San Francisco-based publisher Last Gasp is planning a fall release of new editions of the first two volumes in Keiji Nakazawa's Barefoot Gen: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima.  Barefoot Gen was, by our count, the first English-language manga series available in the U.S. in the early 80s.

The first person saga of the survival of a small family in the midst of history's first wartime use of a nuclear weapon, Barefoot Gen remains a powerful indictment of the horrors of nuclear warfare.  Artist/writer Nakazawa was only seven years old when the bomb was dropped and the power of this work stems from his real-life experiences before during and after the horrific explosion.

Last Gasp has commissioned a new translation of the Barefoot Gen saga. The first two 284-page volumes will be released this fall (cover price $14.95).  Volume One sets the stage with an unsparing look at conditions in wartime Japan and ends with the explosion itself.  Volume Two begins the day after the explosion and chronicles the experiences of Gen, his mother, and his newborn baby sister in the aftermath of the world's first use of nuclear weapons against a civilian population.  Last Gasp plans to retranslate and republish the other eight volumes in the series. 

The Barefoot Gen saga was actually quite popular back in the early 1980s, long before the manga boom; with any luck the current interest in manga will lure new readers to this superb example of the vivid way in which the comics medium can portray history's most intense moments.