Seven Seas to Launch Kids Line; Gets Avalon

by Calvin Reid, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 12/5/2006

Continuing to expand its prose publishing list beyond comics, manga publisher Seven Seas Entertainment will launch a children's prose list. Seven Seas publisher Jason DeAngelis said the new kids publishing line will release 12 kids' books and prose novels for "tweens" beginning in the summer of 2007. Separate from those dozen titles, Seven Seas will also republish Rachel Roberts's Avalon: Web of Magic, a 10-volume fantasy series that DeAngelis said sold more than 750,000 copies since it was first published in 2003.

Seven Seas will republish the entire 10-book Avalon series and release the previously unpublished 11th and 12th volumes. The new Seven Seas edition will be in hardcover and  feature new packaging, art and interior illustrations. And beginning in 2008, the publisher will begin a new line of manga adaptations of the Avalon series as well as releasing a Guide to Avalon, featuring art and an index of the series' characters and settings.

DeAngelis called the Avalon series "a cultural phenomenon among girls 8-12," adding Seven Seas has a great opportunity to relaunch the backlist and to move Avalon forward with a new program.

Red Sky Entertainment was founded five years ago by Mandell, a movie producer who has created shows for WB Family Entertainment, Nick and CBS. The company develops branded children's and family entertainment.