Read on for news about Mattel’s new deal with Tokyopop for manga, a consumer licensing program from Fodor’s with plans for children’s and adult products, and more.
Rebel Girls Empowers Girls Through New Sports Initiative
Rebel Girls recently debuted a new vertical, Rebel Girls Sport, which unites sports-related book publishing, video, and social content, as well as league partnerships, licensed products, and other programs, under a single umbrella.
The timing is right, as women’s sports are experiencing robust growth in attendance, ratings, and fandom. “The world is watching women’s sports, and it’s about time,” Anjelika Temple, Rebel Girls’ chief content officer, told PW. But she noted that there is still a gap in the market for content tailored to tween girls. “It’s an untapped space where we can make connections with the audience we want to reach.”
Sports are also a good fit with Rebel Girls’ mission to empower an inspired and confident generation of girls and give them the knowledge and tools they need to thrive and change the world. “Sports is a huge space for doing that,” Temple said. Sports encompass all kinds of life skills, such as dealing with success and failure, building confidence, and being tenacious to achieve goals. “These are things tweens are dealing with every day.”
Four times more girls who play sports like their bodies than girls who don’t play, and 68% of girls who play sports say they’re happy, versus 48% who don’t participate. At the same time, girls are twice as likely to drop out of sports by age 14 as boys are, often due to a lack of confidence about their bodies. “What if we could help them stay in sports, and also activate the next generation of fans?” Temple asked.
Rebel Girls’ book, audio, and video content has long featured the stories of women from the world of sports, integrated alongside stories of musicians, activists, and other inspiring women and girls. “Athletes and sports have been part of the Rebel Girls ethos since day one,” Temple said.
The company has produced more than 300 sports-related stories across all media to date, highlighting athletes such as gymnast Simone Biles, figure skater Michelle Kwan, soccer player Megan Rapinoe, and skateboarder Chloe Kim, as well as coaches, executives, and journalists who represent the different dimensions of sports both on and off the field. That content has proven popular, with sports-themed videos accounting for 45% of the top 20 most-watched Rebel Girls content on YouTube, for example, and Get to Know Ariana Bravo: Life as a Formula 1 Presenter recently becoming the fastest Rebel Girls video to reach 100,000 YouTube views. Sports content will continue to be integrated into all Rebel Girls platforms.
Sports-related backlist stories will also be promoted as part of Rebel Girls Sport, but the focus is on new content. That includes a series of sports-themed books, starting with Rebel Girls Soccer! in fall 2025. This is a tween-friendly soccer guide featuring profiles of leading figures in women’s soccer as well as inspirational and how-to content on things like maintaining a good mindset, ideas for movement and pregame routines, how to bring your best when you’re not feeling at your peak, statistics, tricks, and more. Future books in the series will delve into different sports in a similar fashion.
The first original content under the new brand focuses on volleyball, as part of a media rights partnership with League One Volleyball, a women’s professional league whose inaugural season is in 2025. A weekly, kid-friendly, three-minute video recap, LOVB x Rebel Girls Sport, covers the matches and explains the game to fans and prospective fans throughout the season. Tween reporters, who are club players themselves, serve as hosts and bring enthusiasm and expertise. “It’s like Sports Center made for girls by girls,” Temple said. The series will air on YouTube, where 69% of girls turn for their sports content.
Rebel Girls is also the jersey sponsor for the league’s Omaha team and will feature some of its players in content. “I had a chance to meet some of the players at the season opener in Houston, and they’re super jazzed about Rebel Girls,” Temple said.
Rebel Girls will also highlight basketball in the coming year as part of its three-year partnership with Nike and was recently named the official media rights partner for the Athletes Unlimited Softball League, also launching in 2025.
The company’s consumer products licensing program will integrate Rebel Girls Sport as well. Licensee Charm It’s jewelry line, for example, includes a surfboard charm inspired by Brazilian surfer Maya Gabiera and a bag of golf clubs inspired by pro golfer Michelle Wie West and the co-founders of the Ladies Professional Golf Association. Other licensees have produced or plan to produce sports-related products in apparel and other categories.
Rebel Girls Sport will expand in the future with books, video, products, and alliances across all sports and platforms. “We’ve had so many incoming calls and are having lots of conversations,” Temple said.
Mattel’s Barbie and Hot Wheels Go Manga with TokyoPop
TokyoPop has signed an agreement with toy company Mattel, giving it the rights to publish original manga-style graphic novels based on the Barbie and Hot Wheels brands. The first Barbie title is set to debut in the second half of 2026, followed by Hot Wheels. The books, which will mark the first time these properties are entering the manga space, are aimed at a core readership of ages 8 to 12.
Ryan Ferguson, Mattel’s global head of publishing, said the company’s goals, especially for publishing, include expanding the audience for its brands and characters and deepening fans’ emotional connections. “Hot Wheels and Barbie are two iconic global brands, and their stories have a lot of potential for the unique storytelling style that comes with manga graphic novels,” he said. “The genre is a great way to blend imagery, action, adventure, and character development, which fits perfectly with the fast-paced universe of Hot Wheels and the imaginative and diverse universe of Barbie. Both Hot Wheels and Barbie have the kind of visually driven worlds that are full of potential and can really shine in this format.”
Marc Visnick, TokyoPop’s COO and publisher, told PW that TokyoPop has been creating original manga content with Disney for a number of years and continues to expand that effort into new Disney IPs. Examples include The Nightmare Before Christmas, with The Battle for Pumpkin King (2023) being a prominent title that reached the New York Times bestseller list for a time, and Stitch, for which the first original manga is being developed now.
