‘The Face Sore ’ combines legends with cases of disfiguring carbuncles to produce a very modern horror story. In ‘Sometimes Like Pearls’ she opens a parcel for him, leading to invaluable back-story when the solitary surgeon subsequently visits his great teacher and learns a final lesson. Whether Pinoko is a year old or eighteen is a running gag, and she becomes Black Jack’s secretary, major domo and gadfly. The procedure is especially problematic because previous surgeons were telepathically assaulted by the tumour! Overcoming ferocious resistance, Black Jack successfully removes a fully-formed brain and nervous system and then builds an artificial body for the sentient remnants whom he dubs Pinoko. Can the handsome boy she keeps glimpsing possibly be the ghost of her eye’s original owner? ‘Teratoid Cystoma ’ finds a famous personage demanding total discretion as the maverick medic removes a huge growth. ‘The First Storm of Spring ’ sees a girl’s corneal transplant go strangely awry. In ‘Is There a Doctor? ’ the joyriding son of Earth’s richest man is critically injured and his ruthless father forces Black Jack to perform a full body transplant using an unwilling donor. They were originally conceived as ‘best of’ collections, but eventually encompassed almost the entire series, and follow no chronological sequence. The series ran, on and off, until 1983, and these Vertical editions follow the pattern of a Japanese collection launched in 1987. This scarred, seemingly heartless mercenary works miracles for the right price but is also a deeply wounded soul who makes surgical magic from behind icy walls of indifference and casual hostility. Tezuka’s work ranges from charming to disturbingly scary and in 1973 he explored the melodramatics of medicine with Burakku Jakku a lone wolf surgeon living outside society’s boundaries and rules. He never practiced: the world was instead blessed by his groundbreaking comics stories. Despite beginning professional cartooning while at university, Tezuka also qualified as a doctor. The physician who cured him inspired his patient to study medicine. As a child Osamu Tezuka suffered from a severe illness.

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