lucy_anne | 
11:07 am| 
From yesterdays PW Daily:
Comics’ Recipe for Success: Chapter 11
A bankruptcy filing usually isn’t cause for celebration. But to Top Shelf, a graphic novel publisher whose distributor, the LPC Group, filed Chapter 11 quite suddenly this week, bankruptcy never looked so good.
After publisher Chris Staros found out about the filing – and watched as a $20,000 check from LPC bounced – he sent out an e-mail SOS. The message appealed to 400 to 500 comics fans to buy $50 worth of his books to help keep Top Shelf alive.
Tuesday morning, Staros says, “Top Shelf was effectively out of business.” But twelve hours later, he says he’s received more than 1000 orders (200 by phone and 850 online orders) that have “made us operational again and put several thousand copies of our graphic novels into circulation.”
Among the many comics professionals that came to his aid were bestselling comics authors Warren Ellis and Neil Gaiman, who both discussed the appeal on their daily online forums. Staros’ competitors even chipped in: Publisher Mark Alessi and The CrossGen Comics staff bought $5000 worth of Top Shelf graphic novels and will donate them to the public library. Says Staros: “We’re in better shape now than we were before the LPC filing.”
-Calvin Reid
