is a manga written by Osamu Tezuka in the 1970s, dealing with the medical adventures of the eponymous doctor Black Jack.
Black Jack consists of hundreds of short, self-contained episodes, on the order of 20 pages of manga each. Two volumes have been translated into English by Viz Communications, but those editions fell out of print. Vertical Inc. has announced that they will release the entire series starting in Fall 2008. Black Jack has also been animated into an OVA, two television series (directed by Tezuka's son Makoto Tezuka) and two movies. Black Jack is Tezuka's third most famous manga, after Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion. In 1977, it won the 1st Kodansha Manga Award for shōnen.
Most of the episodes involve Black Jack doing some good deed, for which he rarely gets recognition—often curing the poor and destitute for free, or teaching a capitalist fat cat and his pompous colleagues a lesson in humility. They frequently end with a good, humane person enduring hardship,...
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