Anime Expo 2007

Dark Horse Manga

Panelists: Carl Horn (editor-in-chief), Jeremy Atkins (publicity), Samantha Robertson (assistant editor), Michael Gombos (licensing)

Dark Horse is celebrating 19 years of manga publishing this year. Panel discussion began with new license announcements: the three concurrent Blood+ manga series, the Blood+ novels, Ghost Talker's Daydream, Kazuo Koike's The Color of Rage, manhwa series Bride of the Water God, novels A Wind Named Amnesia and Invader Summer, and fan favorite Gantz (the first Shueisha title in several years not to be licensed by Viz). Gantz is due for release in summer 2008.

Japanese editions of the new acquisitions were passed around for attendees to look at.

A question-and-answer session then followed, mostly regarding specific series and releases like Berserk, Hellsing and MPD-Psycho. Horn also emphasized the company's commitment to seinen, mature-content manga in the market. When asked about the status of Oh My Goddess! Colors, Horn said that he is currently working on it and that the encyclopedia portion of the book is taking up most of the time. Differences between Dark Horse's flipped and unflipped editions of the manga are the main reason for having to check over various references in the series. The company is also considering the possibility of doing omnibus editions for other manga series if their Gunsmith Cats omnibus performs well.

The panel ended by taking license suggestions from attendees.

This report has been verified with a company representative.