How do you feel about Stan Sakai and Usagi Yojimbo?

How do you feel about Stan Sakai and Usagi Yojimbo?

Any more relatives die?

One of the greats that isn't appreciated enough.

It's okay if you read it every now and again but honestly I stopped reading issues years ago, I just got bored of it.

Sakai gets a lot of love but he's rarely regarded as the master he is. He does amazing panel work throughout entire issues, great poses and gesture, great inking, great lettering, great storytelling. There are better artists, sure, but as a cartoonist I think Sakai is one of the best.

Pretty much this.

Hilarious. I hope you never have to go through half of what this man did.

The man have a tough life, I don't know how he still writing Usagi, but I love his job and I think is one of the better things that happen to Dark Horse.

He's gonna be fine.

>I don't know how he still writing Usagi,

It's what keeps him going.

it is wonderful and too pure to be discussed on this board, hence the scarcity of usagi threads.

the last time i ever had fun on Sup Forums was when b-type storytimed the entire run.

One day it'll end

This board needs more Usagi

Last week I ordered my omnibus set of the first seven volumes. Should be getting here soon, so I'm excited to see what Usagi is all about.

One of these days maybe I'll do a storytime marathon of it.

One of these days.

I actually just got into it.

Took a dive and ordered the Special Collection and fell in love. I'd heard that it was good but I wasn't expecting it to be near as good as it is. Already have the next two collections ordered.

Similar boat, ordered the thick softcovers that had the first 7 volumes, then plunged into the Saga reprintings by Dark Horse...i'm almost at the end of those as well. This series deserves way more credit.

I never see the Special Collection in stores, and the few Saga's I see in stores are in just awful shape. How did yours come, and from what site? I can't tell if the product is just easy to get fucked up on a shelf in a store, or if they had terrible quality control.

(Plus if I buy the Special Collection I'll buy every single damned Saga with it, I know it. I don't want to spend that money right now. Also I kind of want to wait for the Saga's to be caught up to now. ..... But I kind of also don't.)

Love both
Highly underrated

Not super beat up, but not pristine either. I ordered from Amazon.

hmm. I'm an anal retentive NUT when it comes to book condition. Where do you fall in that spectrum? A few people I know would consider "not pristine" as something I would call destroyed filth.

It's not super bent or anything, but you can see slight damage to the top or bottom of the spine sometimes.

There was a dude back at the start of the year who got pretty far. He disappeared I bought the Saga V3 digitally once he stopped to keep reading.

>tfw too poor to own hardcopy collections of the series

one day

Those weird rips? That's what I see in stores. The rips seem to have been exasperated by plebs making damage really obvious. If I get copies with all the paper still there, a bit of Elmers can make it look alright.

This is the first time I used the word 'plebs' and didn't mean it ironically in the least.

Should I just start with Usagi Yojimbo or Classic Usagi Yojimbo?

Start from the beginning if you can, if you absolutely don't want to read that much, at least start from a point where you won't miss Grasscutter.

Ditto to Mine arrived with a minor tear on the slip case (still serviceable and really unnoticeable), and dent in the corner of one volume.

Nothing major, but not pristine, either. Also ordered from amazon.

>Is a Usagi Yojimbo thread.

Love his stuff, he's super good. Wish he was my dad.

Who is best girl and why is Tomoe?

Because it's actually Kitsune.

There is clearly one best girl here, and it isn't Kitsune.

well user that's just something that I don't agree with, but you're free to have your own viewpoint.

>you're waifu a shit
Just kidding, user. I'm sure she has lovely personality.

I dressed as Usagi one Halloween when I was in grade school.

I've never read a single UY comic. I just remember owning a toy and him popping up in TMNT.

Are those comics good? I've had it on my "curious enough to check out someday maybe" list for a long time.

Is this where I should start?

Sakai is a genuinely good person. I met him at a con and he was very pleasant. Usagi is going to go down as one of the greatest creator-owned properties in all comicdom. It's going to get the kind of posthumous love that Cerebus should have gotten had the mob not turned against Sim.

Her personality is her best trait, her vengeful streak for Noodles was one of the highlights of the earlier stories.

Yes, it's legitimately one of my favorite comics at this point. TMNT is what got me to check it out as well.

You can start there, but it isn't the real beginning, that starts from book 8. If you want to actually start from the beginning, read the special edition fantagraphic ones, which have books 1-7, then get the Saga collections. I know amazon has the fantagraphic special edition for around 50 bucks right now, I think it went out of print for a while though, so I dunno how long that'll last.

>Are those comics good?
Holy shit yes. It's one of the highest quality, longest running comics I've read. Various anons have discussed physical copies and starting points in this thread. The comics quality well above his appearances in TMNT (with the 80's appearance being hilariously bad and the 2003 episode just decent) but I think they got his character pretty well.

