The Series
The Astro Boy license was sold to Tony C. Caputo by a "Japanese national", whom actually had no legal access to Tezuka's characters. (Since the bankruptcy of Mushi Production in 1973, and due to the ensuing court-ordered settlement, ownership of Tezuka's copyrights came into question and would not be resolved for almost thirty years.) This person is only credited as Suzuki & Associates in the fine print of most issues.
Brian Thomas was originally assigned as the lead artist in 1987, with Ken Steacy as the cover artist, but Steacy offered to do full-colour artwork and be paid in Canadian dollars. Ken Steacy became the artist until issue #16 and writer for issues #8-17, before Brian Thomas took over fully. Sales rose, but the series was cancelled after NOW! Comics got a deal for newsstand distribution for all of their titles.
While dedicating itself to the 1960s anime's continuum, the first nine issues were a longer, drawn-out version of only the anime's first episode. Despite taking quite a few elements and character designs from the 1980s series, the editors claimed that the then-newer anime "did not stand up to (the) old black-and-white version". The comic possessed a greater level of war and robot-to-human violence, greatly differing from Osamu Tezuka's original morals. The comic seemed to be intended for an older audience until halfway through the series, when Michael Dempsey left NOW Comics and Ken Steacy became the main writer. After this change of writers, there were a string of light standalone plots, going until the cancellation of the series.
Read more about this topic: Astro Boy (NOW Comics)
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