Billy Bat, Volume 1

Set in 1949, Billy Bat tells the tale of Kevin Yamagata, a Japanese-American artist who has hit it big with his popular new series Billy Bat.

As you can see, that comic is a cartoon noir, with lots of subterfuge and, it turns out, communist spies. Everything is going all right until one day, Kevin learns that his character may be based on one that originated in Japan, where he was stationed during World War II. 

Even though the stories that character Billy Bat has are not based on any story he's consciously read, he feels obligated to travel to Japan and track down the original artist in order to get his blessing and also head off any issues with plagiarism. What Kevin finds in Japan instead turns into a tangled web of murder, politics, ancient texts, graffiti, tattoo artists, and communist spies. And the reaches of this conspiracy range far, maybe even beyond planet Earth. There are plenty of twists and turns in this single volume, likely a portent of the amount of suspense to follow.

The kick-off to this series was made by writer/artist Naoki Urusawa and Takashi Nagasaki. Urusawa is an internationally known manga creator, winner of the Shogakukan Manga Award three times, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize twice, two Eisner Awards, and the Kodansha Manga Award. His works have been some of the most celebrated of recent times and include Asadora!, Monster, 20th Century Boys, and Pluto. Nagasaki is also an award winning manga writer/editor with a long list of credits. Billy Bat has been completed in Japan for some time and only now being published in the US, and editor Kriistina Korpus explains more about why in this interview.

All of the reviews I have read of this book have been positive. Matthew Orozco opined that it is "an enthralling, genre-defying series that combines mystery, historical fiction, conspiracy theory, and metafiction, unfolding across multiple eras and continents." David Brooke called it "exactly the kind of ambitious, unpredictable storytelling that has made Naoki Urasawa one of manga’s most celebrated creators." Kara Dennison wrote, "The art is wonderfully dissonant, slipping easily between stylized mid-century cartoons and a more settled, faded realism."

Billy Bat was published by Kana, and they offer more information about it here.

Pluto: Urasawa X Tezuka, Volume 1

Osamu Tezuka is considered the Walt Disney of Japanese animation and comics, responsible for a number of beloved characters, chief among them Astro Boy. So recasting one of the most beloved of Astro Boy's stories, "The Greatest Robot on Earth" is a tall order, much as it would be to redo a classic such as Bambi or Snow White. In this case, Urasawa plays to his strengths, recasting the story into a murder mystery. A mysterious figure is destroying the most powerful robots in the world, and one detective is on the case. That detective is Gesicht, who is himself a highly advanced, powerful robot.

As the series goes on, it redresses some of the more anachronistic parts of Tezuka's tale, with a more realistic and less stereotypical portrayal of Middle Eastern people and conflicts. The ability of Urasawa to marry ideas from Tezuka's original story with popular culture and historical references from more recent times is one of the great strengths here. The story is not a direct update but also draws on a great many pop culture works like Isaac Asimov's I, Robot and Star Trek: The Next Generation as pointed out in this substantive review by Ed Sizemore. It is this eye to include disparate elements that lends greater intrigue and depth to the story.

Naoki Urasawa is one of the most acclaimed purveyors of manga in recent times. His work on series such as Monster and 20th Century Boys has led to financial and critical success. He has won the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award three times, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize twice, and the Kodansha Manga Award once. Pulitzer Prize winning author Junot Diaz even called him "a national treasure in Japan."

Updating a classic for a modern audience is no easy task, but according to many reviewers, including Charles Tan, Urasawa's effort here is very successful. The strong characterizations in the story led Greg McElhatton to call it a "must read." One other review from Deb Aoki compares the updated Urasawa version to the original Osamu story.

For people interested in more discussion on this volume there is a substantial essay on the series on the Tezuka in English website.