Image (c) Yen Press/Young Kim
Coming to my attention via many fellow bloggers on Twitter, Yen Press has made public one of their newest projects: a manhwa edition of Twilight. For those who may’ve missed the recent pop-culture explosion, Twilight is a love story between a young girl named Bella and a vampire named Edward. The series has been a consistent top-seller in books for teenage girls and was recently a motion picture that brought in big dollars at the box-office.
Hachette Book Group, the company under whom Yen Press is an imprint, is also the company who publishes Twilight, so this project was a matter-of-time announcement more so than a surprise. Yen Press currently has a graphic novel series of another Hachette Book Group bestseller, Maximum Ride, and from past findings seems to have a few other popular series under Hachette’s wing in for adaptation consideration as well.
The series’ art will be done by Young Kim, a Korean manhwa artist. An example panel of the two lead characters can be seen above (text non-official of course ;) ) Stephenie Meyer, the writer of Twilight, is said to be following the series very intently to ensure a solid adaptation. During a previous interview, Stephenie Meyer implied the existance of a Twilight anime, and though corrected as merely speculative, by timeline it seems fair to assume that she may have been referring to this manhwa adaptation.
You can read the current Twilight news about the manhwa series from the initial source, Entertainment Weekly, and more recently ICv2.
Though not a fan of Twilight myself on any level past a ‘yay! young people are reading!’, the not-so-surprisingly vocal outrage at Yen Press’s choice in putting together a Twilight series seems a tad silly. If you don’t like Twilight, then don’t read the book. It’s an addition to their library, not a replacement for any existing series, and it’s frankly a non-disputable money maker which can do nothing but benefit those of us always eager to hear what new license Yen Press will announce next. Besides, we know what you’re really thinking… why is there still no Harry Potter manga-styled series? Oh wait, maybe that’s just me.
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