San Diego Comic-Con 2011

Yen Press

Yen Press' short but filled-to-capacity panel began with Editor-in-Chief Kurt Hassler announcing that while they had no new light novel licenses to discuss, they were working on some that could be announced in the near future.

Hassler then ran down a list of recent and upcoming titles: The Innocent, an east-west collaboration with Avi Arad, a 4-volume full-color omnibus edition of Highschool of the Dead, which will retail for $50, Soulless by Gail Carriger, and their most recent Twilight-style adaptation, an Interview with the Vampire manga as told from the perspective of Claudia, the book's child vampire character. Anne Rice is heavily involved with the project, according to Hassler.

They then moved in to new announcements: first up was the manga adaptation of Durarara!!, which will street in 2012. Kore wa Zombie Desu ka? will hit in March 2012, and a potential omnibus edition of Olimpos is being planned. They then discussed the new Yen + iOS app, which when downloaded includes a free chapter of Gossip Girl: Psycho Killer, a fun spinoff of the Gossip Girl manga that reimagines the characters as serial killers.

The brief panel concluded with a Q&A – which revealed that the Yen iOS app is in development for Android phones – and a swag giveaway.