Yesterday afternoon was a whirlwind of links and happiness as news broke on Journalista that Fantagraphics, publishers of such awesome comics as Castle Waiting, has “signed an agreement with Shogakukan to launch a full manga line edited and curated by Matt Thorn.” This prompted folks on Twitter to casually note that Shogakukan publishes Heart of Thomas, Otherworld Barbara, and 7SEEDS. Just sayin’.

Chris Butcher over at Comics212 has posted a comprehensive roundup of the story, including the line-up of a Moto Hagio short story collection due this September and details on the December release of Wandering Son (a.k.a. Hourou Musuko), a title I’ve wanted to see get licensed for a while.

Even better, Matt Thorn himself comments on Chris’ article, so go check it out!

UPDATE: Dirk Deppey has posted again with more details about the new manga line, including these tantalizing and/or awesome and/or awesomely tantalizing tidbits:

No, this won’t be the last Moto Hagio book that we publish.

We’re committed to publishing Wandering Son from start to finish. Yes, of course we’re aware of the controversial nature of its subject matter. Those who don’t like it are strongly encouraged to lump it.

For any stray manga fans reading this who don’t know who we are: Fantagraphics is one of the pioneering publishing houses responsible for nurturing the modern literary-comics movement, and we take our job very seriously. We have more than earned our reputation for publishing works of the highest artistic quality in well-designed, high-end volumes, and we certainly intend to carry this aesthetic over to the manga we publish as well. These will not be slipshod books.