I can't put into words exactly what I love so much about the art but every page is beautiful

Another user managed to storytime the whole thing a year or two before that

I wish Stan would do a short arc catching up on how Jotaro, or anyone else, is doing since Usagi last saw them.

How come Usagi doesn't need to use a boat that often? Japan is made of several isles, so is he just staying on Honshu, or wherever, this whole time?

I got into Usagi half a year ago. I was postponing it forever but those nice DH Saga tomes and that sweet Fantagraphics omnibus of the first 7 volumes won me over. Wow, what a ride. It's easily one of my all time favorite comics, on some days I'd even argue it's the best.

Got Senso and Yokai as well, now I only need to get the Saga tomes as they come out and hope for a re-release of Space Usagi. I pray Stan manages to finish it properly before his time comes, hopefully many, many years from now.

Yokai is way too pricey physically for me, might get it digitally. Yeah, I want to read Space Usagi as well, and home this comic gets a proper ending and its due.

Ha ha, silly anons, the only correct answer is Chizu.

No user, the real, true waifu for Usagi is no one at all, cause any woman who gets too close suffers a tragedy

Really? I got it brand new in foil for 12 bucks AND it was imported from the US by the bookstore as well. I live in Poland but I prefer to read comics in their original language, especially if they are as nicely collected as Usagi.

Damn, lucky. I could get it like new off amazon for 35 bucks if I wanted, but that's about as cheap as I can get it.

That's why Chizu is perfect, since ninja consider themselves already dead. It may be a short relationship, but it'd be an intense one.

Also holy hell, she was adorable when she was trying with all her might NOT to murder Kitsune for being Kitsune.

Still can't work, Chizu constantly fighting her clan is status quo. Not there can be many Neko-Ninja left

Like mignola's run with hellboy... poor dark horse you were too good for this world. ..

Both the man and his work are fantastic and he doesn't get nearly the love thay he should desu famalam.

It is a wonder he can even go on after everything that has happened to him.


Also the only guy that I know that can make a rabbit look terrifying

>poor dark horse you were too good for this world

I'm still worried about what the DH user said about ow the upper management of that company thinks. They can't really think characters like X and Ghost will suddenly become hits so they can launch their own cinematic universe.

I.. was unaware of this. I pray you are telling a bad joke. DH really only has a few titles going for it (hellboy, goon, usagi yojimbo, and conan)

I was so done with comics for so long. Then I discover Usagi Yojimbo.

Stan Sakai is the reason I still read comics. He doesn't get nearly the recognition he deserves, but I'm okay with that. And what's more - I think even *he* is okay with that.

NOT MY DARK HORSE!

Don'tdie on me.

Should i start with the special edition or do anyone have another story to get me hooked?

He's never lost sight of the purpose of a comic book when it comes to his art and storytelling. He does what he loves and he's stuck to his guns on how it should look.
I feel he's deserved every award he's picked up, and more. I wish Usagi could eventually work towards having a happy ending as a character, but his Karma won't seemingly allow for it.

the best

How old is that picture? Because if it really came out around issue 76, we should probably double his kill count. Still, there is no way there were so many on-panel deaths Usagi was involved with, unless we'd steal Shingen's explosive score from Dragon Bellow Conspiracy.

For me it's a tie between Chizu and Kitsune

He's based off of Musashi and he died in his sleep when he was in his sixties so there's a chance.

what exactly did that supposed DH user say? Like everyone on Sup Forums seems to think DH is dying, but every article I find all talks about how well things are going for them.

>They can't really think characters like X and Ghost will suddenly become hits

Considering that those series are all cancelled, I find it hard to believe they would think that.

He is basically a manga artist working in west.

Well, somewhat based off Musashi. Usagi not being a massive cunt is a _massive_ difference.

The cucking bit aside.

Usagi is an exception even in his world. Common people are amazed how nice he is to them and we saw a lot of samirai dickery to know what insufferable assholes they really were.

>those OOP collections in the background

That's...a lot of kills.

Can you imagine how they tallied this? Think they just asked the authors or had some intern go through each series, page by page?

come to think of it...his work is literally a 70's-80's manga but read from left to right

Yeah, kinda

Bump

Start with the special edition

So, a comic?

Probably just asked the author. With those numbers Usagi would have to be killing over 17 an issue and there are too many issues of general peacefulness for that too work.

There are stylistic trends more common in manga than western comics, sure it's still a comic but it takes a lot from that era of manga

So this is 40% off on Book Depository. Just be warned, they have free shipping and you kind of get what you pay for. When I ordered mine the box that hold the books has a large gash in it but the books where fire.