Robothotdog ~ La Casa de Hijinks


	Marketing Samples: Author Interviews: Reviews: Columns:

Astro Boy Volume 1
By Osamu Tezuka
Translator: Frederick L. Schodt
Publisher: Dark Horse
(book review for 4 Color Review, March 2002)

Although Dark Horse's reputation has languished in recent years because of its lack of original material and its unabashed and relentless assault of mediocre comics based on cultishly adored commercial properties (Star Wars, Aliens, et al.), the once highly respected independent publisher has quietly turned into one of the finest and most dedicated manga publishers around. Now, still not content with presenting AKIRA, LONE WOLF AND CUB, APPLESEED, BLADE OF THE IMMORTAL, GHOST IN THE SHELL and DOMU in their entirety, Dark Horse is publishing for the first time in the United States, the complete 23-volume run of Osamu Tezuka's well-known -- but oddly little read -- ASTRO BOY.

Truly, Tezuka is one of the select few human beings from modern history whose imagination, genius, and creativity -- warts and all -- can be said to have had a phenomenal and lasting influence on global culture. Revered in his native country as the "god of manga," Tezuka in his lifetime created an immense body of work as influential as any of the other more famous graphic pioneers like Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, or Herge. And as if that wasn't enough, in 1963 Tezuka turned ASTRO BOY ('Mighty Atom' in Japan) into Japan's first animated television series, planting the stylistic and thematic seeds for the pop revolution known as anime. The show was brought to American shores in the mid '60s, planting the seeds for '70s and '80s bastardized imports like "Star Blazers," "Battle of the Planets," "Captain Harlock," "Transformers," "Robotech," "Sailor Moon," and "Pokemon."

This first volume of ASTRO BOY contains three stories: "The Birth of Astro Boy" (1975), "The Hot Dog Corps" (1961), and "Plant People" (1961). As Frederik Schodt explains in his entirely informative introduction (the place where I gathered the facts for this review), the stories are obviously not presented in chronological order. In fact, not many of the stories in the entire series are in chronological order. Apparently, back in the mid '70s when ASTRO BOY was first collected, Tezuka and the other collection editors chose an order for the stories that they felt was more appropriate. Therefore, the first ASTRO BOY story, which was published in 1951 (!), doesn't appear until around volume 15 or so.

However, "The Birth of Astro Boy" is a completely appropriate way to start off and tells the tragic tale of Dr. Tenma, who, after his son Tobio is killed in a car accident, creates a robot child as a replacement. After coming to grips with the fact that the robot will never grow up like a real human, Tenma sells the robot to a sleazy robot vendor. The robot vendor sells Astro Boy to a circus, where Professor Ochanomizu discovers him. Ochanomizu takes Astro Boy under his wing, and discovers his super powers, which include flight, super strength, super hearing, and, no kidding, a machine gun that shoots out of his ass. If any of this sounds in the least bit similar to last summer's "A.I.," keep in mind that Tezuka once mentioned that he created Astro Boy "to be a 21st-century reverse-Pinocchio, a nearly perfect robot who struggled to become more human and emotive and to serve as an interface between man and machine." Go figure.

This volume's second story, "The Hot Dog Corps," is as colossally bizarre as its title suggests, but it's also an unrelenting, unpredictable and engaging 170-page epic that revels in that kind of anything goes, innocent, goofy, over-the-top insanity that characterizes the best Silver Age superhero books. It involves lots of action, space travel, nefarious evil doing, and giant robots, but surprisingly (to me, anyway) also manages to invoke themes of identity, technology, control, and power. "Plant People" is much shorter, but successful in similar ways.

Tezuka's writing will remind many of Carl Barks' Scrooge McDuck work, C.C. Beck's Captain Marvel, or even Segar's Popeye newspaper strips, and his fine, skilled, and irresistibly charming artwork functions as a fascinating stylistic bridge. While it contains the sharp, clean grace, scope, and unassuming magnetism of American animation and comic strip art, it also has the vigor, energy, perfectionism, and other details that most will recognize as being distinctly Japanese and have become part of manga's artistic language.

With the increasing popularity of manga and anime in American culture, Dark Horse is providing us not only with a historical piece of the Japanese cultural puzzle, but another great way to spend a measly $10. Plus, robots!