Cartoonist Jim Rugg Pays Tribute to Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy with Limited Edition Blacklight Posters
An All-Star Roster of International Artists Honor the Legendary Mangaka,
As Part of the Kickstarter Campaign for the Highly Anticipated Documentary
TEZUKA! God of Manga
Available Only on Kickstarter, for a Limited Time
(November 3, 2026) Now funding on Kickstarter, the documentary TEZUKA! God of Manga, is celebrating the cultural legacy of the legendary manga and animator creator Osamu Tezuka, one of the 20th century's most influential artists. The highly anticipated film from Peabody Award-winning director Jason Andrew Cohn and the Bread & Butter Films production team (Camille Servan-Schreiber, Jinko Gotoh, Glen S. Fukushima, and Roland Kelts) will feature in-depth interviews with legendary manga and anime creators about the life and legacy of Tezuka, who's known throughout the world as the God of Manga. To showcase Tezuka's influence on international artists, the Kickstarter campaign features art prints from an international selection of illustrators, cartoonists, and fine artists including Eisner Award-winning cartoonist and designer Jim Rugg who has designed a limited edition Astro Boy Blacklight Poster Art Prints and Astro Boy T-Shirt that are available exclusively through the TEZUKA! God of Manga Kickstarter campaign.
Inspired by the iconic, and psychedelic posters of the 1970s (including Jack Kirby Marvel's iconic Marvel Comics posters), Rugg has revitalized the art of the blacklight poster for a new generation, reminding audiences of the beautiful appeal of a forgotten art form. Here the award-winning cartoonist is applying his eye for reverberating colors and design to Tezuka's most beloved character, Astro Boy, with a breathtaking 18 X 24 inch blacklight print. The design is also available as a limited edition, Kickstarter exclusive T-shirt.
“Astro Boy is such an all time great character!” said Hulk: Grand Design and Street Angel cartoonist Jim Rugg. “It's an honor to pay tribute both to Astro Boy and his esteemed creator. Tezuka is a Mount Rushmore creator.”
In addition to his Astro Boy Blacklight Poster Art Prints, Rugg has also contributed a beautiful ballpoint pen drawing of Astro Boy to the TEZUKA! God of Manga campaign, alongside collectible art prints featuring tributes to beloved Tezuka stories and characters by some of today's hottest manga and comic artists, including an Acetylene Lamp print by Shinichi Ishizuka (Blue Giant), Astro Boy by Dave Baker (Mary Tyler MooreHawk) and Jorge R. Gutiérrez (Book of Life), Black Jack by Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth) and Yūko Shimizu (Barbed Wire Baseball), Buddha by Jesse Lonergan (Dome), Phoenix by Matt Kindt (Mind MGMT), Princess Knight print by Elsa Charretier (November), Unico by Gurihuru (Unico Awakening, and Vampires by Nicole Goux (Punk'n Heads).
“Our goal is to introduce Osamu Tezuka to the English speaking world like never before,” said TEZUKA! God of Manga director Jason Andrew Cohn. “And what better way to make that introduction than by way of art?”
A moving, immersive, and visually stunning romp through comics history, the TEZUKA! God of Manga documentary unfolds in three acts, beginning with his childhood in the suburbs of Osaka in the shadow of the Pacific War. Launching from young Tezuka's dream of creating manga and founding his own independent animation studio, the film chronicles his ascendence to becoming a national sensation and the subsequent counter-cultural backlash in the 1960s, when young manga readers gravitated away from Tezuka and toward edgier artists in the gekiga movement. The third act explores Tezuka's remarkable comeback with enduring storylines like Phoenix and Black Jack. Featuring in-depth interviews with legendary manga and anime creators including Katsuhiro Ōtomo (Akira), Riyoko Ikeda (Rose of Versaille), Naoki Urasawa (Monster), Gō Nagai (Devilman), Yoshiyuki Tomino (Gundam), MADHOUSE co-founder and anime producer Masao Maruyama (Tokyo Godfathers), anime director Rintarō (Metropolis), best-selling fantasy author Ada Palmer (Too Like the Lightning), Samuel Sattin (Unico Awakening), and Jorge R. Gutiérrez (The Book of Life), the film will leave viewers reflecting on a creative legacy that extends beyond Tezuka's dozens of television cartoons and animated films and estimated 150,000 pages of published manga.
