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Digital Manga to Launch Kickstarter to Publish Tezuka's Wonder Three Manga

North American publisher Digital Manga Publishing announced on Friday that it will launch a Kickstarter campaign in September to publish Osamu Tezuka's Wonder Three (The Amazing Three) manga. The three-volume series will contain over 200 pages each and will be printed in hardcover.

One of the campaign's stretch goals will include the printing of Tezuka's "The Film Lives On" single-volume manga.

Limited edition items that will be made available for the campaign will include cel art, posters, and customized journals from Moleskine.

Digital Manga also used Kickstarter to raise funds to print Tezuka's Ludwig B, Captain Ken, and Alabaster manga. Most recently, Digital Manga met its Kickstarter goal to publish Storm Fairy (Arashi no Yōsei), and met stretch goals to publish Crime and Punishment, and to reprint Unico.

Digital Manga's Kickstarter campaign to publish Tezuka's 13-volume The Three-eyed One manga and seven-volume Rainbow Parakeet manga failed to meet its US$380,000 goal last year. Wonder Three was originally included as a stretch goal in that campaign. Digital Manga president Hikaru Sasahara said that he originally wanted to use Kickstarter to fund 50-70 books a year, but has switched to a goal of 20-30 volumes in order to lower the cost of publishing including licensing fees, advanced royalties, labor, and other expenses. He added that he would like to launch a new campaign for one to five books almost every month, with a week or two in between each campaign.