The official Usagi Yojimbo/Stan Sakai Thread 3 3

[WolverineX]

I know we often talk about Usagi Yojimbo in the Albedo 2 and Black CAT club, but figured we should start a thread for general information for past, present and future fans since the netflix show is showing up soon.

 

Tonight Mr. Sakai and IDW won  the 2020 Eisner award for their Archival  edition of Grasscutter.  It's a BEAUTIFUL  edition for such riveting, deep epic!!  One of the best comic arcs I've ever read.   If you've never read Usagi before, this is THE STORY to read.

 

If  you are interested, this sketch edition is purchasable on his official website currently but limited to 50 copies...

 

Congrats Mr. Sakai!  

 

EDIT:  Stan also joined the Hall of Fame and won best lettering. Congrats again!!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 25, 2020 by Wolverinex

[camera73]

Good idea! We were just discussing UY books in the Coppers Heating up thread.

 

But...how the heck has there never been a thread devoted to Usagi before??

One of my uber-geekiest moments was last year at HeroesCon. I was volunteering and brought snacks and water to Sakai, Aragones and Evanier. I was basically offering my unfettered servitude just to breathe the same air that they were. But one granola bar and they were done with me.

[Jeffro.]

Sold my Usagi 1 years ago on the boards but I do have several early issues of Critters. Have to pull those out.

 

[WolverineX]

19 hours ago, camera73 said:

Good idea! We were just discussing UY books in the Coppers Heating up thread.

 

But...how the heck has there never been a thread devoted to Usagi before??

One of my uber-geekiest moments was last year at HeroesCon. I was volunteering and brought snacks and water to Sakai, Aragones and Evanier. I was basically offering my unfettered servitude just to breathe the same air that they were. But one granola bar and they were done with me.

Lol WOW.  That's so cool. I thought Stan was mainly on the west coast.  I didn't realize he went to NC.  Did you talk to him?

[WolverineX]

2 hours ago, Inappropriate Spock said:

Sold my Usagi 1 years ago on the boards but I do have several early issues of Critters. Have to pull those out.

 

If you have a copy of Space Usagi 1 (vol 1), you need to sell that.   The new  Usagi show will likely be based on it. 

That is starting to blow up and just sold for 90 tonight

[valiantman]

Yay! A different thread - celebrate Albedo #3! 

[WolverineX]

11 minutes ago, valiantman said:

Yay! A different thread - celebrate Albedo #3! 

Beautiful copy, my friend

[oldmilwaukee6er]

I am a big Usagi Yojimbo fan. It's a little odd the recent attention to his back issues as collecting Usagi has largely been a solitary pursuit. However, I am glad that others are excited about the title. 

I look forward to sharing some of my collection. I discovered UY c 2004 when I was living in Baton Rouge and I established a regular pull box. The first book I read was the color special The Green Persimmon. I loved it and started subscribing to v3 Dark Horse series. Spawn and UY have always been my runs, and I started out trying to hunt down back issues in $1-2 boxes. My target grade range is NM 9.4. Albedo #2 was out of my league even then, I felt, but I took great joy in finding his early appearances in Critters or the early Fantagraphics v1. Eventually I acquired a large amount of digital content on an Amazon fire and read the trade paperbacks and learned about new stories and appearances and tried to score those in back issue bins too. It's been fun and I still need a few appearances here and there but I am complete Albedo 3 through IDW (missing some of the more recent variant)

And I had a good week... One of the few to hit this book. 🐰🍑

 

Edited July 27, 2020 by oldmilwaukee6er
Edited by Wertham

[oldmilwaukee6er]

A few I'm still hunting for...

136B and the yellow Space Usagi v3 ashcan are two of the more sought after books. There's a variant on one of the early Color Specials (or the Summer Special) too that I read about (with an insert for signatures?) that I haven't seen in the wild. 

Edited July 27, 2020 by oldmilwaukee6er
Edited by Wertham

[oldmilwaukee6er]

Found these two at my LCS about 2 years ago for a steal.

I couldn't believe it, and I must have looked through that box 5 times hoping for the #2

Edited July 26, 2020 by oldmilwaukee6er

[oldmilwaukee6er]

 

[WolverineX]

3 hours ago, oldmilwaukee6er said:

I am a big Usagi Yojimbo fan. It's a little odd the recent attention to his back issues as collecting Usagi has largely been a solitary pursuit. However, I am glad that others are excited about the title. 

