Billy Bat Volume 1

Takashi Nagasaki author Naoki Urasawa author Kristi Iwashiro translator

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Abrams

Publishing:2nd Jun '26

£9.99

This title is due to be published on 2nd June, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

Billy Bat Volume 1 cover

A highly requested title from Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki, the in-demand manga Billy Bat is a historical conspiracy-thriller meta-manga spanning multiple millennia following a Japanese American comic artist’s search for the truth regarding the origins of his character “Billy Bat.”

This is the first thrilling volume in the sci-fi mystery by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki, beautifully packaged and available for the first time in English.

It’s 1949 Los Angeles, and Kevin Yamagata, a Japanese American comic book author, is drawing his bestselling character, Billy Bat: a quick-witted detective who is, unsurprisingly, a cartoon bat.

Everything is going well for Kevin until he discovers an unfortunate truth: He may have unintentionally plagiarized his beloved character from a drawing he once saw in Japan. Devastated by the news, Kevin returns to war-torn Japan to find the drawing’s original artist . . . but the character’s origins turn out to be far older and more perplexing than he had ever imagined.

The story, full of intrigue, conspiracy, and mysticism, and set against the backdrop of the nascent comics industry in the U.S. and Japan and the early days of the Cold War, plays to all of Urasawa’s strengths as a storyteller who can meaningfully comment on history while infusing it with thrilling high concepts and genre elements.

-- Harry Kassen * Booklist (Starred Revie

ISBN: 9781419780080

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

200 pages