Tokyopop Makes Manga Deal With Henson and Neil Gaiman

Date: 2005 July 25 18:48

Posted by Jeremy

Tokyopop announced it will be producing manga for two classic films from Jim Henson and Neil Gaiman's upcoming new film.

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Tokyopop has announced that it has partnered with the Jim Henson Company, the innovator in puppetry and animatronics responsible for the Muppets and various other sci-fi creatures and effects, in an exclusive deal to produce manga titles based on three of Henson’s fantasy titles. Even better will be that renowned comic book writer Neil Gaiman, best known for his hit title Sandman and for penning the English adaptation to Hiyao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke, will also be involved in writing one of the upcoming titles.

Gaiman will plot the prequel manga series for the upcoming film MirrorMask, which was created by Gaiman and director Dave McKean. The film, set to be released on September 30th of this year, is about a 15-year-old girl named Helena who finds herself in a fantasy world torn by opposing kingdoms and must find the legendary MirrorMask in order to save the world and return home. The prequel manga will tell how the princess managed to escape from the Dark Palace and was able to acquire to MirrorMask.

The other two projects involved are based on two classics from the Jim Henson Company. The first is Labyrinth, the 1986 film about a young girl named Sarah, played by a young Jennifer Connelly in one of her earlier roles, traveling to a fantasy world to rescue her infant brother from the clutches of the evil Goblin King, played by rock star David Bowie. Tokyopop will release a sequel manga to the film, written by Jack Forbes, which will follow the now 13-year-old Toby, the boy from the original film, as he returns to the Labyrinth to assume his role as heir to the Goblin Kingdom.

The final manga project will be a prequel manga to the cult 1982 classic The Dark Crystal. The story of good-versus-evil in the form of survivors of a nearly extinguished race trying to restore peace to their world, The Dark Crystal broke new ground when it was first released as being the first fully animatronic feature film. Henson also recently announced that a sequel of the cult classic is currently in preproduction.

All parties involved are excited by the upcoming releases, all of which are scheduled for a fall 2006 release.