TEZUKA! God of Manga is scheduled for completion by 2028, in time for the centenary of Osamu Tezuka's birth. Fans can support the film on Kickstarter now. For more updates follow Tezuka! God of Manga on X, Bluesky, and Instagram.
ABOUT TEZUKA
Tezuka Osamu was born the eldest son of three children on November 3rd, 1928, in Toyonaka City, Osaka. An extremely witty and imaginative boy, he grew up in a liberal family exposed to manga and animation.
As a boy he also had a love for insects reminiscent of Fabre, and, reflecting the level of his interest in the insect world, later incorporated the ideogram for “insect” into his pen name.
Having developed an intense understanding of the preciousness of life from his wartime experience, Tezuka Osamu aimed to become a physician and later earned his license, but ultimately chose the profession he loved best: manga artist and animated film writer.
Tezuka Osamu's manga and animated films had a tremendous impact on the shaping of the psychology of Japan's postwar youth. His work changed the concept of the Japanese cartoon, transforming it into an irresistible art form and incorporating a variety of new styles in creating the “story cartoon.” Changing the face of literature and movies, his work also influenced a range of other genres.
His impact on animated film was equal to that which he had on the manga world. The lovable characters appearing in works such as Japan's first animated TV series “Astro Boy,” the color animated TV series “Jungle Emperor Leo,” and the two-hour animated special “Bander Book,” captured the hearts of the Japanese through the medium of television, propelling the animated film to tremendous popularity in Japanese general society.
Tezuka Osamu's work was exported to the U.S., Europe, and other Asian countries, becoming the stuff of dreams for children around the world. He also ventured into the world of full-length adult animation, exploring all possibilities of the field of animation.
ABOUT JIM RUGG
Jim Rugg is an Eisner and Ignatz Award winning cartoonist, designer, zinemaker, and illustrator. His books include Alien Disclosure Who What When Where and Why Now, Conspiracy Comics, True Crime Comics, 1986 zine, Hulk Grand Design, Street Angel, the PLAIN Janes, BW, Afrodisiac, For Adults Only, Supermag, Octobriana 1976, and Rambo 3.5. He is currently a Creative Producer at Gary Vaynerchuk's VeeFriends."
He is the co-creator of YouTube's Cartoonist Kayfabe channel. His comics are part of the Smithsonian permanent collection, the National Archives, and the Heinz History Center. He taught visual storytelling at the School of Visual Arts and the Animation Workshop in Denmark. Jim loves comic books, zines, lettering, podcasts, running, pro-wrestling, pizza, and cats. He lives and draws in Pittsburgh.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION TEAM:
Jason Andrew Cohn is the Peabody Award-winning director of EAMES: The Architect and the Painter; as well as two films that were finalists for the Ken Burns-Library of Congress Prize for film: Modernism, Inc. and The First Angry Man. He co-produced the award-winning Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin. His radio stories have appeared on nationally syndicated public radio programs and his print reporting has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the LA Weekly, and Rolling Stone Magazine. Jason became a fan of Osamu Tezuka while living in Sapporo, Japan between 1991-1995. He lives in Berkeley, California.
Camille Servan-Schreiber, born in France, has been working in documentary film in the US since 1998. She has produced for PBS American Masters, PBS Frontline, National Geographic, and many other outlets, and has received numerous honors including a Peabody, a Golden Spire Award from the San Francisco Film Festival, and a national Emmy nomination. Camille's recent productions include Girls of the Golden West for PBS Great Performance. She is currently completing the follow-up documentary to Jennifer Siebel Newsom's Miss Representation.
