Top Shelf Productions has sold a third of the company in a capital raise that continues the ongoing merger between the comics and broader entertainment industries. As part of the deal, independent film producer Anthony Bregman’s Likely Story production company will get a first look deal for Top Shelf properties, and will put Alex Robinson’s Too Cool to Be Forgotten into development. The other new investor is new media entrepreneur John S. Johnson.
Publisher Chris Staros said that the deal came about because he and Top Shelf co-founder Brett Warnock were “starting to get burned out with being the ‘personal banks’ for the company, and by the stress that this brought during the rocky periods that publishing undergoes.”
Other proposals the pair considered “were either proposals to buy out the company, purchase a controlling interest, or use the name of the company to do something different than what we had built our reputation on,” according to Staros.
The deal allows the pair to keep a controlling interest while bringing in new capital, resources and connections for new media and film.
Johnson, the primary financier of the deal, will become the third member of the company’s board and the key link to new media applications.
Bregman has an extensive production portfolio including Synecdoche,
