Astro Boy and Anime Come to the Americas

Fred Ladd, the legendary figure responsible for adapting Astro Boy and Gigantor into English, has teamed up with animation historian Harvey Deneroff to bring us "Astro Boy and Anime Come to the Americas: An Insider’s View of the Birth of a Pop Culture Phenomenon", which looks to be an incredibly interesting book about the early days of Japanese animated imports. Here's a description:

"The first generation of American television programmers had few choices when selecting Saturday morning children’s programs for local stations. That changed dramatically in 1963 when a Japanese animated television series called Tetsuan Atom was acquired for distribution by a division of NBC. Fred Ladd adapted the show for American television—rechristened Astro Boy, it was an overnight sensation. Astro Boy’s popularity sparked a new industry in importing animated television to America from Japan. Ladd went on to adapt numerous Japanese animated imports for American release, and here provides an insider’s view of the creation of what has blossomed into an ongoing cultural and media phenomenon."

It's set for release on November 30th 2008, and will be published by McFarland. You can pre-order a copy right now on Amazon, and doing so will help to support AstroBoy World.

You can read all about it straight from Harvey Deneroff's blog, and Cartoon Brew has a post about it as well.