Jinko Gotoh is a BAFTA® winner and an Oscar®-nominated producer and consultant for the animation industry. She is currently producing Sony Pictures Animation's upcoming Spider-ManTM: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the highly anticipated conclusion of the Spider-Verse trilogy. Her extensive producing credits include the 2020 BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated Klaus, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, BAFTA winner The Little Prince, the Oscar-nominated The Illusionist, 9, and the Oscar-winning Finding Nemo. Gotoh is devoted to advancing women and all underrepresented people in the film industry. She serves as vice president of Women in Animation and as a member of the Board of Governors for The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the Producers Guild of America.
Glen S. Fukushima is an American entrepreneur, academic, and philanthropist committed to deepening understanding between the United States and Japan. He is currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. InApril 2022, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as vice chairman of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation following his appointment by President Joe Biden. He was first exposed to Osamu Tezuka as a young boy while living on an American military base in Japan, where he looked forward to watching Astro Boy on TV.
Roland Nozomu Kelts is an award-winning journalist and the author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US and The Art of Blade Runner: Black Lotus. He writes for publications in the US, Japan and Europe, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Guardian, New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement, Nikkei Asia and The Japan Times, among others, and has contributed to several book-length collections. He was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University and teaches at Waseda University in Tokyo. He is also an editor of the Japanese literary journal, "MONKEY: New Writing from Japan." He has lectured on Osamu Tezuka and other Japanese artists and writers at the World Economic Forum, TED Talks and numerous venues in Asia, the US and Europe.
TEZUKA PRODUCTIONS: Tezuka Productions Co., Ltd. is a Japanese studio founded by Osamu Tezuka, known as the God of Manga, in 1968. The studio is now mainly engaged in management and operation of Tezuka's copyrighted works, both manga and animation, and in animation production. It is known for notable animation works such as Astro Boy (1980/2003), Jungle Emperor Leo (AKA: Kimba the White Lion), Dororo, and Black Jack.
As Part of the Kickstarter Campaign for the Highly Anticipated Documentary
TEZUKA! God of Manga
Available Only on Kickstarter, for a Limited Time
(November 3, 2026) Now funding on Kickstarter, the documentary TEZUKA! God of Manga, is celebrating the cultural legacy of the legendary manga and animator creator Osamu Tezuka, one of the 20th century's most influential artists. The highly anticipated film from Peabody Award-winning director Jason Andrew Cohn and the Bread & Butter Films production team (Camille Servan-Schreiber, Jinko Gotoh, Glen S. Fukushima, and Roland Kelts) will feature in-depth interviews with legendary manga and anime creators about the life and legacy of Tezuka, who's known throughout the world as the God of Manga. To showcase Tezuka's influence on international artists, the Kickstarter campaign features art prints from an international selection of illustrators, cartoonists, and fine artists including Eisner Award-winning cartoonist and designer Jim Rugg who has designed a limited edition Astro Boy Blacklight Poster Art Prints and Astro Boy T-Shirt that are available exclusively through the TEZUKA! God of Manga Kickstarter campaign.
Inspired by the iconic, and psychedelic posters of the 1970s (including Jack Kirby Marvel's iconic Marvel Comics posters), Rugg has revitalized the art of the blacklight poster for a new generation, reminding audiences of the beautiful appeal of a forgotten art form. Here the award-winning cartoonist is applying his eye for reverberating colors and design to Tezuka's most beloved character, Astro Boy, with a breathtaking 18 X 24 inch blacklight print. The design is also available as a limited edition, Kickstarter exclusive T-shirt.
“Astro Boy is such an all time great character!” said Hulk: Grand Design and Street Angel cartoonist Jim Rugg. “It's an honor to pay tribute both to Astro Boy and his esteemed creator. Tezuka is a Mount Rushmore creator.”
