Tokyopop has announced a deal with the William Morris Agency, which will represent Tokyopop's intellectual property for film, TV, digital, merchandising, and game development.  With Tokyopop's emphasis on developing its own OEL (original English language) manga series (or 'world manga' as the company prefers to call them) as well as licensing and translating Japanese manga and Korean manhwa, the publisher has a growing number of solely-owned (or controlled) intellectual properties such as Princess Ai, which can be shopped to studios here and abroad.

With Hollywood's growing interest in comic book properties publishers have many options when it comes to representation in Hollywood.  Working with UTA (United Talent Agency) Oni Press has recently managed to place a number of properties at various studios (see 'Dreamworks Nabs Two Oni Titles') and now has at least a dozen projects at differing stages of development, the kind of success in the exploitation of its comic book series that may well lead other comic book publishers to consider working with the major Hollywood talent agencies such as UTA or William Morris.