Suzy Amakane enjoyed manga as a child, especially "Tetsuwan Atom" (Astro Boy) and the wacky "gag" strips of Fujio Akatsuka. But it was seeing a David Hockney exhibition when Amakane was twenty that set him on the road to a life in painting. From 1978 to 1982 he attended the Tama Art University, one of Japan's most prestigious fine-arts schools. Though admittedly a poor student, Suzy has since gone on to a remarkably successful career in both the fine and commercial arts. His early paintings parodied, with impressive skill, the styles and themes of his beloved masters, Hockney, Johns, Lichtenstein, and Magritte, and yet they remained uniquely indebted to the ebullient manga he read as a child. Suzy has since developed a sensuous and playful style all his own. His pictures-many of them featuring the wide-eyed scamp shown squatting on the front cover of [m]Comics Underground Japan[m]-teem with visual puns and pop-culture allusions. As well as having his work shown in magazines, on TV, and on CD jackets and labels, Suzy Amakane has been in many solo and group exhibitions in both Japan and Australia.