Corporate Shuffle

So, as you perhaps have already garnered from a blogosphere abuzz, Tokyopop is engaged in a bit of corporate reshuffling. Other people are covering the factoids quite eloquently, and I heartily recommend their coverage for a better undestanding of the fine details within the press release.
As some commentators have pointed out, the company was indeed in desperate need of a corporate shuffle and a hard look at its license catalogue. Tokyopop was putting out a massive number of books, to the point where they overwhelmed both retailers and readers with their sheer volume even as titles with genuine potential or quirk languished in the depths of corporate obscurity. In that respect, I heartily approve some pruning, but this pruning will hopefully extend only to a more discriminating look at what they license and not mid series drops in titles. If there's one way to simultaneously punch consumer confidence and annoy another chunk of readers, it's dropping titles point blank. (Especially humorous given their recent acquisition of some of ADV's dropped properties...) Additionally, many point out that TP's OEL properties sell remarkably well, and thus the move towards more OEL content is not per se a damning statement. Agreed, agreed. But I nonetheless find myself worried.
Very worried.
TP is hardly the bastion of quality titles; having cherry picked through some of their advance stuff on the review beat, I can wholeheartedly say it often comes down to picking the lesser of the evils. Regrettably too often, these are either spin off titles, OEL or tie in franchises- so their allotment of greater amounts of attention and resources to these types of titles is rather sobering news. Additionally, it seems the split comes with one branch devoted to "the comics-to-film and digital markets", namely "the growth of its digital and mobile phone comics initiatives." TP's tech and silver screen initiatives in the past have seen little visible progress: sure, there was a Lament of the Lamb movie announced ages ago, but it didn't sound to great and all talk of it has since fallen silent. Phone comics, while popular in Japan, will simply never command the same kind of market share here- it's too limited a product for too limited a market. In need of a shuffle, TP has made several steps forward- and quite a few back as well.
But hey, at least Dragon Head got a complete run....