Word: astro
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RALPH'S WORLD: THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KID ASTRO Imagine Ziggy Stardust--era David Bowie doing the theme for a Nickelodeon cartoon, and you'll have the title track, a 3-min. rock operetta about a space boy who gets powers from a magic comet (but still has to go to school). From there, alt rocker turned children's rocker Ralph Covert runs through genres like a kid hitting every ride at a theme park: British Invasion backbeats, infectious Buddy Holly stomps and fanciful finger picking...
...kind of introverted preteen who would never deign to express interest in anything, gets hooked on anim?, manga and all things cool that are Japanese. Charley's excitement is enough to inspire his father, and soon the middle-aged literary novelist is parsing the finer points of Akira and Astro Boy. Carey is intrigued enough by this dazzling stuff?he hopes they'll "enter the mansion of Japanese culture through its garish, brightly lit back door"?but his real intention is to connect with Charley, who is on the brink of disappearing into the teenage years. So when Carey takes...
...pioneer of the comix form, Tezuka (1928-1989) has been enjoying a spate of U.S. releases in the last couple of years. Dark Horse continues to publish his Astro Boy series (see TIME.comix review) while Vertical Inc. just released volume four of the gorgeous eight-volume "Buddha" series (see TIME.comix review). Meanwhile VIZ has been publishing the first of the "Phoenix" books - the master's unfinished, twelve volume magnum opus. The fourth, "Phoenix: Karma" (366pp; $15.95) has just been released. The fifth volume, "Resurrection," is due in November. (Sadly, the remaining seven have not yet been contracted for publication.) While...
...just a gaijin in a tight suit. From the lithe, demon-slaying Devilman to the clunky robot Iron Man 28, Japan has its own superhero pantheon that is ripe for recycling on the big screen. The Japanese love of cartoon heroes started with the birth in 1952 of Astro Boy and has continued unabated?the average citizen can rattle off superhero names and special powers like a bona fide comic-store geek. "It's a matter of pride for Japan to keep up with the U.S.," says Atsushi Ohara, a manga and anim? critic for the daily Asahi Shimbun. "When...
...that would combine government money, academic research and corporate know-how to build a humanoid with the intelligence and the physical ability of a 5-year-old. He calls the proposal the Atom Project--after the Japanese name for the comic-book robot superhero known in the U.S. as Astro Boy. "Atom was abandoned by its creator, who built it to replace his dead son, because it was incapable of growing," Kawato notes. "We know how to make our Atom learn." --By Toko Sekiguchi