ASTROMAN - NOMURA - JAPAN

Tin and plastic windup astronaut. Advances with walking motion and sparking backpack. It was intended to be a knock off of the spaceman from "2001, A Space Odyssey"; the box art of Nomura's Walking Astroman with Sparks shows a fairly serious looking astronaut and it is in fact a direct copy of a famous still from Kubrik's film. The background has changed but the pose is distinctive.

Nomura decided, however, to base the design on the existing body of a wind up Tetsujin #28 and the result is an inflated comical looking astronaut with an oversized head. The Tetsujin litho has had a total overhall and there's an authentic plastic helmet with an astronaut's face. The rest is, however, the same, right down to the studded collar, cuffs and clenched rubber hands of T #28. The result is that it's fatter and misproportioned in comparison with the box illustration.

The action is unmodified: a switch in the chest starts him walking while a spark mechanism operates. This astronaut has been reproduced and new colors have been introduced.

On the right is the inspiration for the Nomura Astroman, "2001, A Space Odyssey". The artwork is an almost exact copy of the movie still.