Reading Vertical and Other Manga News
by Kai-Ming Cha, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 2/27/2007
During the convention, Vertical Inc., the New York City publisher of Japanese pulp fiction, horror and comics, announced plans to publish still more classic manga by trailblazers Osamu Tezuka and Keiko Takemiya, in addition to launching a manga imprint.
Forthcoming books from Tezuka include Apollo Song, slated for June, and MW (pronounced "mu"). MW is the name of a chemical weapon that ties into the overall narrative about a serial killer in love with a gay Japanese Catholic priest (that's right). Vertical expects to release MW as a giant omnibus collection similar to the recent release of Ode to Kirihito.
This fall, fans of Takemiya can look forward to her three-volume Andromeda Stories about incestuous royal siblings. At the same time Vertical will also publish The Guin Saga by Kaoru Kurimoto. There are more than 100 volumes of The Guin Saga novels published in Japan as well as a few dozen spinoff stories. Vertical will publish the first three novels and three volumes of the first Guin Saga manga adaptation. And Vertical editorial director Ioannis Mentzas said the imprint will also publish more work by 1970s Fabulous 49er artists like Takemiya.
Anne Ishii, Vertical's director of marketing and publicity, also said that the company will launch a manga imprint in summer 2008. The venture is an effort to break into the contemporary market with material similar to Viz and Tokyopop—contemporary shonen and shojo manga. There's no name for the imprint yet, but Vertical will start with four titles and grow from there.
Del Rey Manga has added five new books to its fall line. Shiki Tsukai, Pumpkin Scissors, Psycho Busters, Aventuraand a reference book, Manga: The Complete Guide. Written by former Viz editor, Jason Thompson, the tome will feature 900 pages of summaries and reviews of manga published in America.
CMX offered a full preview of their 2007 releases and two from their 2008 schedule.Notable books are Makoto Tateno's King of Cards, slated for August release, Banri Hidaka's I Hate You More Than Anything, a tomboy-in-love story that will also be out this summer.CMX has Hidaka's Tear's of a Lamb which is forthcoming in January of 2008.The publisher also has two forthcoming series from Nari Kusakawa; The Palette of 12 Secret Colors out this October, and Two Flowers for the Dragon which is slated for May 2008.CMX is also making available Masashi Tanaka's GON, a wordless series of short stories about a "tiny dinosaur with a big attitude."GON will be out this July.
Go! Comi's big announcement was their deal with Wendi Pini, the Elfquest creator, to publish her series Masque of the Red Death.Based on Edgar Allan Poe's short-story,Masque is a mature, futuristic, science-fiction comic with heavy yaoi overtones.The series will mark Go! Comi's entrance into the original English language manga market as well as online publishing.Masque will be serialized as a webcomic with three-page updates appearing weekly."We've always wanted to do a magazine," said Go! Comi CEO David Wise."We need some equivalent of the magazine system like in Japan. Webcomics are a way to keep readers involved—and new creators."Chapters will be collected in full-color tankobon or digest size graphic novel format and appear on shelves in 2008.
On the yaoi front, original English language yaoi publisher Yaoi Press has brokered a deal with Korean manhwa publisher NetComics that will have Yaoi Press material featured on the NetComics Web site. The NetComics Web site publishes its comics online and makes them available to viewers at a nominal charge. NetComics will follow this format with Yaoi Press in the near future.
At the Tokyopop booth, Lillian Diaz-Przybl, editor of Tokyopop's BLU yaoi line, wondered about Digital Manga Publishing's rapid rate of yaoi publishing. With the increasing amount of yaoi in the market, more yaoi means more competition for shelf space within an already growing manga and graphic novel market. Diaz-Przybl pointed out that yaoi fans are no longer buying everything that's published. "Not all yaoi is equal," she said. BLU will publish two books by Antique Bakery mangaka, Fumi Yoshinaga: Lovers in the Night and the anthology, Truly Kindly.
Tokyopop has also launched what it's calling Choose Your Weapon, a branding campaign for a new publishing line of action-oriented manga. Choose Your Weapon will function like an imprint and will start with three Korean titles, Utopia's Avenger, due in April, and Archlord, a video-game tie-in slated for June. The company will also publish the series Gravitation EX simultaneously in the U.S., Germany, Japan and England.
Meanwhile, Tran Nguyen of DramaQueen is resisting the temptation to roll out still more books. "With the growth that we've had, I want to make sure we're maintaining our standard of excellence," she explained. "It's tempting to do more because the money is there, but I'd rather maintain our level of quality."