In addition to his Astro Boy Blacklight Poster Art Prints, Rugg has also contributed a beautiful ballpoint pen drawing of Astro Boy to the TEZUKA! God of Manga campaign, alongside collectible art prints featuring tributes to beloved Tezuka stories and characters by some of today's hottest manga and comic artists, including an Acetylene Lamp print by Shinichi Ishizuka (Blue Giant), Astro Boy by Dave Baker (Mary Tyler MooreHawk) and Jorge R. Gutiérrez (Book of Life), Black Jack by Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth) and Yūko Shimizu (Barbed Wire Baseball), Buddha by Jesse Lonergan (Dome), Phoenix by Matt Kindt (Mind MGMT), Princess Knight print by Elsa Charretier (November), Unico by Gurihuru (Unico Awakening, and Vampires by Nicole Goux (Punk'n Heads).
“Our goal is to introduce Osamu Tezuka to the English speaking world like never before,” said TEZUKA! God of Manga director Jason Andrew Cohn. “And what better way to make that introduction than by way of art?”
A moving, immersive, and visually stunning romp through comics history, the TEZUKA! God of Manga documentary unfolds in three acts, beginning with his childhood in the suburbs of Osaka in the shadow of the Pacific War. Launching from young Tezuka's dream of creating manga and founding his own independent animation studio, the film chronicles his ascendence to becoming a national sensation and the subsequent counter-cultural backlash in the 1960s, when young manga readers gravitated away from Tezuka and toward edgier artists in the gekiga movement. The third act explores Tezuka's remarkable comeback with enduring storylines like Phoenix and Black Jack. Featuring in-depth interviews with legendary manga and anime creators including Katsuhiro Ōtomo (Akira), Riyoko Ikeda (Rose of Versaille), Naoki Urasawa (Monster), Gō Nagai (Devilman), Yoshiyuki Tomino (Gundam), MADHOUSE co-founder and anime producer Masao Maruyama (Tokyo Godfathers), anime director Rintarō (Metropolis), best-selling fantasy author Ada Palmer (Too Like the Lightning), Samuel Sattin (Unico Awakening), and Jorge R. Gutiérrez (The Book of Life), the film will leave viewers reflecting on a creative legacy that extends beyond Tezuka's dozens of television cartoons and animated films and estimated 150,000 pages of published manga.
TEZUKA! God of Manga is scheduled for completion by 2028, in time for the centenary of Osamu Tezuka's birth. Fans can support the film on Kickstarter now. For more updates follow Tezuka! God of Manga on X, Bluesky, and Instagram.
ABOUT TEZUKA
Tezuka Osamu was born the eldest son of three children on November 3rd, 1928, in Toyonaka City, Osaka. An extremely witty and imaginative boy, he grew up in a liberal family exposed to manga and animation.
As a boy he also had a love for insects reminiscent of Fabre, and, reflecting the level of his interest in the insect world, later incorporated the ideogram for “insect” into his pen name.
Having developed an intense understanding of the preciousness of life from his wartime experience, Tezuka Osamu aimed to become a physician and later earned his license, but ultimately chose the profession he loved best: manga artist and animated film writer.
Tezuka Osamu's manga and animated films had a tremendous impact on the shaping of the psychology of Japan's postwar youth. His work changed the concept of the Japanese cartoon, transforming it into an irresistible art form and incorporating a variety of new styles in creating the “story cartoon.” Changing the face of literature and movies, his work also influenced a range of other genres.
His impact on animated film was equal to that which he had on the manga world. The lovable characters appearing in works such as Japan's first animated TV series “Astro Boy,” the color animated TV series “Jungle Emperor Leo,” and the two-hour animated special “Bander Book,” captured the hearts of the Japanese through the medium of television, propelling the animated film to tremendous popularity in Japanese general society.
Tezuka Osamu's work was exported to the U.S., Europe, and other Asian countries, becoming the stuff of dreams for children around the world. He also ventured into the world of full-length adult animation, exploring all possibilities of the field of animation.
