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Tokyopop titles to look out for

With the news that Tokyopop is losing the Kondansha licenses, here's a couple of Tokyopop books affected by this that I really liked that now look to be in limbo.  I think both of these titles have already been out of print for a while but I still find them occasionally at Borders or Barnes & Noble and they may still be floating around Amazon.

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Available here on Amazon.

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Available here (V1), here (V2), here (V3), here (V4) and here (V4, pt 2) on Amazon.


To read a bit more about these series, check out Johanna Draper's reviews of The Voices of a Distant Star and the complete series of Planetes.

Marvel now part of Disney?

So here's the news that looks like it's just breaking:

Walt Disney Co.  (DIS 26.09, -0.75, -2.79%) said on Monday it has reached a deal to acquire comic book titan Marvel Entertainment Inc.  (MVL 48.65, +10.00, +25.87%) for $4 billion in stock and cash. In a statement, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger said "adding Marvel to Disney's unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term growth and value creation." Marvel shareholders would receive a total of $30 per share in cash plus approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own. At closing, the amount of cash and stock will be adjusted if necessary so that the total value of the Disney stock issued as merger consideration based on its trading value at that time is not less than 40% of the total merger consideration. Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of Marvel including its more than 5,000 Marvel characters, including The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the X-Men, The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man, all of which have been turned into highly valuable feature film franchises. Ike Perlmutter, Marvel's CEO, would continue to oversee the Marvel properties, and work directly with Disney executives to integrate them into Disney's businesses.

I don't follow all of the financial news of Marvel and DC (or its parents Warner Bros.) but was this in any way expected?  Hasn't Marvel been touting how flush with cash they are?  I wonder if this is less Marvel shopping itself around and more Disney making them an offer they couldn't refuse.

This will be an interesting story to see how it plays out in the days ahead.

The secrets of Netflix, complete with Oompa Loompas

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"The Netflix warehouse in Carol Stream does not appear on any map. Your odds of finding it are slightly better than your odds of stumbling upon a rare insect in a field of weeds.

"One could drive to Carol Stream, stop in a random office park, climb from one's car and scream, "Reveal thyself, Netflix!" This is not advisable. But the temptation remains.

"If you subscribe to the DVD-rental service, the Netflix warehouse, which you know must exist somewhere; which a P.O. Box on every Netflix envelope suggests does exist; which processes your Netflix queue with alarming efficiency; which you bet will be as magical as you imagined if you ever stumble on it, overrun with dancing Oompa Loompas in matching jumpsuits of Netflix red, is one of those mythical New Economy temples."

The Chicago Tribune's Christopher Borrelli got a chance to visit a Netflix distribution center in the Chicago suburbs, near where I live. I now feel like it's a challenge to figure out where this building is.

Ostrander's Hawkworld remembered

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From Phil Rosenthal's The Tower Ticker:

"[Charlie Meyerson] also has the distinction of having been blown up in 1991's issue No. 8 of DC Comics' 'Hawkworld.' The body was never found."

I've got to dig that issue out of a longbox tonight.

And this seems to be as good of a time to remind everyone of John Ostrander's fight with glaucoma and the events at next week's Chicago Comicon to raise funds for his medical costs:

"At the 2009 Chicago Comic-Con, we’ve joined forced with Wizard Entertainment to hold a charity auction the evening of Saturday August 8th.  Our goal is to raise sufficient funds to help cover the costs of John’s treatments and it is John’s expressed wish that should we raise funds above his needs, that excess money is to be donated to The Hero Initiative to help them continue their great works aiding comic creators in their times of need."
from: Comix4sight.com

Matt Fraction must be a giant

Twitter pal, Alert Nerdian and alum of  fellow alum of BWCC ’09 has posted his thoughts about last weekend’s San Diego Comicon as he observed it from his comfy chair in Florida over at Alert Nerd.  Generally the things that caught his eye are what caught mine but I was just generally bored by most of the major coverage of the con this weekend.  Newsarama’s twitter-like coverage needs to go away before the next major con.  Looking at Matt’s article, he dug up a picture from CBR’s SDCC con that may perfectly summarize this weekend to me:

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I had seen references in a couple of panel reports to Kid Vision (a.k.a. a boy named Vision) but this image definitely proves that a picture is worth a thousand words.  From Fraction’s mix of boredom and apprehension to the oompa-loompish quality of Kid Vision, I get the feeling that this panel was sublime and strange.  All it probably needed was Johnny Depp as Ultron and you could have had the makings of Tim Burton’s next huge production film.  That would actually be the Avengers film I’d pay good money to see other than Favreau’s. 

 

Cool Covers-- Scout: War Shaman #2

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