Borders Bankruptcy Wallops Manga Publisher Tokyopop
For LA media job ad watchers, openings at Tokyopop for years were a mainstay of the local classified listings. The mid-Wilshire located company founded in 1996 always seemed to be on the upswing.
But the tide has turned, with Publisher’s Weekly taking a look today at some of the factors that led to a critical round of January layoffs. Despite a number of recent strategic partnerships and an aggressive pursuit of digital content, the failure of bricks-and-mortar chain Borders loomed larger:
“They owe us a significant amount of money,” said Tokyopop founder Stu Levy. “We’re not a big company and with less cash than we planned, we had to regroup to survive.”
Levy confirms to PW that in addition to longtime editors Lillian Diaz-Przybyl and Troy Lewter, three other editorial employees had to be let go. However, he remains optimistic about his pared down company’s future.
