Just heard back from Dark Horse’s PR guy regarding the Clover omnibus and received a “no comment,” so I guess we’ll just have to sit tight and see what happens.

Bloggers/detectives Chloe Ferguson and Kuri have spotted a listing on Amazon for an omnibus edition of CLAMP’s manga Clover, which– if the Amazon listing is correct –will be published by Dark Horse in December.

The big news here? Clover, a 4-volume unfinished CLAMP work, has been published in individual volumes by TOKYOPOP. A license grab, perhaps, or a joint work? CLAMP is publishing their new mangettes project with Dark Horse.

I have an e-mail out to Dark Horse asking for comment. If I hear anything worth posting, you’ll all be first to know. :)

So I dropped Dark Horse an e-mail on the heels of its deal with Universal to make movies of its works. I asked them whether the new CLAMP “mangettes” project falls under the “original Dark Horse” works category (which means it could be eligible for their new deal with Universal) or whether it operates more like a licensed work, which would make it ineligible for the Universal side of the deal but still a possibility for Dark Horse to self-fund.

Naturally I didn’t get any kind of easy answer back. Here’s what I was told:

As far as Dark Horse licensing Japanese material through Universal . . . well . . . we’ll just have to see. The reason we’re all so excited over here about the new CLAMP deal is because it’s totally original material. I can’t really say what projects Dark Horse and Universal are working on, but trust me, they’re big. Really big.

But is it CLAMP big? We’ll just have to see. In the meantime, he mentioned that they plan to do a “big release” in a month or so, in the context of discussing the CLAMP project, so hopefully we’ll hear more at least about the manga project then. Like, you know, a title, and maybe the genre. Maybe they’ll even go crazy and share some character names! ♥

So last night I attended a Dark Horse manga presentation hosted by the Center for Japanese Studies at Portland State University (where I’ve been taking Japanese). The event’s speaker was long-time translator Carl Horn, who mostly talked about the same things he mentioned at another recent Dark Horse event, such as all the recent movie adaptations and Dark Horse’s new “mangettes” project with CLAMP.

But this time he did mention a few things I thought were potentially significant, the first being that Dark Horse wants to expand its manga offerings. This came up in response to a question from Professor Kominz, one of the teachers in PSU’s Japanese program, who wanted to know who to send students who want to translate to. Carl also expressed dismay once again that people tend to write Dark Horse off as only publishing dark, violent, “manly” manga (when, in fact, their longest-running manga series is Ah! My Goddess).

There were a few interesting questions during the Q&A, including several about China– from whether Dark Horse is looking at licensing any Chinese man hua to whether China imports Dark Horse titles illicitly. Carl mentioned that a lot of their stuff is printed in China, but probably couldn’t legally be sold there, which I thought was kind of interesting.

I also enjoyed him answering the question about his favorite manga: he brought up Kohta Hirano’s Hellsing, pointing out that if you’re going to deal in clichés like vampires, Nazis, and the Vatican’s secret organizations, you really ought to “put the petal to the medal.” He notes that everyone in the series is nuts– just like Hirano.

Good times had by all! After the speech and Q&A there was a mini-cosplay competition (by which I mean four cosplayers got up and introduced themselves and got prizes), then food and hang-outs. Some Dark Horse people were also selling books, so I (finally) picked up Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service #2 (but they didn’t bring MPD Psycho, wah!).

Hit the jump for more photos.
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Publishers Weekly reports that Dark Horse has managed to convince CLAMP to create an original manga for them.

The series will begin in 2009 and be issued in a new format they’re calling “mangettes,” which are 80-page novellas issued every month. So, more of one story than you get in a traditional monthly publication in Japan. They will collect every the “mangettes” into traditional tankobon every few months.

There’s absolutely no word on the content of the new series (there’s a picture, but I think it’s just some CLAMP self-portraits, not new characters, though I could be wrong). But I guess they figure, “it’s CLAMP, who cares?” Still, a very interesting move by CLAMP. I wonder how they got connected to Dark Horse in particular?

Okay, that’s all you need to hear for the rest of the weekend: Bandai Entertainmet has licensed Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, says Japanator. (PS: Geass is not a CLAMP series. CLAMP did character designs, but that’s all.)

They also snagged Terra E,k Ayakashi Ayashi and the My Otome Zwei OVA, plus the fourth DVD of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya will feature “God Knows” sung by Wendee Lee, the American voice actress who plays Haruhi.

I’m not quite sure what to make of this last bit of news; I had asked previously about the in-show songs and was told that they would stay in their original Japanese, so I’m guessing that it’s a bonus feature? Will she sing the song in Japanese, perhaps? I have no idea!