VERY belated news from Tezuka Panel at the Asian Art Museum

Dark Horse:

1. New Tezuka in works beyond Kimba
2. Club 9 dead for good.
3. What's Michael? omnibus very possible. 
4. Astro Boy Vols. 1 and 2 reprinted
5. Astro Boy omnibi possible
6. Dark Horse is beginning to look into Crime and Punishment by Osamu
 Tezuka.
7. Carl Horn, though doubting cancellation, could not promise the
 complete printing of Eden. He REALLY wants us to read it.

Vertical:

1. No Moto Hagio. Ever. They can't acquire the rights.
2. No sound of wind in the trees through 2010 (or any other longer
 Takemiya work for that matter).
3. Adaptions of Tezuka's works are highly unlikely due to high
 resistance from Tezuka Productions (Kimba anyone?).
4. They of course have more Tezuka plans.
5. Expect new creators beyond Takemiya and Tezuka (and the Guin Saga
 mangaka) in the near future.
6. Website overhaul in October.
7. Vertical to get a seperate manga imprint.
8. Tezuka titles to remain flipped.

Viz:

1. They are considering more Tezuka (Princess Knight received good fan
 response in shoujo beat)
2. No. 5 is NEVER coming back. It is Viz's worst selling manga of all
 time. Blue Spring also sold extremely poorly.
3. Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga is a favorite of theirs, though a
 reprint is unlikely in the near future.
4. Black Jack is something they'd love to print if they were sure
 they'd profit off of it.
5. Reprints of the original Adolf series or Black Jack run are
 impossible as their original runs pre-dated digitization.
6. Adolf very likely to be reprinted in a new format at some point in
 the future.
7. Entire Phoenix series reprinted including volumes 1, 3, and 7.
8. Kekkaishi not actually as big a loss for Viz as some have thought.
 It's still highly overlooked however.
9. Phoenix still is a financial loss for Viz. This does not encourage
 them to reprint Black Jack.
10. Viz is printing Firefigher! Daigo of the Company M! at a loss and
 refused to disclose why they even licensed it in the first place, but
 said they had a very good reason that THEY COULD NOT DISCLOSE. Eh?
 Firefighter is now top secret? Is someone paying Viz to publish it? The
 Firefighter Illuminati? Strange.

Non-panel related news:

1. Blast to continue publishing Barefoot Gen in the near future.
2. Off*Beat, a wonderful OEL series by Jen Lee Quick, has had it's third volume postponed untill August 2008.
3. Udon Entertainment is picking up Range Murata's Robot where DMP left off. Volume 4 is slated for December. For 5$ more. Oh well, still a score!


That's it for news! My old reviews will be posted soon! Then new ones!