New York Anime Festival 2010

Yen Press

Yen Press publishing director Kurt Hassler, editorial assistant Abby Blackman, senior editor JuYoun Lee, and assistant editor Tania Biswas helmed the company's panel, and launched by announcing the eighth and final volume of With the Light, published after the death of its creator Keiko Tobe.

Yen Press will create a manga based on Gail Carriger's novel Soulless, a segment of which appeared in the Yen Plus anthology; they are seeking an artist for the series currently. The series is set in a Victorian England in which vampires and werewolves have been accepted into society.

Yen Plus recently released the final chapter of Svetlana Chmakova's manga-style Nightschool, and her next project will be a manga-style adaptation of James Patterson's Witch & Wizard novel series.

Hassler noted that these were all the new license announcements that Yen Press would have for the day because contracts on pending licenses had not come through. However, he announced that Yen Press would launch a digital storefront for the iPad. They are still working with Japanese licensors to get titles out there but they are "diving in" and releasing some of their original titles in the store, such as Gossip Girl, Maximum Ride, and Night School. They will also feature some of the short series that have appeared in Yen Plus, and a special chapter from Svetlana Chmakova not available elsewhere.

The app has been submitted to Apple and Yen Press hopes to launch it later this month.

The panel moved into the question and answer segment, during which Hassler said that they were not currently considering any other former ADV titles than the ones they are already publishing, Aumanga Daioh and Yotsuba&!.

Asked about the prices in the upcoming iPad store, Hassler said that volumes will cost US$8.99, making the per-chapter price comparable to or slightly cheaper than the cost of most comic book chapters currently available on the iPad.

The panel then moved into a signing with Svetlana Chmakova.