DMP Kickstarts Osamu Tezuka’s Alien Animal Sci-Fi Saga ‘Wonder 3′

Earlier this year, DMP started a series of Kickstarter campaigns designed to bring some of legendary creator Osamu Tezuka's stories back into print in America, including classics like Unico and more obscure titles like Storm Fairy. Today, it launched its latest project, Wonder 3, a book that might just have the most intriguing premise of the bunch.

Set in 196X, a year that finds Earth ravaged by a massive war to the point where a group of aliens are debating whether to save the planet or destroy it. To make their decision, they send a team of three investigators, disguised as animals, along with a gigantic bomb and a time limit of one year to determine whether or not we're worth saving.

The Kickstarter campaign's goal is to fund a new printing of the entire three-volume series, both digital and in print. There are, of course, the usual set of extras like t-shirts and a Moleskine notebook bearing the logo of the series, but the meat of the project is the story itself --- and the stretch goal of translating another Tezuka story, The Film Lives On, about two friends trying to break into the animation industry.

It's worth noting that Wonder 3 marks the fourth project that DMP has funded via Kickstarter since February, but the timing of the campaigns means that the finished project from the first one --- Alabaster --- has yet to actually be released. The announced date for that was September 2015, but due to a delay in finalizing cover art, it's going to take longer than expected. DMP has been very up front about that, including an update to the Alabaster campaign that went up just this week detailing the problem, and considering the company's established track record, there's not much of a reason to think that they won't make their next set of deadlines in November for Storm Fairy.

The campaign for Wonder 3 runs until October 29.