Alabaster (DMP)

Ongoing Serial: a series of episodes, published over a span of weeks/months/years where the story plot is connected from chapter to chapter and must be read in chronological order for it to be understood properly.
Chapter Serial: a series of episodes, published over a span of weeks/months/years where the story plot is self-contained to a single chapter. There may be an overarching plot, but the stories can generally be read in any order and be understood
Book: an all-in-one self contained story published as a one-off.
Supplement: an an all-in-one self contained story published as a stand-alone supplement to a regular weekly/monthly periodical.
Short Story: an all-in-one, self contained story that was published in a regular weekly/monthly periodical
Anthology: a collection of all-in-one, self contained stories that were published in a regular weekly/monthly periodical but are generally grouped together.

English Title: Alabaster
Japanese Title: アラバスター
Publication Date: 2015
Publisher: DMP
No. of Volumes: 2
In Print: ✔
Digital: ✔

From the publisher

Once a famous athlete, now an infamous villain, James Block seeks revenge against all things “beautiful.” After he’s arrested and convicted for assaulting his girlfriend who insulted his appearance, he meets a mad scientist in prison who tells him of the ‘F Laser’ he invented that can turn any carbon based organism invisible. When James finishes his prison term, he finds the ‘F Laser’ and points it on himself, however the imperfect laser beam leaves him disfigured with only his skin invisible. On a vicious revenge spree, he takes the nom de guerre of Alabaster and is joined by Ami, the granddaughter of the scientist who experimented on his pregnant daughter and left Ami fully invisible. Together they pull off several heists, but Ami’s innocence may cause Alabaster’s downfall…

What you should know

Alabaster was published as DMP’s seventh Tezuka kickstarter campaign. In February 2015, 604 backers pledged $32,304 (of a $29,200 goal) to see the thriller suspense revenge story published in English for the first time.

Alabaster was released unflipped in the original right-to-left Japanese reading style. The English edition was published in two volumes, 280 and 232 pages in length and is printed in the A5 (5.875″x8.25″) format. It was also the first Tezuka kickstarter campaign to use higher quality paper which, in DMP‘s words is “denser, smoother, and off-set white”. In 2015, a digital edition was released and is available on DMP’s emanga.com website for legal download in a number of popular formats (ePub, CBR/CBZ, PDF, etc.).