ABOUT JIM RUGG
Jim Rugg is an Eisner and Ignatz Award winning cartoonist, designer, zinemaker, and illustrator. His books include Alien Disclosure Who What When Where and Why Now, Conspiracy Comics, True Crime Comics, 1986 zine, Hulk Grand Design, Street Angel, the PLAIN Janes, BW, Afrodisiac, For Adults Only, Supermag, Octobriana 1976, and Rambo 3.5. He is currently a Creative Producer at Gary Vaynerchuk's VeeFriends."
He is the co-creator of YouTube's Cartoonist Kayfabe channel. His comics are part of the Smithsonian permanent collection, the National Archives, and the Heinz History Center. He taught visual storytelling at the School of Visual Arts and the Animation Workshop in Denmark. Jim loves comic books, zines, lettering, podcasts, running, pro-wrestling, pizza, and cats. He lives and draws in Pittsburgh.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION TEAM:
Jason Andrew Cohn is the Peabody Award-winning director of EAMES: The Architect and the Painter; as well as two films that were finalists for the Ken Burns-Library of Congress Prize for film: Modernism, Inc. and The First Angry Man. He co-produced the award-winning Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin. His radio stories have appeared on nationally syndicated public radio programs and his print reporting has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the LA Weekly, and Rolling Stone Magazine. Jason became a fan of Osamu Tezuka while living in Sapporo, Japan between 1991-1995. He lives in Berkeley, California.
Camille Servan-Schreiber, born in France, has been working in documentary film in the US since 1998. She has produced for PBS American Masters, PBS Frontline, National Geographic, and many other outlets, and has received numerous honors including a Peabody, a Golden Spire Award from the San Francisco Film Festival, and a national Emmy nomination. Camille's recent productions include Girls of the Golden West for PBS Great Performance. She is currently completing the follow-up documentary to Jennifer Siebel Newsom's Miss Representation.
Jinko Gotoh is a BAFTA® winner and an Oscar®-nominated producer and consultant for the animation industry. She is currently producing Sony Pictures Animation's upcoming Spider-ManTM: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the highly anticipated conclusion of the Spider-Verse trilogy. Her extensive producing credits include the 2020 BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated Klaus, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part, BAFTA winner The Little Prince, the Oscar-nominated The Illusionist, 9, and the Oscar-winning Finding Nemo. Gotoh is devoted to advancing women and all underrepresented people in the film industry. She serves as vice president of Women in Animation and as a member of the Board of Governors for The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and the Producers Guild of America.
Glen S. Fukushima is an American entrepreneur, academic, and philanthropist committed to deepening understanding between the United States and Japan. He is currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. InApril 2022, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as vice chairman of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation following his appointment by President Joe Biden. He was first exposed to Osamu Tezuka as a young boy while living on an American military base in Japan, where he looked forward to watching Astro Boy on TV.
Roland Nozomu Kelts is an award-winning journalist and the author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US and The Art of Blade Runner: Black Lotus. He writes for publications in the US, Japan and Europe, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Guardian, New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement, Nikkei Asia and The Japan Times, among others, and has contributed to several book-length collections. He was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University and teaches at Waseda University in Tokyo. He is also an editor of the Japanese literary journal, "MONKEY: New Writing from Japan." He has lectured on Osamu Tezuka and other Japanese artists and writers at the World Economic Forum, TED Talks and numerous venues in Asia, the US and Europe.
TEZUKA PRODUCTIONS: Tezuka Productions Co., Ltd. is a Japanese studio founded by Osamu Tezuka, known as the God of Manga, in 1968. The studio is now mainly engaged in management and operation of Tezuka's copyrighted works, both manga and animation, and in animation production. It is known for notable animation works such as Astro Boy (1980/2003), Jungle Emperor Leo (AKA: Kimba the White Lion), Dororo, and Black Jack.
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