Quote of the day: Why TOKYOPOP dropped the ball

Anyway, Tokyopop did a lot of good stuff, and I’ll miss their OEL line especially. (I also enjoyed MixxZine back in the distant day.) But my original point is: they had more than 10 years to sell that one runaway hit property, to develop that one megahit property, and they failed. Once they stopped doing original content and started focusing on their licenses—Ghostbusters, Star Trek, whatever—I knew their ambitious plan was dead and they had to resort to doing spinoffs of other companies’ stuff rather than developing something new that could be a crossover hit. (Although I loved Jake Forbes’ Labyrinth manga.) Maybe it’s best if the whole OEL/global manga label fades away and we truly acknowledge that we are in a post-manga world, a world of countless influences, like Scott McCloud said, oh, a zillion years ago in the introduction to the first FLIGHT anthology. Still, manga has brought the world wonderful things. There’s no shame in loving it and imitating it and being proud of it, as long as you bring that original spark. Now the hype and glitz and glamor has died away, the manga party is over and the guests have left, and all that’s left is the diligent artists still drawing in the next room.

—Manga editor Jason Thompson gives a poignant eulogy to the now-dead in the water TOKYOPOP, the last major North American manga distributor