Ti-tan(ium) originally appeared in Mighty Atom Club!

[ASTROBUDDY]

Ti-tan(ium) aka Chi-tan originally appeared in Mighty Atom Club magazine issues for April and May, 1966! Not in Shonen! These two issues were the last of Mighty Atom Club to feature Atom and his friends. Ti-tan is featured on the cover of one of the last issues of Mighty Atom Club! For those who are also members of Astro Boy On-line, you can see pages from the Ti-tan manga story under the thread titled, "Scenes from the lost manga, "Ti-tan"!

[strobe_z]

You're right. The full Tezuka manga list is correct, but somewhere in the copying/pasting/formatting it got screwed up in the Astro Boy specific list. I'll make the correction.

I've looked through the Titanium thread on Astroboy-online.com, but I can't remember it having much info on the manga. Mainly seems to have info on the anime. I don't suppose you've got anything else to share in regards to why it (and the Jungle story) weren't included in any manga collections, do you? Best my Japanese sources can come up with is that it's because Tezuka basically phoned those two stories in to his assistants, but I'd love to corroborate that somehow.

All of the Astro Boy pages are a work in progress at the moment. I only have so much time to devote to the site and other areas always seem to be in need of updates... And the Astro pages are such a massive undertaking.

[ASTROBUDDY]

Are you sure you looked up the right thread? It includes a synopsis of the manga story. Make sure you look under threads started by ASTROBUDDY and pick the one titled, "Scenes from the lost manga"Ti-tan"!

[strobe_z]

You're right, I was looking in the wrong thread. There four separate Chi-tan/Ti-tan threads by my count. Still I've yet to see anything that resembles a concrete reason why it and Jungle Adventure are the only two stories excluded from the complete sets (well the Corral Reef story was also excluded from the Kodansha Complete set as well).

Any ideas why that is? The excluded Black Jack stories all have a reason attached to them, but beyond "Tezuka didn't like 'em" I can't really find a reason. If he didn't like them, why didn't he?

[Jeffbert]

On the subject of the listings, I have found an entire story & part of another that were excluded from the ASTROBOY stories in DH. I had noted a few omitted panels in those stories in the Dark Horse, but these were entire stories. The one is not even listed in Schodt's appendix a, though it was on the old Tezuka site.

[strobe_z]

Care to share some details? That is extremely interesting. I've slowly been repairing the Astro Boy section (anyone feel like helping out with some story synopses?) I haven't seen any other excluded AB stories though...

[Jeffbert]

The topmost entry was not only excluded from Schodt's appendix, but I had forgotten about it completely until actually seeing it among the UNIT 7 stuff. Note this this ran concurrently with the AB RETURNS, part of which is in the Darkhorse vol. 22. But after the sphinx is revealed, where the DH coverage ends, the comic continues.

[strobe_z]

You're absolutely right...

Here's a couple of images I was able to dig up on the story...

http://ameblo.jp/mtjmtj02/image-1012534 ... 74188.html
http://ameblo.jp/mtjmtj02/image-1012534 ... 74190.html

[ASTROBUDDY]

[strobe_z]

I have to say the whole "First Grader" "Fourth Grader" magazine stories kind of frustrate me from an archival perspective. They are sometimes infuriatingly difficult to quantify, and not just in Astro Boy, but the stories from Jungle Emperor, Unico and many others.

So are you saying that the story in both Fourth and First Graders were the same (i.e. Astro Boy Returns)? I know they sometimes had a habit of crossing "boundaries" as the readership grew. So a story that started in First Grader might end up in Fourth Grader if the serialization went on long enough (even though most are self-contained stories). I've also seen self-contained stories spread out among several of them that are later collected together (mainly for the "Leo-chan" version of Jungle Emperor), but this would be the first time I've seen the same story serialized in two magazines at the same time, albeit on a different release schedule.

I'm going to re-check the Astro Boy vol. 22 bit when I get home to check. I've been doing a chronological re-read but I'm only as far as the "Count Bat" story from... 1959?

[Jeffbert]

[ASTROBUDDY]

[Jeffbert]

Those panels are from the 1st grade story. I have full versions of both the 1st & the 4th grade comics, & there is very little in common, as far as I can see; though Spica appears in both, they appear unique. Anyway, I am glad you like my post.

[ASTROBUDDY]

[strobe_z]

I'm extremely interested in comparing them as well. Seems strange Tezuka would put out two versions of the same story at the same time(ish).