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Digital Manga Launches Kickstarter to Print Tezuka's Alabaster
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
North American publisher Digital Manga launched a Kickstarter campaign on Wednesday to localize and publish Osamu Tezuka's two-volume revenge suspense manga Alabaster in English. The campaign has a $29,200 goal, and will end on February 27, 2015 at 8:28 p.m. EST.
Digital Manga describes the story:
Once a famous athlete, now an infamous villain, James Block seeks revenge against all things "beautiful." After he's arrested and convicted for assaulting his girlfriend who insulted his appearance, he meets a mad scientist in prison who tells him of the 'F Laser' he invented that can turn any carbon based organism invisible. When James finishes his prison term, he finds the 'F Laser' and points it on himself, however the imperfect laser beam leaves him disfigured with only his skin invisible. On a vicious revenge spree, he takes the nom de guerre of Alabaster and is joined by Ami, the granddaughter of the scientist who experimented on his pregnant daughter and left Ami fully invisible. Together they pull off several heists, but Ami's innocence may cause Alabaster's downfall…“I'm Alabaster...I'm sure you've heard what kind of man I am.”
“It is possible for you to understand my pain.”
Digital Manga successfully funded a print edition of Tezuka's Captain Ken manga in June. Digital Manga also used Kickstarter to raise funds to reprint Tezuka's Barbara and Swallowing the Earth manga. The English release of Barbara was nominated for an Eisner in 2013. Most recently, Digital Manga funded its release of Tezuka's Ludwig B manga through Kickstarter.
Digital Manga's Kickstarter campaign to publish Tezuka's 13-volume The Three-eyed One manga and seven-volume Rainbow Parakeet manga failed to meet its US$380,000 goal last year. Digital Manga president Hikaru Sasahara said that he originally wanted to use Kickstarter to fund 50-70 books a year, but has switched to a goal of 20-30 volumes in order to lower the cost of publishing including licensing fees, advanced royalties, labor, and other expenses. He added that he would like to launch a new campaign for one to five books almost every month, with a week or two in between each campaign.
