Billy Bat

In 1949 Los Angeles, Japanese American cartoonist Kevin Yamagata has built his career on Billy Bat, a wisecracking detective beloved by readers. However, Kevin's world is turned upside down when he realizes he may have unknowingly copied the character from an image he saw in Japan. Determined to uncover the truth, Kevin travels to post-war Japan, where he discovers that the image of the bat is ancient, surfacing repeatedly across history in association with moments of upheaval, power, and violence. As Kevin delves deeper, he becomes entangled in a far-reaching mystery that blurs the lines between fiction and reality, and a single drawing may hold the key to forces shaping human history.