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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsAre Blizzard and Tokyopop going their separate ways?
by Matthew Rossi 
Mar 3rd 2011 at 7:00PM
With no official announcement from either Blizzard or Tokyopop as of this writing, the Lorehound piece and its sources indicate that Blizzard may have pulled out of the deal due to a lack of ability to properly oversee the projects. Meanwhile, Lorehound is also reporting that the recent difficulties of the Borders bookstore chain may have caused problems for Tokyopop, with several people including Troy Lewter being downsized from the company. Troy Lewter, who was the editor of the Warcraft Legends series, was definitely important in the production of the various Blizzard licensed manga.
What this means for the average lore junkie is still up in the air, but I know if it's true, I'll definitely miss the Legends series.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items, Lore
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Sayomara Mar 4th 2011 12:10AM
Its to bad that Warcraft Legends wasn't more widely read. I think it gave a great on the ground feel to the Warcraft Universe. And It was has Knaaks best story 'Nightmares.'
But so goes the world. Be interesting to see if Blizzard looks to do more Magna after this or looks to maybe spending more time on Comics.
I think there would be a lot of room for collection of short shorts to be published regularly.
One does have to wonder that the fact they have been talking about Dragons of Outland for over 3 years now and only gotten 2 volumes out might also have something to do with this change.
Kylenne Mar 4th 2011 1:58AM
Since the comment system apparently ate the giant wall of text I wrote detailing Tokyopop's troubled and shady beginnings as Mixx Entertainment, I'll just give the Cliffs Notes version: a lot of older anime and manga fans who were there for the company's start and bore witness to Stu Levy's shenanigans in the late '90s still haven't forgiven the company for their gross ineptitude in handling the Sailor Moon manga license that made them famous, despite the company growing up to be rather acceptable in the and the 800 lb gorilla of the American manga publishing industry. Google Eye on Mixx for a rundown of what happened.
As a geriatric Sailor Moon fangirl, I happen to be in that category, so my grudge with Tokyopop runs long and deep and I can't say I'm terribly upset over their recent financial troubles. If Blizzard wants to do Warcraft manga, they can do a hell of a lot better than Tokyopop.
Ilaniel Mar 5th 2011 4:25AM
You beat me to it! I had all the original Mixx pubs before they became TokyoPop. And yea, there was some serious f***ery going on there. I'm not too sad that Blizz is cutting ties with TokyoPop.
Kiomi Mar 4th 2011 5:03AM
Noooo :(
I really liked the legends series and was looking forward to a next one D:
/cry
I wanted to get more of the other mangas too, but they're either sold out in the blizz store (for like, forever), or not available due to living in europe. :(
this makes me a sad little wower.
perderedeus Mar 4th 2011 8:17AM
One, Blizzard needs to dump Richard Knaak. He's really pretty horrid. They shouldn't let him within 2000 yards of Warcraft material - mangas, novels, whatever. My fiancee and I read his WoW novels simply to dissect his writing, and boy, is it universally bad.
Two, the only Tokyopop manga I own is 'Shaman.' I decided to give it a shot thanks to a friend's suggestion, and I'm glad I did. Great artwork, great story... just enjoyable all around.
Izzy Mar 4th 2011 9:24AM
Tokyo Pop fired almost all of their employees the other day and they've been on the brink of going under for 2 years. This is all no surprise to anyone in the industry; Tpop has been losing licences left and right for awhile now.
Sayomara Mar 4th 2011 10:02AM
@RiderGeshtar in an effort to bring your rant back in line with Tokopop I think one of hte worse parts of the Sunwell triligy is there use of Sylvanas. She seems like she should be there but honestly the story could have been written without her. And the fact that Sylvnas and Lor'themar seem so estranged just does ring true to me.
Whats more why is Sylvanas there at all by herself. No Dark Rangers, no banshees no Blightcaller, just up and decided to leave the Undercity in the hands of Varimathras lets talk about bad ideas.
That said I don't think the Sunwell Triligy is bad story but many of the major lore characters don't really stand up to much scrutiny. Up side it did give us Kalecgos who I think is one of Knaaks better characters.
RiderGeshtar Mar 4th 2011 7:53PM
@Sayomara - holy suffering damn. Okay, now I'm concerned, because there WAS a paragraph about that catastrophe in my comment when I typed it out. (I was intrigued by the manga at first and leafed through it, and - WTH.)
Now, I don't know where it is.
D8
I can stay on topic, just apparently not when Joystiq munches up the pertinent part of my comment.
In re: Sunwell Trilogy - I'll have to respectfully disagree, since Aveena is in essence a direct copy of Dawn (of Buffy fame) albeit with no personality. Knaak's writing of women is just bad IMO. And Darkhan (his NAME pfft) has no point; he felt like an afterthought in the game, the questline is absurd in the extreme (he has an angry teenager diary), and he breaks rules with his undead status. About the only thing I care for about him is his obvious raving crush on Arthas because it's fricking hilarious and gives him a slight hint of a personality.
Oniahs Mar 4th 2011 7:24PM
Thank god. Now, if we can only get rid of Knaak, maybe we can get Lore straightened out.