Kicking ASTRO

Promoing the second "coming in 2009" project this week, it occurs to me that this is the second consecutive one that I really hope leads to people checking out the source material as well as our comics. Next fall, there's a big-screen ASTRO BOY movie coming, and everything I've seen from it shows that it's going to be a big, CGI-animated love letter to Osamu Tezuka, as it should be. We're doing a 4-part prequel series written by Scott Tipton and illustrated by Diego Jourdan, and both the story and art I've seen so far are also very much in the vein of Tezuka's great work.

The prequel series starting in May is actually more of a "post-quel," since the story is set at a point after the movie itself (which tells Astro's origin). Scott will also be adapting the movie to comics, to be drawn by E.J. Su, who credits Tezuka for making him want to be an artist in the first place. Artists and writers everywhere appreciate the mastery of Tezuka's works (ASTRO barely scratches the surface of the probably 10,000 pages he produced in his career) -- Ashley Wood agreed to provide a cover for the first issue because he's a big Tezuka fan. So all of this hopefully helps cast an eye not only on these nice tributes to the original Astro and the movie, but especially to the original material. Much of the original ASTRO BOY has been collected in thick manga volumes and all are highly recommended. Much like in the case of Starks PARKER, hopefully we do the creators proud, wherever they're now reading their comics.

The piece here is by Diego and colored by Tom Smith.