MANGA > Ghost in the Shell Comic Releases

[Will-o-the-wisp]

Coming out reasonably soon, (as in 27th November) is the English edition of volume one of ManMachine Interface (Ghost in the Shell 2). The other three volumes will be released one per month. Practically giving it away at less than $4 each.

Information comes from Dark Horse Comics which also lists that the original Ghost in the Shell series is available in a trade paperback of about 352 pages length for the paltry sum of $25.

[KOS-MOS]

I was wondering where it was > they had originally set the release date for the first book at the end of October. Below are summaries of the first three issues with the original release dates. It looks like they just pushed everything back a month. Thank-you for the update, Will-o-the-wisp.

By Masamune Shirow, translated by: Frederik L. Schodt, cover by Masamune Shirow.

March 6, 2035. Motoko Aramaki is a hyper-advanced cyborg, a counter-terrorist net security expert, heading the investigative department of the giant multi-national, Poseidon Industrial. Partly transcending the physical world and existing in a virtual world of networks, Motoko is a fusion of multiple entities and identities, deploying remotely controlled prosthetic humanoid surrogates around the globe to solve a series of bizarre incidents. Meanwhile, Tamaki Tamai, a psychic investigator from the Channeling Agency, has been commissioned to investigate strange changes in the temporal universe, brought about by two forces, one represented by the teachings of a professor named Rahampol, and the other by the complex, evolving Motoko entity. What unfolds will all be in a day's work...a day that will change everything, forever. Man-Machine Interface, the sequel to Masamune Shirow's groundbreaking Ghost in the Shell reaches American shores. Featuring 100 pages of new art and story created since its original publication, most rendered in full color with digital effects on a level never before seen in the annals of graphic fiction.

40 pages, $3.99, in stores on Oct. 30.

By Masamune Shirow, translated by: Frederik L. Schodt, cover by Shirow.

March 6, 2035 -- four and half years since cyber-cop Matoko Kusanagi joined with an artifical intelligence and quit the 9th Police Squad. Now, a hyper-advanced cyborg called Motoko Aramaki -- a fusion of multiple entities and identities -- heads the investigative department of the giant multi-national, Poseidon Industrial, deploying remotely controlled humanoid surrogates around the globe as on-the-ground agents. When a herd of specially-bred pigs used to clone human organs for transplant are slaughtered, Motoko dispatches herself through cyberspace and utilizing surrogate cyborgs at far-flung locales to do the heavy lifting, Matoko hunts down the attackers, battling online and on the ground, but there may be more to the mystery than meets the eye...even the all-seeing eye of artificial intelligence.

32 pages, $3.50, in stores on Nov. 27.

By Masamune Shirow, translation By Frederik L. Schodt.

Cyborg cyber-agent Motoko Aramaki has dispatched a humanoid surrogate - call her "Clarice" - to investigate an apparent terrorist attack on a herd of genetically engineered pigs designed for human organ cloning. And no sooner does the surrogate hit the ground in a vehicle assembly plant halfway around the world than she's wrangling a herd of a different kind - no-nonsense security cyborgs bent on sending her to the cyber-scrapheap. But when Clarice/Matoko jacks into the brain of the facility's supervisor and breaks through network firewalls into the level 6 "ghostline," Motoko discovers that the pig slaughter may have been only a strike against a deeper conspiracy - and yet another hidden enemy. Special deluxe format with no interior advertising.

32 pages, $3.50, in stores on Dec. 18.

[BethBot0101]

On a related note, how good is the Ghost in a Shell DVDs?