Broken Frontier

A new chapter in the saga of the Witchblade opens in February, and it will be available in whichever flavor you like.

Top Cow Productions' Witchblade Manga launches in February, featuring all-original stories created in conjunction with the hyper-popular Witchblade anime broadcast on Japanese TV last year. Witchblade anime head writer Yasuko Kobayashi writes these new manga tales, with art by Kazasa Sumita. Top Cow will offer these tales presented for the first time ever to a North American audience, in traditional North American form: Reading left-to-right, and in color, with colorist Blond (Hunter-Killer) taking on the color chores. And that's not all.

“We know many manga fans in America tend to be purists, so we're catering to all audiences,” said Top Cow President Matt Hawkins. “The Top Cow release will be flipped and colored, and in summer, 2007, Bandai will release Witchblade Manga in digest form, in its original black-and-white, and reading back to front. The formats and styles will be very different, so we're looking at it as a unique experiment, that we're doing hand-in-hand and with the blessing of the original publisher and the artist.”

Artist Kazasa Sumita is also excited about the dual release. “I am familiar with Top Cow titles, and have subscribed to their imported books and comics,” the artist said. “They are exceptional in the beauty of artwork. I am amazed and honored that I, a reader and fan of their works, am now working with them as an artist.”

Witchblade: Manga. ™ and © 2007 Top Cow Productions, Inc.,・GONZO/CBC・GDH・SPWT.
Artwork © 2007 Yasuko Kobayashi, Kazasa Sumita.