Black Jack

Scalpel for hire

Black Jack

By Osamu Tezuka

Graphic Novel / Manga
Paperback & Digital, approx. 300 pages each, 6 x 8 inches
Vol. 1: 978-1-934287-27-9 Buy.
Vol. 2: 978-1-934287-28-6 Buy.
Vol. 3: 978-1-934287-41-5 Buy.
Vol. 4: 978-1-934287-43-9 Buy.
Vol. 5: 978-1-934287-55-2 Buy.
Vol. 7: 978-1-934287-60-6 Buy.
Vol. 11: 978-1-934287-78-1 Buy.
Vol. 14: 978-1-934287-94-1 Buy.
Vol. 16: 978-1-935654-01-8 Buy.
Vol. 17: 978-1-935654-11-7 Buy.
Print Edition U.S.$16.95 / CAN$18.95 | e-Book Edition U.S.$7.99 / CAN$8.99

Among adult readers in Japan Black Jack is Osamu Tezuka’s most popular achievement, and perhaps the most close to the creator’s heart, as Tezuka considered entering the medical field—majoring in medicine in college—before devoting his life to comics. Black Jack is a genius surgeon who never acquired his license due to his clashes with the medical establishment. He is hired out by anyone willing to pay his exorbitant rates and is perceived as a heartless rogue because of his enigmatic nature and antisocial manner. But as readers will soon discover, that is not the whole story.

Vertical, Inc. will release the Black Jack episodes in the order that Tezuka indicated for a hardcover “Deluxe Edition” planned before his untimely death in 1989 at the age of 60. Two earlier volumes of translations were released in 1998-99, but featured only 17 episodes of the nearly 250 that Tezuka created.

Each 300-page volume of the Vertical, Inc. series will feature a dozen-plus stories, most published in English for the first time. The Vertical volumes will also embody the high production standards that readers have come to expect, not only from the publisher’s Tezuka output, but also its line of Japanese pop fiction.

Click here for a free preview of Volume 1.

Click here for a free preview of Volume 2.

Click here for a free preview of Volume 3.



RETAILERS ONLY:
Contact info@vertical-inc.com for information on how to obtain this 18" x 24" promotional poster.


The news of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack finally coming to the States by virtue of Vertical, Inc. just got better.

Black Jack Special EditionsDiamond Comic Distributors has commissioned Exclusive Hardcover Editions of the first three volumes of the series. Each hardcover volume sports a unique cover different from those of the regular paperback editions. The hardcover volumes also include an additional story that will not be included in the regular soft cover series. These stories have been locked away at Tezuka Productions for decades by request of Tezuka himself, and have only recently been re-released in Japan.

Most importantly, each Exclusive Hardcover Edition will be limited in number.
Volume 1: Limited to only 1,500 copies!
Volumes 2 and 3: Limited to a mere 1,200 copies each!

These special editions are only available through specialty comic shops.

To find comic-book shops near you, call 1-888-comic book (1-888-266-4226), or visit the comic shop locator service at www.comicshoplocator.com. The site supports residents of the U.S. and Canada, as well as the United Kingdom and Ireland

“What makes Black Jack so great, in addition to Tezuka’s artwork and whirlwind narrative velocity (you can either breeze through these volumes or linger on the details), is his bottomless bag of stories. Tezuka effortlessly integrates scores of different surgical procedures into short, sharp tales that eviscerate the codified vicissitudes (especially reticence and duty) of Japanese society with, yes, surgical precision.”
—Richard Gehr, The Village Voice

“Manga master Osamu Tezuka may be best known for Astro Boy, but this installment of Black Jack continues the adventures of a far superior character… With his shock of white hair and rock-star demeanour, Black Jack transfers well to the manga version of the operating room. The book is peppered with enough knowledge to hint at Tezuka’s fascination with the frailty of the human body. [I]t means he can avoid the clichés of most manga storylines.”
The Guardian (U.K.)

“Surely there’s nothing in this series more continually striking than the artist’s relentless, guaranteed depictions of surgery itself, happy rubber skin always peeled away to show realist meat and bone, minutely detailed organs mended or transplanted, then covered up again in the stuff of effortless napkin doodles… I found even the least of [these stories] fascinating examples of an artist casting his net especially far, secure in his talented hands and firm in his fame—ready to confront any malady, striving to cut away any harm, instrument tips sharp for making flesh whole.”
Jog--The Blog

“‘Iconic’ doesn’t begin to sum up Black Jack’s importance in the world of manga… I see a lot of Tezuka fans reaching for their wallets—not just for this volume alone, but for the whole of Black Jack as it’s finally being re-released in the English-language edition it has always deserved. It was, and will be, more than worth the wait. Platinum Award.”
Advanced Media Network

“Totally fun, totally engrossing. Black Jack is a page-turner of the highest order, and I blew through 280+ pages and I’m hungry for more.”
Comics212.net

“Great material—classic crazy Tezuka with a bloody medical heartbeat tuning out the sound of man’s inhumanity to man.”
Newsrama

“While Astro Boy is more iconic and Phoenix is more epic in scope, Black Jack is arguably Tezuka’s best and most enjoyable work… [It] hits Tezuka’s sweet spot where his heart, his head and his sense of humor meet in perfect company.”
About.com

“To match the beautiful outside, Camellia Nieh did a fantastic job with the translation. The entire book was a fantastic read cover-to-cover that I refused to put down. Whether you’re just getting into manga, or have been a fan for decades, it would be a shame not to own this seminal title.”
Japanator

“Black Jack is a dramatic, nearly Byronic figure… With genre-spanning stories—horror, sci-fi, romance— and Tezuka’s signature blend of drama, bathos, and extreme broad comedy jammed together on every page, Black Jack is a wild but extravagantly entertaining ride that’s far more accessible than the author’s novel-length epics.”
Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“The stories are a unique mix of an Isaac Bashevis Singer morality tale, and outstanding creative medicine. Though Black Jack is aimed at a young audience, it has maturity not found in adult works. It’s a piece of comic art that excels in form, and message.”
Ain’t It Cool News

“Vertical, Inc. has promised 17 volumes of Black Jack to be released every other month over the next three years. That seems like a bold commitment, until you start reading the stories… From sores that look like faces (and talk, too) to eyes that see ghosts, the busy doctors on ‘E.R.’ never had to deal with any of these unique patients. Osamu Tezuka’s attention to detail on close-ups for surgeries and strange growths makes for some rubber-necking horror hard to turn away from. Black Jack is a 10.”
Comics Village

“Black Jack was Tezuka at his best; moving beyond his comfort zone, away from licensable children’s robot characters (for him) uncharted gekiga territory… You don…t need a doctor’s prescription and there’s no complicated follow-up medication or painful physical therapy…just some serious entertainment from the pen of one of the world’s masters of comics.”
Let’s Anime