Manga | Is former manga powerhouse Tokyopop coming back? Once the largest publisher of manga in North America, the company stopped publishing new manga in 2011, but didn't go bankrupt and never really went away. Tokyopop is selling many of its "global manga" titles digitally and in print, on demand, and it 's planning panels at both Anime Expo in Los Angeles and Comic-Con International in San Diego. On his blog, CEO Stu Levy drops a few hints, saying he's "rebuilding" Tokyopop. [Tokyopop]
Digital comics | Rob Salkowitz analyzes the latest news from Amazon and comiXology and suggests there's more to the story than meets the eye. While fans may view the renewal of Marvel's deal with comiXology as a story about a digital comics service, Salkowitz says it's really about bringing comics to the mass market through Amazon: "Kindle isn’t Amazon’s platform for reaching comic book readers. It’s Amazon’s platform for reaching all readers. comiXology counts its revenues in millions. Amazon counts its revenues in billions. Moving these titles from a superior specialty app to an inferior mainstream app isn’t a big deal for existing fans but it’s a huge potential expansion of the market." [ICv2]
Publishing | Archie's Mega Man comic will be going on hiatus, editor Vincent Lovallo says, but some new titles are coming in the Archie Action line. [ComicBook.com]
Creators | Noelle Stevenson talks about how she developed her solo comic Nimona, what it's like being part of the creative team for Lumberjanes, and her work on Marvel's new Runaways series (which didn't start out as a Runaways story). [A.V. Club]
Creators | David Harper talks to Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson, not about publishing but about Stephenson's own work, Nowhere Men and They're Not Like Us. [Sktchd]
Creators | Gary Panter talks about his art and the milieu in which it was made. [Blues.gr]
Creators | Tom Speelman rounds up some music playlists that creators suggest to accompany their comics. [The Mary Sue]
Comics | Geoff Klock, writer of the book The Future of Comics, the Future of Men, discusses what a sustainable, ethical comics industry might look like (spoiler: Image), why there is so little movie merch for women (and what to do about it), and how superhero comics can be bad for men: "It can offer young men a fantasy world that confirms all their worst prejudices, Fox News-style, and keeps them in a kind of arrested development... But you can enjoy that stuff without taking it too seriously as long as you keep your eyes up and your world big and don't think that kind of viewpoint is all there is, or even at all accurate to anything in the outside world." [Word and Film]
Conventions | You'd think Con Organizing 101 would be "Don't make rape jokes about an exhibitor who complains," or maybe "All social media is public"; a couple of staffers at Saskatoon Blitz 2015 didn't get that memo, though. This was the first year for the show, which sounds like it could have been better organized from the get-go, but when an exhibitor complained, the staff let loose on her on Facebook and someone sent her a screenshot of their comments. [The Beat]