Proper Japanese Title: 別冊ビッグコミック
Bessatsu Big Comic began in 1971 as the second ongoing special issue of Big Comic, taking over some aspects of the first special issue (Big Comic Zōkan). As was industry standard for major manga magazines at the time, special issues were often used to collect and reprint chapters of popular works while also publishing some minor original material. Big Comic Zōkan's first five issues all served this direct role (primarily being collected reprints of Golgo 13) but Bessatsu was then created to be a dedicated magazine for this while Zōkan began focusing more on original material.
Initially Bessatsu Big Comic reprinted ongoing Big Comic serials from several authors (Sasori, Golgo 13, Sabu to Ichi, Notari Matsutarō, Mikiya Mochizuki) but in 1976 it fully became a vehicle for reprinting Golgo 13 and as such it is often associated solely with Golgo 13. Although reprinting Golgo 13 is the primary focus, other authors have appeared with original material in these issues including the first published work by Naoki Urasawa.
Notably, the existence of Bessatsu magazines to collect and reprint material from the parent magazine was a trend that mostly died out through the 70's but Bessatsu Big Comic survived into the modern day. This is due to the nature of Golgo 13 (one of the best-selling and longest-running manga of all time) itself, as collected chapters are published here years before they are available through the standard tankobon format. In a sense these serve as Shogakukan's collections of Golgo 13 (as the company that publishes the serialization) while the author's own company Leed releases the actual tankobon and bunko editions that remain in print.
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