ICV2 recently spoke with TokyoPop's founder, CEO and Chief Creative Officer Stuart Levy and posted a two-part interview. In part one, Levy talked about TokyoPop's beginnings and their numerous innovations in the manga publishing biz, the effect that the current economic slump has had on manga sales and on TokyoPop in particular.
"Looking at graphic novels and manga, Tokyopop probably has more titles out there than anyone. I’d say it’s us and then VIZ, and we have more mid-list titles than VIZ. I think it’s mainly the mid-list that came back (as returns from book and retail stores). We got hit pretty hard by that; I’m pretty sure (VIZ) got hit pretty hard too. I don’t know how they work internally, but they’ve got huge parent corporations and they also have the buffer of a few more hit titles than we do. Everybody was taking the brunt of things but Tokyopop didn’t have as many shock absorbers."
In part two, the conversation turns toward TokyoPop's exit from the anime business, developing online communities and marketing for manga, and TokyoPop Pictures' current movie projects.
"For us getting Tokyopop titles to become a feature film, a TV show is really important, so we have a real focused effort in Hollywood on producing. We believe that we’re a creative group. What we’ve always done is we’ve brought content we love to market and we’ve also created content so we think of ourselves as DJs, mixing stuff that exists, creating our own stuff and having our voice and our angle on things. That’s what the Tokyopop revolution is."
Image credit: Courtesy of TokyoPop
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