Dark Horse was the second publisher to share some good news at this year’s Anime Weekend Atlanta, announcing that they had licensed two new spin-offs of their popular franchises.

NGE: Shinji Ikari Detective Diary – Takumi Yoshimura

Trigun: Multiple Bullets – Multi-Author Anthology

Shinji Ikari Detective Diary is a Neon Genesis Evangelion spin-off that takes place in an alternate universe where Kaworu and Kaiji are detectives who the lead, Shinji, seeks out for help. Like the other NGE spin-offs, several of which Dark Horse has published already, this series likely won’t have a plot at all similar to its source material but instead utilize the same characters to offer fans the cast in a new setting. I’m not a big Evangelion fan to begin with, but I’ll admit the detective story does pique my interest somewhat.

Trigun: Multiple Bullets is an anthology of short stories all done by different artists, including the series’ creator, Yasuhiro Nightow. You can read more information about the creators involved at AnimeNewsNetwork’s post about the acquisition. Dark Horse announced a similar book, Evangelion: Comic Tribute, back in the Spring.

Dark Horse also stated that they’ll be releasing the original Trigun series in omnibus editions, and will be doing the same for Lone Wolf and Cub. Lone Wolf and Cub has been published by Dark Horse for over a decade (while first being published in English back in the eighties by a now defunct company) in small mini volumes. These new omnibus editions will be more the standard manga volume size, which is a great development to see. I always thought the artwork in the series would be better served with a larger trim cut.

No information was given as to when and for how much these new books will be released.