STAN SAKAI: THE COMICS JOURNAL INTERVIEW
by KIM THOMPSON (THE COMICS JOURNAL #192, DECEMBER 1996)

(PROLOGUE)
There was a time when American cartoonists such as Carl Barks, Jack Cole, and John Stanley were able to create comics that were equally entertaining to children and adults. Nowadays, with comics awash in a sea of dreadful bad-girl comics, grotesque "extreme" superhero titles, and mopey fourth-generation undergrounders, this breed of cartoonist is an endangered species. Its few remaining character members include Sergio Aragones, Jeff Smith, Don Rosa, the creators of DC's frequently inspired Batman Adventures series, and Stan Sakai.

For over a decade, Sakai has been writing and drawing the continuing adventures of Usagi Yojimbo, a plucky rabbit samurai in 17th century Japan. Sakai's balance of humor, action, suspense, and even pathos suggests a collision between Walt Disney and Akira Kurosawa; drawn in a lively cartoon style equally inspired by the world of comics and that of film (with more than a hint of classic Japanese print art), Usagi combines a classic simplicity with a gentle, but thoroughly modern wit. Although never a top seller, Usagi has maintained a consistently strong following through the years, and his links to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "family", through appearances in toy stores and cartoon series, have made him one of the most visible comic creations of the '80s and '90s.

Stan Sakai was born in Kyoto, Japan. His family moved to Hawaii shortly thereafter, and that is where he spent most of the first 24 years of his life. While in intermediate school there, he met two aspiring cartoonists, Dennis Fujitake and Gary Kato, who encouraged him in his artistic pursuits; as a result, Sakai's earliest published work can thus be found in several late 1960s fanzines. In 1977, Sakai and his wife Sharon moved to the Los Angeles area, where they have resided ever since.

Sakai began developing his earliest series, "Nilson Groundthumper", in 1980, but his first professional appearance in comics involved neither writing nor drawing: in 1982 his friend Sergio Aragones asked him to letter a new comic he had created, Groo the Wanderer. Although trained as a calligrapher, Sakai knew next to nothing about comic book lettering and had to learn the basics in haste - but the hassle paid off, since the Groo gig led to more lettering jobs (for Eclipse Comics and Mattel Toys, as well as for several comic strips - including, eventually, the syndicated Spider-Man strip). Still, it was the Aragones connection that proved the most durable: in the 15 years since Groo #1, Sakai lettered over 120 issues of Groo the Wanderer (whether published by Pacific Comics, Marvel's Epic Line, or, most recently, Image Comics), as well as such other Aragones projects as Magnor. Even though Sakai has had to cut back on his lettering as demand for his cartooning grew, he has kept his hand in: in 1996, he won the Will Eisner award for "Best Letterer". (It was also through his work on Groo that Sakai met colorist Tom Luth, who would provide almost all of the coloring on Sakai's subsequent work, and writer Mark Evanier, who would eventually collaborate with him on a projected TV series.)

Sakai's career as a cartoonist took wing in 1985, when Steve Gallacci's small-press comic Albedo premiered "Nilson Groundthumper" in its first issue; the very first Usagi story appeared in #2. The following year, Fantagraphics Books editor Kim Thompson invited Sakai to contribute to his new funny-animal anthology Critters. Sakai drew a number of Usagi and Nilson Groundthumper stories for Critters, and in 1987, after a successful Usagi Yojimbo Summer Special that mixed new Usagi material with stories reprinted from Albedo, Usagi Yojimbo was spun into his own series. Usagi lasted 38 black-and-white issues at Fantagraphics (as well as three full-color Annuals), making it the company's longest-lived series by a single creator.

Thanks to a few guest appearances, crossovers, and a toy deal, Usagi became part of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles phenomenon, and in 1991, Sakai took Usagi to TMNT's publisher Mirage Comics, where it was reborn as a full-color comic. Mirage closed its doors in 1994 after 16 color Usagi issues and two Space Usagi mini-series; most recently, Usagi found its fourth home at Dark Horse, which has so far released a third Space Usagi miniseries and five issues of a new, continuing Usagi series.

This interview was conducted and edited by Kim Thompson in November of 1996, with some copy-editing by Sakai.



COMICS JOURNAL: You're one of the few cartoonists who's worked almost exclusively on the same series for over 10 years. Do you ever feel "trapped" by Usagi?

STAN SAKAI: Well, I do other stuff besides Usagi. I sent you the story that I did for Crusade, "Shi Kaidan", with real people. Actually, I was surprised that I was asked, but it was kind of fun to get away from funny animals.

COMICS JOURNAL: Still, the overwhelming majority of your work is Usagi. So you'll be perfectly happy working on Usagi for years and years to come?

STAN SAKAI: Uh... yeah, I still have a bunch of stories that I haven't done yet. So, yeah, I'm perfectly happy. (laughter) What a boring interview!

COMICS JOURNAL: (laughter) We'd better call it off right now. Let's talk about color versus black and white. For the first six or seven years, you did Usagi Yojimbo as a black and white series; you switched to color during the Mirage years, and now you're back to black and white at Dark Horse. How did all those changes come about?

