[Steel A Jeeg]

Some interesting facts about Shotaro Ishinomori:

He is the holder of the Guinness Book of World Records title of most prolific comic book creator, with over 128,000 pages of writing and illustration produced.

He got his start as an assistant to Osamu Tezuka on the Astro Boy comic.

He originally wrote Kamen Rider as Skull Man. Toei, and producer Toru Hirayama, felt that the design was too frightening for children. So they left it up to Ishinomori to come up with a new design. Supposedly, he was inspired by his son's suggestion of using a grasshopper to make him look more inhuman. Ishinomori (who later compared the transformation to Gregor Samsa's in Kafka's "The Metamorphosis") felt that the connection to nature made the character more tragic and heroic.
The theme of protecting nature, and nature prevailing over mankind, was a constant theme in his work.

In the comic, Kamen Rider was portrayed as physically changing into a bug inside the costume. A theme that Toei would strictly forbid Ishinomori from portraying in the show. while Shin Kamen Rider is commonly known as the first time we saw a monsterous Kamen Rider, it was Kamen Rider Black that first had the hero physically transforming into something inhuman which had to be contained by a suit. A personal victory for his vision of the story.

He illustrated the Legend of Zelda comic, produced for Nintendo Power in the US.

He had produced dozens of journals of story ideas and sketches, many of which are still used today as inspiration for new Rider designs and new themes.

He was an environmentalist, with a strong appreciation for nature. He believed that sometimes mankind's advance came at the expense of nature. A theme which appeared frequently in his works.

He has a museum in his hometown of Ishinomaki dedicated to his body of work, with a bronze cast of his hand at the entrance so that he can personally greet you. The museum was damaged during the March 11th, 2011 earthquake in Japan. The town was located in one of the heavily damaged areas. A famous image from the rebuilding process was the statue of Kamen Rider, standing amidst the rubble, mostly undamaged. It became a local symbol of hope during that tough period. The museum currently sponsors children's events where costumed heroes try and keep their spirits up after the tough events of that tragedy.

He had a sweet fro.

He appeared in his works several times. Most memorably in Shin Kamen Rider, and the Kamen Rider Super-1 movie.

His final work was a revival of Skull Man, a project with which he intended to finally tell the whole story of the hero he had created 30 years prior. However, Ishinomori knew his health was failing. He was in touch with a young artist who was very inspired by his work, Kazuhiko Shinamoto, about assisting him with completing the story. The two had worked together in the past, so Ishinomori trusted him with the work. He presented Shinamoto with volumes of notes and ideas for the story, and trusted him to finish the story should he pass away before it was released. Unfortunately, Shotaro Ishinomori passed away during the production. The final volume has a dedication to his body of work, and his legacy.