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Stone Bridge to Release 'The Astro Boy Essays'

The Astro Boy Essays

Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom,
and the Manga-Anime Revolution
By Frederik L. Schodt

Advance Praise for The Astro Boy Essays

Astro Boy is a historical figure, more often heard of than seen, to today's anime fans. Now Frederik Schodt tells the full story about the little robot and his creator, Osamu Tezuka, in a delightful book that every anime fan should read.”
Fred Patten, animation and comics historian, author of Watching Anime, Reading Manga

“[Stone Bridge's] big book of the year will be The Astro Boy Essays, an examination of the life and work of the late manga and anime master Osamu Tezuka by manga and anime expert Frederik L. Schodt.”
Publishers Weekly


June 1, 2007 (Berkeley, CA) – Although Japanese “God of Manga” Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989) produced more than 150,000 pages of manga and over 70 animated titles, Astro Boy is his life's masterwork. Typical of Tezuka's ethically complex tales, Tetsuwan Atomu, or “Mighty Atom,” known in the U.S. as Astro Boy, is an enduring story about a cute little android with a nuclear reactor for a heart who yearns to be more human. In THE ASTRO BOY ESSAYS: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga-Anime Revolution (Stone Bridge Press, July 2007), we hear the full story about Tezuka from his longtime American friend and translator, Japan expert Frederik L. Schodt.

In a sophisticated take on the history of one of the fastest growing markets in the world, Schodt reveals the intricacies of Tezuka's life and explores Astro Boy's immense cultural impact in Japan and overseas. Original full-color Astro Boy art and over 40 black-and-white images bring the stimulating essays to life.

THE ASTRO BOY ESSAYS is a perfect tie-in to Tezuka : The Marvel of Manga, an exhibit at San Francisco's Asian Art Museum from June 2 through September 9, 2007. The museum is the only U.S. venue for this gathering of 200 original pieces of Tezuka's artwork - the first exhibition of its kind outside of Japan.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Frederik L. Schodt, fluent in written and spoken Japanese, is a translator and author of numerous books about Japan, including Dreamland Japan, America and the Four Japans, Native American in the Land of the Shogun, and Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, the first book in English on manga, published in 1983. Schodt translated the 23-volume Astro Boy series and numerous other manga into English and often served as Tezuka's personal interpreter. In 2000, Schodt received the Asahi Shimbun's Osamu Tezuka Culture Award for popularizing manga overseas.

Schodt lives in San Francisco. He will be speaking at UC Santa Cruz on June 4, and on a panel at the Asian Art Museum on July 7.


The Astro Boy Essays
Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom, and the Manga-Anime Revolution
By Frederik L. Schodt
$16.95, TP, July 2007
ISBN 978-1-933330-54-9
248 pages, 5 3/8” x 7 ¾”
40 B&W illustrations, 16 full-color pages
Popular Culture/Film & TV
Includes: Index, Bibliography, English/Japanese Appendix of Mighty Atom Animation Titles, Engish/Japanese Appendix of Mighty Atom manga Titles

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