Marvel/Epic Comics

[ www.marvel.com ]

The Original 38 Issue Run of Akira

This 38 issue run of Akira is the first version of Akira to be translated and released in the west. What makes this release so significant is the fact that it was one of the first Japanese Manga to ever be translated and released in the west and it was also one of, if not, the first comic books to be coloured by a digital method.

"Akira was groundbreaking in the development of digital colourisation of comic books. Steve Oliff created the process while colourising Otomo's pencils strictly for Akira. Later in 1992 he founded Digital Chameleon and did the colouring for all the Image books. DC and Marvel soon followed and all comics became coloured digitally instead of by hand." - "If you thought Cliffhanger was late, Marvel/Epic published the first 33 issues of Akira monthly and waited almost 2 years to publish the last 5 issues." - Michael Ryan [www.ryaninteractive.com/comicvault]

Olyoptics won over a dozen industry awards for color excellence, beginning with a Harvey award in 1989 for Akira, by Katsuhiro Otomo." Read the full article on [colouring the akira manga] here.

There was a significant delay in releasing the last eight issues of this collection. I've read that Otomo was unhappy with the ending and wanted to re-write it. Whether this re-write was for this collection alone remains a mystery to me. It could be that it was for all the comics and just differed to how it was written in Young magazine, which would make sense, since magazine's are published to strict deadlines.

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The Collected 10 Volume Set of Akira

These volumes collect the Epic comics in larger volumes with better quality paper. They sadly remain incomplete at around book 30. A further volume 11 and 12 would have been neccassary to finish the collection off.

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