some crappy Hollywood movie.

Paploo wrote:
Stu commented on the Borders situation in a manner that actually made sense-
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/19551.html


Stu just found himself a convenient scapegoat in order to deflect the recent bad choices he made.
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RAmmsoldat



Joined: 19 Oct 2005
Posts: 1261
Location: North wales coast
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:14 pm Reply with quote
The Xenos wrote:
Plus the man invented the main man Lobo.

This to me is like a get out of jail free card, theres not a hell of alot of US/UK comics i like but lobo is in there for sure for sure

"fraged my home plannet as a science project, gave myself an A"
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Shenl742



Joined: 11 Feb 2010
Posts: 1524
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 4:46 pm Reply with quote
Sunday Silence wrote:
The Xenos wrote:
Quote:
Initial D not having the right car specs and horrid use of "street slang" and TOKYOPOOP openly defending the edits. Battle Royale "Giffinized" by a hack comic book writer into a Reality TV show series. I could go on.
Hey hey hey. Yes, Giffin made a big big mistake. Yet it was what the publisher asked of him, so I can't fault him alone. If TokyoPop had been serious about translation like every other professional manga licensor, he would never have been hired to rewrite it in the first place. Plus the man invented the main man Lobo. Not to mention co creating an amazing and unique run of Justice League. Don't make me go Max Lord on you. Bwa ha ha.


Defend him all you want, he still ruined what should've been a great Dystopian story into some crappy Hollywood movie.


EVERY comic book author, no matter how great ,did something ****ty for the sake of paying bills. It's all part of the business. Grant Morrison put out some really bad Zoids comics back in the day apparently for crying out
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Paploo



Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Posts: 1875
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 5:12 pm Reply with quote
Shenl742 wrote:
Sunday Silence wrote:

Defend him all you want, he still ruined what should've been a great Dystopian story into some crappy Hollywood movie.

EVERY comic book author, no matter how great ,did something ****ty for the sake of paying bills. It's all part of the business. Grant Morrison put out some really bad Zoids comics back in the day apparently for crying out


Yeah, Giffen was probably just going with what editors were asking for at the time, and everything would of been subsequently approved by the Japanese publisher. It's a pretty minor thing to get upset over. He's done a lot of good work, and has been doing a fair amount for DC lately. There's better things to do then get crabby about a manga rewrite he did 7 years ago.
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The Xenos



Joined: 29 Mar 2004
Posts: 1519
Location: Boston
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 6:43 pm Reply with quote
I finally watched that Otaku reality show... It was actually much bettter than I thought. You know, despite Stu using it as a vanity project. With all the money they're throwing at it, they could have used another host or co-host besides him. Bad enough they found interns off the internet. Still, was certainly more polished than I expected. Maybe some bits were a bit stiff, but they pulled it off. It was somewhat informative about anime con culture, especially for mainstream audiences. Then again I doubt Hulu would back something that looked too amateurish. Then again I haven't dug into what reality turds they air, so who knows.

ZeroGee wrote:
Quote:
Levy's a horrible puslibher who thinks.. well.. He wishes he was Charlie Sheen.

Full of coke and on his way to becoming the next John Belushi?
He is on a drug. And that drug's name is Stu Levy. Or is it DJ Milky? Or does he just snort the magic of manga into his brain? Manga isn't an art style, or a way of publishing.. it's a life style.. it's the drug your life gets high on.. a drug he's so high on.

Heck, that sounds close to the BS buzzword PR he usually goes on about when spinning his definition of manga.
Shenl742 wrote:
Sunday Silence wrote:
Defend him all you want, he still ruined what should've been a great Dystopian story into some crappy Hollywood movie.
EVERY comic book author, no matter how great ,did something ****ty for the sake of paying bills. It's all part of the business. Grant Morrison put out some really bad Zoids comics back in the day apparently for crying out
Yeah. Even the greatest authors have such black stains and jobs they later regret. I'm not defending Griffin's work on BR. I'm just saying he's done a ton more good than that one bad. Though now I want to find those Morrison Zoids comics just for the 'what the hell' of it.
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adam_omega



Joined: 29 Aug 2005
Posts: 256
Location: Seven Seas
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 7:31 pm Reply with quote
Paploo wrote:
Anyhoo, I kind of wonder if they'd been best without the OEL moniker, but 2004 was a different time,


It should be pointed out that ANN's own Pata (Carlo Santos) coined the term "OEL manga" on his blog Irresponsible Pictures. Tokyopop was using its own term marketing term "Global Manga" at the time. The only reason "OEL manga" even became the standard journalistic term is due to the blog community latching onto the term. (It should be noted that ANN currently uses the term "World Manga" in their Right-Turn Only column.)

At the end of the day, though, bookstores don't care what it's called as long as it means a 5"x7.5" sized book and you intend on it being shelved with other manga.
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Paploo



Joined: 21 Nov 2006
Posts: 1875
PostPosted: Sun Mar 06, 2011 7:39 pm Reply with quote
adam_omega wrote:
It should be pointed out that ANN's own Pata (Carlo Santos) coined the term "OEL manga" on his blog Irresponsible Pictures. Tokyopop was using its own term marketing term "Global Manga" at the time. The only reason "OEL manga" even became the standard journalistic term is due to the blog community latching onto the term. (It should be noted that ANN currently uses the term "World Manga" in their Right-Turn Only column.)

At the end of the day, though, bookstores don't care what it's called as long as it means a 5"x7.5" sized book and you intend on it being shelved with other manga.


I'd forgotten about that. I suppose whatever name they put on it, even just "comics", there'ld still be the illogical hatred of domestically-created manga-styled books that leads people to blame them for a companies current problems 3 years after they stopped making them.

It is nice to see Oni Press, SevenSeas titles and GN's from book publishers mixed in with all the manga. Keeps things interesting, and makes those books easier to notice/find for their intended audiences.
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