At the Del Rey panel at the San Diego Comic Con International, Betsy Mitchell, V.P. and Editor-in-Chief announced that Del Rey will launch six new manga series in 2005.  'Since we were profitable almost from day one,' Mitchell explained, 'Random House told us to go out and get some more.' The addition of six new series will bring Del Rey's total to twelve.  Del Rey is also stepping up the pace of its releases in October, which will see the publication of five new books including the first volumes in two highly regarded new shoujo series, The Wallflower and Othello as well as the third volumes in three of the four original Del Rey manga series, Tsubasa, Negima, and xxxholic.

 

Del Rey has not yet finalized deals for any of the new 2005 series and made no new title announcements.  Mitchell did say that although both The Wallflower and Othello were shoujo series, Del Rey was not picking titles by genre, but just trying to find the best available properties.  Dallas Middaugh, Del Rey's Director of Manga, told the Comic Con audience that if any of the manga Del Rey licenses in the future has a section of color pages, Del Rey will print the pages in color for the American edition.