“A lot of IP owners are doing graphic novels, but not a lot are doing original manga, at least with mainstream IP brands,” Visnick said. “We’re pioneers in that. IP owners are seeing the great original content we’ve been producing with Disney, so we’ve had lots of inquiries.”
Given the long development lead time and high cost of producing manga, the company needs to be selective, but the Mattel relationship made sense. “It was really a no-brainer,” Visnick said. “There’s a good crossover with an audience of fans who already follow us. And, with Barbie especially, we can replicate what we’ve been doing with Disney, producing nice manga for a younger audience.”
TokyoPop and Mattel are working together to develop the overall concepts and storylines. “From there, we are looking to leverage [TokyoPop’s] expertise to collaborate with authors and artists and bring these concepts to life in a way that resonates with manga fans,” Ferguson said.
The Barbie book—which will roll out with five full-color, 32-page single comic issues leading up to a 160- to 168-page graphic novel compiling all five—will incorporate art created by a Japanese artist for a traditional manga look. But the story will appeal to a mainstream, mass market American audience, Visnick said. Journals and how-to titles based on the first manga-style graphic novel are also under consideration.
Fodor’s Takes a Journey into Consumer Products
Fodor’s Travel is launching a consumer products licensing program, seeking manufacturers to create children’s and adult merchandise based on its brand and the archives it has built over more than 80 years.
“All of us who publish guidebooks have been increasingly living in a digital, A.I.-driven world, and figuring out where a printed guidebook fits into that world,” Stephen Horowitz, Fodor’s publisher and general manager, told PW. Horowitz noted that guidebooks continue to see robust sales, despite predictions to the contrary. “The guidebook market is still super strong. But the demographics of the consumer is older and more affluent. How do we reach a broader audience of people who are less likely to buy a guidebook?”
Fodor’s first started licensing its content for editorial purposes in 2015, a year before former parent Penguin Random House sold the brand to Internet Brands, its current owner. It licenses its fact-based book and web content and its more inspirational online-only content for editorial purposes, with links driving traffic back to its website. Eugene Fodor, who founded the company in 1949, is credited with inventing the modern travel guide with the publication of his first book, 1936 On the Continent: An Entertaining Travel Annual, and today Fodor’s publishes more than 200 print travel guides.
The company is now focusing on consumer products, something it has rarely done in the past, although it offered a few licensed products, such as calendars, when it was under the PRH umbrella. “The consumer products licensing will be image-driven,” Horowitz said. “The vintage cover art is the thing that people are most interested in. These are hand-illustrated images, especially from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, that look and feel super retro and cool now and would look great on a t-shirt.”
“Licensees can mine the books back in time, including guidebook covers, interior illustrations, and maps,” David Bernstein, Fodor’s business development manager, told PW.
Priority categories initially include apparel and home goods, such as wall art; printed matter including calendars, stationery, and puzzles; and travel accessories, planners, suitcases, and travel bags. But Fodors is open to any good idea. “It could be anything from a calendar to a baby’s bib,” Horowitz said. “We’re agnostic.”
“The Fodor’s brand aligns well with kids’ products,” Bernstein added, noting that ancillary publishing is one potential opportunity. “We’ve had conversations about a kids’ travel activity book.”
In Brief
Fred Rogers Productions and its licensing agent 9 Story Brands has renewed its Daniel Tiger licensing deals with Cottage Door Press, which offers novelty books, and Papp International, which is adding activity books to its specialty publishing range. In addition, primary trade publisher Simon & Schuster, as well as audio story licensees Tonies and Yoto, are releasing new Daniel Tiger products.... Five Mile Press acquired the rights to the Zuru toy line Smashers for a coloring and activity book program for children ages 3-8, to be sold in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. The first release includes four titles.... Dynamite Entertainment this month debuted the first-ever comic books based on the Zootopia film franchise as part of its broader partnership with Disney.... Another Disney licensee in the comics and graphic novel space, Mad Cave imprint Papercutz, is releasing a graphic novel tied to Moana 2 in July 2025.... In April, Oni Press will launch its first comic book in a new series tied to the Cartoon Network animated series Adventure Time. The deal with Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products was announced early in 2024.... Hidden Pigeon Company and its global licensing agent Retail Monster signed Hanna Andersson to produce a collection of children’s apparel featuring The Pigeon and Elephant & Piggie. They also licensed Tonies for audio devices and content featuring the voice of the The Pigeon, including book titles and songs.... Old World Christmas, which sells hand-blown glass Christmas ornaments, added several book properties to its collection for the 2025 holiday season. They include Penguin Young Readers’ Llama, Llama, The Little Engine That Could, Mad Libs, and Corduroy; Random House Children’s Books’ Busy World of Richard Scarry; and The Lumistella Company’s Elf on the Shelf.... OOLY has signed Peanuts as its first-ever licensing deal. Inaugural products, debuting in spring 2025, include a travel activity book and a travel craft kit containing a 48-page book.... Simon & Schuster and its agent Moxie & Co. licensed Stick with Finn for a collection of Nancy Drew stickers.... Korean beauty brand dearcloud has licensed the rights to the Moomin characters for a range of skincare and beauty products.... YA graphic novel series CatStronauts, by Drew Brockington, has been adapted for a board game from Atlas Games to release in February, after a successful Kickstarter campaign. The game focuses on teamwork and incorporates science concepts.... U.K. licensing agent Brands with Influence will represent the children’s book series Albert, by Ian Brown and Eoin Clarke, for a global licensing program.... The Astrid Lindgren Company selected Moomin global licensing rep Rights & Brands as its master licensing agency. It will oversee brand extensions for Lindgren’s portfolio of properties, including Pippi Longstocking….The Fablehaven middle grade book series by Brandon Mull is being developed into a feature film by Angel Studios, with plans for a 2026 release.