At their Sunday morning panel at the New York Anime Festival, Vertical Editorial Director Ioannis Mentzas and Marketing Manager Stephen Vrattos showcased their notable "J-Lit" fiction and non-fiction books and introduced their main manga offerings for 2008, which include:
- Dororo by Osamu Tezuka - One look at cover, and you'll know that Dororo is a very different Osamu Tezuka title for Vertical. For one thing, it's their first Tezuka title that's geared for teen audiences, and as such, it will released as three serialized graphic novels in the unflipped format. (Vertical's other Tezuka titles, MW, Ode to Kirihito and Apollo's Song were released in single volumes with the art flipped to the Western left-to-right format). Dororo is also their first release of a pre-70's Tezuka story, and as Mentzas described it, "his style is very different here." (e.g. more cute than edgy -- but still visually dramatic).
The cover art is the work of Peter Mendelsund, Vertical's new Art Director / Designer, who is following in the steps of acclaimed book designer Chip Kidd. Kidd did the distinctive designs for Vertical's prior releases of Tezuka and Keiko Takemiya's manga collections, and he kindly corrected me when I mistakenly credited him for the Dororo covers.
Dororo follows the adventures of a Hyakkimaru, a ronin warrior character whose parents has sold his body parts to gain power from demon gods. Hyakkimaru travels across feudal Japan with his young companion (and master thief) Dororo as they seek the 48 demon owners of his body parts. This is why Mendelsund's cover art for Dororo collages pictures of Hyakkimaru and Dororo over images of medical illustrations of anatomical parts.
Look for this three-volume series to appear quarterly starting in April 2008. - Black Jack by Osamu Tezuka - One of Tezuka's most beloved works, Black Jack follows the adventures of a gifted rogue surgeon who chooses to work outside of the medical establishment. "This is my favorite work, period," said Mentzas. "(Black Jack) is kind of like House - he's no sweetheart. He performs medical miracles, but he's not very likeable. It's also interesting because this came out 30 years ago (before the Fox TV drama series)."
Mentzas also noted that Vertical's approach to Black Jack will be different than the now out-of-print VIZ Media editions, because the 17-volume graphic novel series will be published in order as they appeared in the Japanese edition in larger volumes much like their editions of Tezuka's Buddha. "We may do 13 - 15 volumes, and we'll be trying to put one out every other month, over a period of two years."
While cover art wasn't available to preview yet, the first volume is scheduled for September 2008. - The Guin Saga: The Seven Magi by Kaoru Kurimoto and Kazuaki Yanagisawa - Based on the best-selling fantasy novel series, The Guin Saga: The Seven Magi will be a three-volume series featuring the adventures of Guin, a warrior with a mysterious past and a jaguar mask fused to his face.
Vertical is also releasing the Guin Saga novel series, but the manga follows a different side story, at a time when Guin is King of Keronia. "There's a plague killing the citizens of Keronia. Guin finds that the plague is sorcery-induced, so in this story, you see him fight giant spiders and sorcerers." Mentzas noted that while this is a fantasy title, the Guin Saga tales are not Tolkien-esque 'elves and fairies' stories, but is "pure entertainment" in the pulp fiction, swords-and-sorcery tradition of the Conan the Barbarian series.
The Guin Saga novels are hugely popular in Japan, and have inspired fans like director Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses) and Kentaro Miura, the creator of Berserk manga series.
The first volume of this three-volume series is available now, with two more to follow in January and March 2008. - Andromeda Stories by Keiko Takemiya - The first volume of this fantasy / sci-fi series debuted in September 2007, with the second and third due out in December 2007 and March 2008. As Takemiya's follow-up to her acclaimed hard sci-fi series To Terra (which is also published by Vertical), Andromeda Stories is "about an empire that is being taken over by machines. It reads kind of like Star Wars," said Vrattos. "Even though it's from the '70s, it doesn't look old; it has a certain energy and elegance."
Mentzas and Vrattos fielded a few questions from the crowd after the announcements. For one, they were asked if Vertical had plans to publish any classic shojo manga stories from legendary creators like Riyoko Ikeda (The Rose of Versailles) or Moto Hagio. "We're talking with authors, but if getting the rights to doing these were easier, we'd be doing them already. We may have some breakthroughs with one of these authors that we may be able to announce soon," promised Mentzas.
Another question was about other Tezuka titles that might be in the works. "We'd love to do Jungle Taitei (Kimba the White Lion), but there's an issue with how Tezuka portrays black people in this series from the '50's. "Everyone wants to do it," said Mentzas, "but we'll have to figure out a way to do this."
I'll be posting a gallery of coming attractions from Vertical soon, so stay tuned, there's more to come.
Image credit: © Tezuka Productions / Vertical Inc.
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