I look forward to sharing some of my collection. I discovered UY c 2004 when I was living in Baton Rouge and I established a regular pull box. The first book I read was the color special The Green Persimmon. I loved it and started subscribing to v3 Dark Horse series. Spawn and UY have always been my runs, and I started out trying to hunt down back issues in $1-2 boxes. My target grade range is NM 9.4. Albedo #2 was out of my league even then, I felt, but I took great joy in finding his early appearances in Critters or the early Fantagraphics v1. Eventually I acquired a large amount of digital content on an Amazon fire and read the trade paperbacks and learned about new stories and appearances and tried to score those in back issue bins too. It's been fun and I still need a few appearances here and there but I am complete Albedo 3 through IDW (missing some of the more recent variant)

And I had a good week... One of the few to hit this book. 🐰🍑

 

Congratulations on scoring that rare book! I think that's crazy expensive on eBay right now. So in your opinion, what was your favorite story arc? Really enjoyed reading your backstory to the series

[camera73]

20 hours ago, Wolverinex said:

Lol WOW.  That's so cool. I thought Stan was mainly on the west coast.  I didn't realize he went to NC.  Did you talk to him?

I go to Heroes every year and for most of them, anytime Sergio or Stan were scheduled, they cancelled for health or conflict reasons. I never thought I'd have the chance to meet them.

Last year, they did a versus tshirt with Groo and Usagi for the show, so we knew that they were attending. However, their flights were in doubt (June 2019 saw massive flight cancellations due to weather, 737 Max mess and airline labor shortages) - meaning may have missed them again.

They finally made it and since I was volunteering all weekend with my exGF, I got to say hello as they were setting up their tables. I thought that would be it and was ecstatic to have had the brief interaction.

Then my ex was tasked with sitting at their table to help Sergio with anything he needed. I was temporarily in charge of Stan's line, which was an hours long wait.

That is how I got close enough to offer them snacks and pester them - asking repeatedly if there was anything I could do for them. They were so humble and preferred to take care of their own needs.

My ex had many deep conversations with Sergio and he had her handling his money and making change for the fans. He gifted her with a pile of free stuff - many of them were signed. I was able to get a sketch from both of them by the end of the Saturday.

That was in my top HeroesCon moments. Along with meeting and having long converstions with Art Adams and Nick Cardy (right before he passed away), the 2010 Saturday night charity auction and partying with Mark Texeira after the con in 2009.

[Ryan.]

Good to see there was an hours long wait for Stan, and that he's getting the due he deserves. Stan and Sergio used to set up in Boston for many years and there was often no line at all for either of them, which was great for me. 

[WolverineX]

Not sure if anyone else here is a gamer, but the new ghost of Tsushima game draws a lot of elements from Usagi.  The main character is named Sakai. The director was a huge fan of the comic. 

 

Pretty cool.  May also be increasing the interest in the series because the game has the highest user metacritic score ever for ps4. 9.3 or something 

 

https://gamerant.com/ghost-of-tsushima-usagi-yojimbo/

[Hekla]

14 minutes ago, Wolverinex said:

Not sure if anyone else here is a gamer, but the new ghost of Tsushima game draws a lot of elements from Usagi.  The main character is named Sakai. The director was a huge fan of the comic. 

 

Pretty cool.  May also be increasing the interest in the series because the game has the highest user metacritic score ever for ps4. 9.3 or something 

 

https://gamerant.com/ghost-of-tsushima-usagi-yojimbo/

I follow John Layman (Chew, Outer Darkness) on Twitter and he's been raving about Ghost of Tsushima the past week.

[divad]

One of my favorites . . . 

 

Edited July 27, 2020 by divad

[oldmilwaukee6er]

Comichron data visualized...

[oldmilwaukee6er]

10 hours ago, Wolverinex said:

Not sure if anyone else here is a gamer, but the new ghost of Tsushima game draws a lot of elements from Usagi.  The main character is named Sakai. The director was a huge fan of the comic. 

 

Pretty cool.  May also be increasing the interest in the series because the game has the highest user metacritic score ever for ps4. 9.3 or something 

 

https://gamerant.com/ghost-of-tsushima-usagi-yojimbo/

I am not the gamer in the family but I am grabbing this used once the prices come down. 

[oldmilwaukee6er]