A post over on the CLAMP_now community forums has confirmed what has long since begun to feel like the inevitable: CLAMP in America is officially cancelled.
“The title ‘Clamp in America’ has been cancelled. There is no tentative release date scheduled for this title at this time. The only pending volumes currently scheduled for release from Clamp are XXXHolic 17 in September of this year and XXXHolic 18 in December of this year.”
After initially being announced at San Diego Comic Con 2008, CLAMP in America was an informational and fandom oriented book about the manga group CLAMP and their history, influence and popularity in North America. It was (or would’ve been) written by Shaeon Garrity with interviews and input from fans, comic creators and CLAMP themselves. The book had been delayed every couple of months since then with no word from DelRey saying anything otherwise, until now.
This comes as a pretty big disappointment as I’d really been looking forward to it, both as a huge CLAMP fan and someone who enjoys Shaneon Garrity’s writing. That said, I’m not really surprised, especially since DelRey’s manga licenses recently shifted over to Kodansha Comics (with only XXXHolic currently remaining in their hands until it ends) and Dark Horse being the current CLAMP powerhouse with their omnibus editions. It’d be wonderful, however unlikely, if we could see the book shift over to Dark Horse; it’d be a great compliment to their CLAMP library.
Unfortunate and not the news we’d been waiting to hear but at least we’ve now heard something.