Otakon 2014

Vertical Inc.

The Vertical Inc. panel was presented by marketing director Ed Chavez, who provided a unique look inside the publishing business, discussing the process behind how a manga gets from Japan to North American bookshelves. He detailed the various steps along the way, from the early research and development stages, to budgeting, to bidding, to contracting, to production, to scheduling, great for attendees curious for a peek behind the doors.

Prior to that, however, Chavez gave a summary of some of Vertical's recent and upcoming titles, including the popular Attack on Titan: Before the Fall light novel series, and Shinobu Hashimoto's Compound Cinematics: Akira Kurosawa and I biographical novel, which is available as both a hardcover and an eBook.

Notable upcoming releases include is Dream Fossil – The Complete Satoshi Kon, a 440-page trade paperback that collects the 15 short manga stories of the late visionary director Satoshi Kon. The book will include some of the projects that Kon did in his later teenage years, as well as some of the work that helped launch him into the film business. Featured works including his early "Toriko" manga (no relation to Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro's manga of the same name), which won the Tetsuya Chiba Award for new artists, but was never published in a magazine, as well as a follow-up work. The compendium will also include his color comic, "Picnic," which will be reproduced in full color. The book will retail for $24.95, and will be released in Summer 2015.

Vertical also had a new acquisition to announce—A Sky Longing for Memories: The Art of Makoto Shinkai, which will be available May 2015. The book will retail for $34.95 and will be 160 pages.