Despite my personal drama, the big news of this week is the announcement that Tokyopop is going to shut down its English publishing division, only leaving its German books to be printed. This means that the company will no longer sell any of its licenses (like Fruits Basket or any of the BLU line), acquire new licenses, or print work of Western manga-ka. Though Tokyopop has been struggling for a while, and a lot of its business decisions haven't been good ones, it's still a big deal to see the company go. Tokyopop was one of the first companies to release Japanese comics in the US, and were the ones to license Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, Chobits, Tokyo Mew Mew and a whole host of now manga mainstays and classics. They were also one of the first companies to publish manga by American and European artists. And whenever another publishing company goes under, it always brings up the monster under the floorboards of the what's going to happen to printed books.

Follow up:

In the past couple of years with the advent of the Kindle and other e-book devices, digital books have become more and more common. As with any new technology there are always questions about obsolescence. Unlike CDs, cassette tapes and VHS, which were technologies invented in the 20th century to begin with, books and the written word are one of the oldest technologies on earth, around for tens of thousands of years. However, hard-copy book sales sink every month while digital copies sky-rocket. Magazines and Newspapers collapse constantly. Does this mean that one day books will vanish?

The answer is yes and no. The reason daily media like magazines and newspapers fall is because of the Internet. Newspapers have been going down in circulation since the invention of TV anyway, especially with the 24/7 news channels like Fox News and CNN popping up. With newspapers, you had to wait until the paper was printed and delivered to your house, or bought at a newsstand to discover what events occurred in the world throughout the day, with the Internet, news can be brought about instantaneously. Same thing with magazines. With all the blogs online, you can find the most up-to-date information on any subject on earth, from celebrity gossip to gaming news. Books on the other hand aren't about instant information, they are about long-term information. Entire stories in terms of fiction, entire studies and accounts in terms of non-fiction. While newspapers, magazines and books are all printed, they are apples and oranges in terms of use.

But books sales are falling as ebook sales go up. This is a fact. So surely this is a sign that books are becoming outdated and obsolete. Some people are horrified by this, and look at Kindles and other E-book readers as something bad. I have mixed feelings about them.

The Good: They allow people to carry hundreds of books with them, instead of lugging them around in a bag. For someone who travels a lot and loves to read, this is great. Books also create a lot of waste. Even avid readers often only read a book once, but don't have the patience to wait for a library book. So-called 'summer readers' and romance novels get thrown away as soon as their are read. To a bibliophile this can seem unthinkable. To someone who's ever shopped at a book depot or thrift store it's not that hard to imagine while skimming through the 30th copy of The DiVinci Code. Printing books is also very expensive, publishers take big risks to print runs in tens of thousands, so they only invest in people who they are sure will sell. This is why Snooki can get a book published but starting authors struggle for years to even get an agent. With digital books anyone can write what they want and distribute their work, for whatever price they want to charge. There's no worry about books going out of print, renting warehouses or dealing with returns.

The Bad: I am not a fan of digital storage I can't back up. This is why I don't like Itunes or Steam. To me it's like having a library but having someone guard the door with a key. Any time I want access I have to get the key back. And if for some reason that guard doesn't want to give me the key (ie, some obscure policy change or rule I broke without even knowing about it) I'm sunk. They are my things, I pay good money for, and I can't use it anymore. Also, if I lend a physical book to a friend, it's no big deal, I try to share my e-file, and I'm a pirate. E-readers are also a new technology, so lots of people who don't even read that much get them just to have the latest technology. Also, in terms of comics most E-readers don't handle two page spreads, so a layout will be killed. And the readers that do handle 2-pagers usually have tiny screens. Also, for me specifically, I'm dyslexic. I can read words off of paper fairly well, but when it comes to screens--fuggedabboutit. It takes me 10x as along to read off of a screen as it does words on a page. Not to mention the price, E-books can be EXPENSIVE. The devices themselves are upwards of hundreds of dollars, and the actual files tend to be the same price, or just a little less than their printed counterpart. Printed books have a right to be expensive, the process can be costly and you're dealing with tangible things like paper and space. Digital books are just small pieces of data that can be infinitely replicated. Saving a PDF requires little work, and they aren't that big. There is no real reason for a digital book to cost the same as a printed one.

But with MP3s, CDs and things are almost gone, right? In another generation or so game systems will download only, no slot or tray? Same thing with books right? Nope. Books have a tactile experience digital can't replicate. You press a button, not turn a page. You can't make popups with digital (and 3D isn't the same). People assumed digital music was the end all to be all--yet more and more albums are being released on vinyl records, a technology that was supposed to be obsolete more than 20 years ago. And in the world of comics, people like owning comics. People like collecting things. One of our most basic human instants is to gather things together. We like our stuff. And numbered files in a computer just don't have the same impact as a wall full of books and comics. But with digital copies publishers and bookstores are suffering. This is mostly due to the democratizing of the industry, as well as the fact that a lot of comic companies continue storylines based off of marketing instead of quality story telling. Comics are expensive. You pay 3-4 dollars for 22 pages and lots of ads, and the storylines in many cases are the exact same ones from 5-6 years ago, or even worse.

So what is the future? My money is on Print-on-Demand. The technology is becoming cheaper and cheaper, and it offers a much more efficient way of printing books. Rather than having a warehouse full of merchandise, products are made as they are ordered. No worries about having to send books back, and are a good companion for ebooks. The publishing game is changing, and the days of bookstores and big-time publishers is ending. Ebooks are clearly not going anywhere, but I don't thin regular books or comicbooks are either.