AstroBoy Online Forums

I'm about to show you all scans of possibly the most obscure Astro Boy media there is. The story behind this is that in 1987, the now-defunct NOW! Comics company begun getting liscenses for popular movies and a few cartoons, like Speed Racer and almost Kimba & Princess Knight. When they begun on Astro Boy, the story was a blend of the 60's and 80's anime, but ended up doing a 180. It lasted 20 issues before a liscensing snafu occured [that's my theory]. It seems NOW!'s other 30+ comic titles begun to drop out of the sky between 1990-2004, when the company went and blew. Before that, they published the college reader-targeted "Ralph Snart" of which Pete of Platypus Comix knows:
"(...) I once walked into a comic book shop and asked the teenager working there, "Show me something funny." He said, "Hey, try Ralph Snart! Ralph Snart's funny." My mom read three pages of "Ralph Snart" and practically strangled the guy who sold it to me. All I remember about Ralph was that he was grumpy, short and drank a lot of beer."
You get the idea about NOW!. But enough talk. I'll bring out the pictures.

This is Astro. He was less adorable than usual, as they gave him the ol' "Megaman", where the victim is drawn a little taller, with larger muscles, and a bit more violent.

Tenma, here called "Boynton", was a little more freakish. But his personality is in check and near the end of the run he gets better-looking. If his skull wasn't almost always the shape of a Pop-Tart box and all, I'd be the happiest girl in the world.

Uran wasn't so lucky, either. Here she's Astro Girl. When reading, one becomes REALLY uncomfortable with the up-skirt shots. Pardon my terms.

These are Astro's parents Elmer and Rebecca, once scientists but were made into robots after an accident. Rebecca is a hyped version of Astro's 1980's mother, and Elmer is the mascot from a Toronto pizza place.

Shunsaku Ban is Mr. Pompus, and over there's Nuka [or Nikki, but now "Krystal Kleer"] and below her, Kenichi [Kenneth]. Shibugaki was here as "Archie", but he looked like a bald and fat Moose.

Tawashi annoyed me before, but as Gumshoe he's intolerable. He's also got the same skull disease that Boynton has.

NO ASTRO!! DON'T GET IN THE CAR WITH DR. ELEFUN! If you think this is bad, wait 'til you see...

Duke Red, now Tas Tamil. That's The General, his boss. Make your own joke.

Hamegg is Mr. Cacciatore, the kinda-but-sorta-not-threatening ringmaster.

Last but least, it's Dr. Foola as I. Q. Plenty. He had an ego the size of Texas, believed women would go for him, and ran around with Spud the genetically-enhanced talking dog. I can't stand either one.

I have three pictures not suitible for the forum- Boynton "packing heat", more of Spud than you'd ever want to see, and Astro Girl's worst up-shot -which can be obtained by PM-ing me. Also, I have the first NOW! issue in its entirety. Should I put that up?
That about ends it. Sorry for my never-ending gab.

To me this is cool cause I've never seen any pics of the American Astro, though, I have heard about it somewhere. Just didn't care to look. It also looks funny as in I think Osamu did a better job. lol

Uran is quite creepy! I won't stand near her, that's for sure.

Tawashi, Astro's parents and Ban Shunsaku are the best looking charachters. However, it's nice to see that the author choose a personal style drawing the comic instead of practically copying Tezuka.

I didn't mind how Shunsaku and Astro's Mom were drawn, either. As well, I think the artist for 70% of the series was a Canadian named Ken Steacy, but for the last three issues, he was switched with Brian Thomas who ended up drawing in a clone mix of Tezuka and Disney.

Amazing! I love this sorta stuff, it really tickles me, lol. I'm going to go off and find more info on it now.

Btw, was Skunk in this comic? Would you happen to have any pictures of him?

Those "up skirt shots" are quite common in both the Astroboy manga & anime. The significance is different for little girls than it is for teenagers and women, though. With the former, it is usually cute, & presumed that the child is out growing her clothing. The latter needs no explanation.

I thank you for sharing these images. I could use pics of the characters, hopefully head to toe images. I want to use them for the characters' versions. See my page on Capt. Atom:
http://tezukainenglish.com/?q=node/210

-Thanks.

Mr. Skunk - I haven't been able to find Skunk in any of the issues I've seen. I'm still hunting the issues down, and I'll let you know if I catch sight of him.

Jeffbert - I'll try and get full scans of everybody by at least this afternoon.

Sorry for double-posting, but I got Jeffbert's scans. Here's as many as I could get before my scanner kacked. [A great cry fell over the land of DSL users...]

His arm is gone since that issue featured Astro fighting an Atlas-like robot, although the robot was unnamed and was just a grey, slightly-melted Astro.

Dr. Boynton (Tenma) This is a peculiar full-body shot.

Astro Girl (Uran)

Inspector Gumshoe (Tawashi)

Chief McClaw (Nakamura)

"Krystal" (Nuka) and "Archie" (Shibugaki) are the only children identified as Astro's friends. "Kenneth" (Kenichi) appears and is mentioned once, briefly, but "Tommy" (Tamao) appears twice with Archie beating him up. There isn't a single decent picture of Tommy, either.

This is the only picture I've found of Rebecca (Astro's mum) that doesn't cut off at the knees. I do have a pretty headshot of her, but I'll get that scanned with tomorow's batch.

Elmer Dobbs (Astro's dad) is no luckier. I have dozens of pictures of him above the waist, though.

I. Q. Plenty (Foola) and Spud the Dog

I've yet to get Mr. Pompus, Dr. Elefun, and Tas Tamil, so with that next batch I can supply any other pictures that needed correction or replacement.

I LOVE this artwork!!! Thank you so much for sharing!

And thank you for hunting down my Skunkie Poo...

Thanks! What is Nuka's role in this comic, is she still a walking H-bomb?