Anime Expo was a busy event for us this year, because we hosted our first-ever Manga Mavericks Books panel there! If you couldn’t go or missed it, don’t fret, because we’re sharing the audio recording of our panel here on the podcast feed, and we have the video of it up on our Youtube! So join the team behind Manga Mavericks Books in our very first industry panel and find out how the company that started as a manga podcast has transformed itself into one of the newest indie manga publishers! We made new announcements, shared some surprises, and answered Q&As from the audience! 

In addition to our panel, we also did a lot of interviews and panel coverage that you’ll see posted to the site very soon. One of the interviews I did was with Whitney Leopard, the Executive Editor of Penguin House Graphic’s new Ink Pop imprint, which is dedicated to publishing manga, manwha, and webtoons for young kids and middle-grade readers! One of their debut titles is a favorite of mine, I Wanna Be Your Girl by Umi Takase, which we previously reviewed when it was first made available on Mangamo. I talk with Whitney about Ink Pop’s goals as an imprint geared towards young readers, how and why they chose to publish I Wanna Be Your Girl, and what other kinds of titles they hope to publish in the near future! I had a great interview with Whitney, and it’s the first of a trifecta of interviews from the Manga Mavericks team, as Sakaki and MangaAlerts also conducted their own interviews that they’ll publish on their respective outlets soon! In the meantime, enjoy this first of our many interviews out of AX, and a taste of some of the coverage we did at the con!

 Download Here! 

PODCAST BREAKDOWN:

00:00  – Pre-Order Manga Mavericks Books! 

00:44 –  AX 2025 Intro & Overview 

16:32 – Manga Mavericks Books panel at AX 2025! 

1:07:32 – Interview with Whitney Leopard, Executive Editor of Ink Pop!

1:27:42 – Wrap-Up 

Enjoy the show, and follow us on Twitter at @manga_mavericks, on Bluesky at @mangamavericks.bsky.social, on Instagram at @mangamavericks_official, and on Youtube! You can also follow the hosts on Twitter at @VLordGTZ, @Wsstalkback, and @lumranmayasha. If you like Lum’s art, follow them on Instagram at @siddartworks. If you’d like to help support the show financially you can pledge to our Patreon or our Substack and receive some awesome rewards like our exclusive Bonus pods! Don’t forget to also like and subscribe to us on Youtube and Apple Podcasts and leave us reviews to help us curate the show and create better content! If there are any topics, series or mangaka you would like to see us talk about on the show, drop us a line in the comments below, or email us at mangamavericks@gmail.com! Thanks for listening!

 

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About The Author Siddharth Gupta

Siddharth Gupta is an illustrator, video editor, and writer based in Minnesota. They graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Animation from the School of Visual Arts and from the Master's of Science in Leadership for the Creative Enterprises program (MSLCE) at Northwestern University. They have worked on projects for the University of Minnesota, Shreya R. Dixit Foundation, and TriCoast Worldwide among others. An avid animation and comics fan since childhood, they've turned their passion towards being both a creator and a critic. They credit their love for both mediums to Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball, which has also defined their artistic and comedic sensibilities. A frequent visitor to their local comic book shops, they are an avid reader and collector, particularly fond of manga. Their favorite comics include The Adventures of Tintin by Herge, Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed, and pretty much anything and everything by Rumiko Takahashi.

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