We contacted Tokyopop, Be Beautiful (Central Park Media), Kitty Media and Digital Manga Publishing regarding how the Biblos bankruptcy would affect their publishing.

Tokyopop informed us that it is currently too early for them to comment on the situation as they only received word of the bankruptcy earlier today.

Stephanie Shalovsky of Central Park Media stated, "We are sorry to hear the news, they were great people to work with. We're not certain what is going to happen with Biblos, but hopefully we're going to be able to work with them in the future. In the meantime there's no impact on our release schedule and what we're going to be doing." CPM publishes several Biblos titles, including Kizuna, under their Be Beautiful label.

Similarly, Frank Pannone, Managing Editor at Kitty Media stated, "Biblos was the leader in Yaoi romance and the licensor of our best-selling Yaoi properties, Level C and Skyscrapers of Oz. This will not effect the publishing of any titles that have been announced. The titles that we have already published will remain in print at least until the contracts expire. And then we will look into whatever options there are to renew." ...But, I'm Your Teacher and the sixth and final volume of Level C have already been printed and are due to be released this month, I Can't Stop Loving You is due out in July and October.

Rachel Livingston of Digital Manga Publishing informed us, "Titles already released we will continue reprinting. For ongoing titles like Our Kingdom (currently at volume 6 in Japan), we're not entirely sure of the status of those, but we're going to strive to pick them up regardless of who has them even if we have to deal with the original authors or other publishers."

Futabasha Publishing, Ltd. will be publishing a "new" monthly comic magazine - "Comic Seed!" (Chief Editor: Nonaka Nakago), which will be distributed free on the web at the end of each month.

"Comic Seed!" was originally created by Penguin Shobo in September 2002, and was suspended last year with the liquidation of Penguin Shobo. This time, our company will inherit the name of that magazine, and create a new publishing-advertising model in a web-based medium. This new approach to manga business will be built and managed through the cooperation with people from related industries. We are aiming at making profits through the advertisement from the web magazine, the tankobon, and the e-books."

We will be partnering with Digi-book Japan, Inc. and Axel-Mark Company in distributing manga through mobile phones, delivering advertisement, producing e-books, etc. For the web-advertising system, we will be using the new "Bro-AD-cast" system developed by Sapiens, Inc.. The advertisement for our magazine "Comic Seed!" will feature "puzzle-type advertisment," an animation advertisement which pops up before the reader reads a manga. Certainly, it will impress our advertisers.

The magazine's distribution will be utilizing a comic reading program developed by Sapiens, the "Plugin-free Weblishing Service." Readers will be able to read the magazine without any installation of external magazine viewers or the need to download plugins. Akazuki Printing Inc. will be responsible for additional processing of the contents. The paper-hardcopy, cell phone version, and e-book version of Comic Seed will all be available through a unified data system.

Our website (http://comicsesed.jp) will pre-open on March 27th. It will officially open on April 28th in conjuction with the first re-publication of Comic Seed. New series will be announced, works of numerous mangaka from the "Old Comic Seed!" will also be continuing in the new publication. For our first publication, we have ten series lined up and 250 pages planned. In our 2nd issue (May 31st), we're planning to serialize the popular series "Kodomo no Jikan" from the No.1 Amazon.co.jp bestseller "Monthly Comic High!" magazine.

On March 27th, we will be distributing the pre-launch preparation issues. We will be working on the promotion of the first issue of Comic Seed! as its April 28th re-launch date draws near. We plan on exceeding the 70,000 readers mark of the old Comic Seed! and doubling the number of readers to 150,000.

Translated by Float_Sakura