There May Be Hope for Some of TokyoPop's Former Manga Licenses

About Manga is reporting that (per TokyoPop's facebook page) all of former TokyoPop's international manga licenses will immediately revert back to their original owners, rather than being held by the company's remaining media division until the contracts expire. Probably because they have told the license holders that no further royalty payments will be forthcoming for those series.

This will, at the very least, give other interested publishers the opportunity to license series formerly published by TokyoPop without having to wait for TP's licenses to expire.

The status of original indigenous series TokyoPop held is still a little murky. Writers like Becky Cloonan (whose East Coast Rising comic was published through Tokyopop's "Global Manga" program), blogger Johanna Draper-Carlson, and blogger and comic creator Jason Thompson, have expressed concern over the status of their series since TokyoPop technically still owns to rights to them.

Publisher Digital Manga (DMP) has said on thier Twitter account today that they are looking into the possibility of rescuing some of Tokyopop's former titles. DMP publishes mostly Shonen Ai and Yaoi manga here in the North America, and it's not clear if DMP is looking at all of TokyoPop's former licenses, or only the series formerly published under TP's BLU label.