STAN SAKAI: Well, I prefer black and white myself. I've always said that black and white looks truer to the original artwork than anything else; you can really see what the artist had intended to do. I've also often said that at many of the American comic book companies, the colorists do not know how to color. They hide good artwork or they try to disguise bad artwork, and it's especially true with all these things that you can do with computers now. The computer coloring, for the most part, looks terrible. There's some that looks wonderful, of course, but for the most part, I despise the coloring that's done on current comic books. The coloring seems to be more important than the line art in some cases. But Tom Luth has done a great job on Usagi. I consider him the best colorist in the industry, and even though a lot of his work is on computers, he also does a lot of hand coloring. He's terrific - anyone who can color an issue of Groo has to be tops in my book.

COMICS JOURNAL: If you like black and white so much, what prompted the move to color in the first place?

STAN SAKAI: Well, when I first went over to Mirage, it was with the intention of possibly doing a color book, but more probably a black and white book. In fact, the first Space Usagi series, which was the first thing I had published through Mirage, was black and white. But, when Usagi came over, it was just about the time when the entire Mirage line was going to color - well, when I say the entire line, it was just a couple of books, really. Usagi was the first on-going color series for Mirage, and right after that, the Ninja Turtles went to color, and eventually, they got set up so that they could even do the color separation in-house, with their computers. There were a lot of good points, but there were also some drawbacks to that, in that the coloring system was not perfected yet; there were a couple of issues of Usagi - around numbers 11, 12, and 13 - where the reproduction of the lines was really fuzzy. Tom apparently knew what the problem was so I think he called them up and they discussed it and eventually that problem was fixed.

COMICS JOURNAL: What happened when Mirage closed down?

STAN SAKAI: Well, Mirage closing down was due to, I think, three factors. First, the decline of the Ninja Turtle merchandising; it had gone on for about ten years at that point, which is incredible for a kid's licensing line. Because of that, they were downsizing the entire Mirage studio. Second, the state of the comic book industry at that time made doing the on-going full-color book unfeasible. And third, they did suffer a lot of damage during the spring thaw of 1994. A lot of their computers basically were destroyed when a leak on the roof went undetected: the entire computer system was flooded out, and they lost a lot of books on their computers. The entire Construct mini-series completely done, completely colored, and that was lost. I think Construct is now being published by Caliber, in black and white.

Anyway, Mirage was great in that they gave me about eight months' notice before they actually closed down, so I had a lot of time to go shopping around for a new company for Usagi. And Dark Horse replied immediately, saying they'd be willing to pick up Usagi as soon as the last Mirage issue came out, so I went with Dark Horse. I'd sent out maybe a dozen letters and gotten, oh, eight responses from publishers saying they'd be more than happy to take on Usagi. I thought that was great. Even DC - I just wrote to them just for a lark, and I got a call from them saying they'd love to publish Usagi but they had no space for it. Stan Lee encouraged me to approach Marvel but at that time - well, even now - I figured Marvel would not be interested so I didn't pursue that line. But that was nice of Stan, to think of me.

COMICS JOURNAL: So color versus black and white wasn't really an issue with Dark Horse, you both agreed to go back to black and white.

STAN SAKAI: Yeah. In fact, as soon as we went to color at Mirage, I got some letters from readers saying they wouldn't buy the book any more because it was in color. In fact, of the letters that I received that expressed a preference, almost all of them unanimously chose black and white.

COMICS JOURNAL: Did that surprise you?

STAN SAKAI: Not really. Even during the old Fantagraphics days, we'd get letters saying they loved the artwork in black and white. You can see the detailing, the different textures that I put in, and with the color books, even though, like I said, Tom is a terrific colorist, some of the nuances in the artwork were hidden. So, the switch to black and white was both an aesthetic move as well as an economic move.

COMICS JOURNAL: I remember in the '80s it was assumed that color would help a book's sales and black and white would hurt them. I don't know if that was ever true, but that bit of wisdom seems to have faded since then.

STAN SAKAI: Yeah. There was almost no change in sales from Usagi's switch from black and white to color, and back to black and white again; there was some drop during the run at Mirage, but again, a lot of the drop in sales I attributed to the decline of the industry at that time, when almost everything across the board was going down in sales.

COMICS JOURNAL: Did you approach drawing the book differently for color than for black and white? You seemed to draw less texture, less black....

STAN SAKAI: Yeah, less black. I figured the color would fill in that area so that I wouldn't get as much white space. I'd make color indications to Tom, saying I want a sunrise here or a sunset here, I want this effect here, rather than trying to convey all that in textures.

COMICS JOURNAL: Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that when you did the Usagi Color Specials, you were more interested in playing with the color, whereas when I look at the Mirage run of Usagi, the colors become less relevant to what you're doing.

STAN SAKAI: Yeah, in the Fantagraphics Color Specials, the color was such a novelty that I really planned around it. I did adventures in which the color would really enhance the story. But by the time I got to Mirage, it was just the stories I wanted to tell, rather than the stories I wanted to tell in color.

COMICS JOURNAL: So when eventually the time comes to reprint those Mirage stories in book form, would you want them reprinted in color or black and white?

STAN SAKAI: I don't know. I really don't know. That'd be a decision between myself and the publisher. There'd be extra expense and trouble, but I do own the color plates.

COMICS JOURNAL: Which is a big advantage.

STAN SAKAI: Yep, it is. Also, if they reprint it in black and white, then I'd have to go back and add a lot more to the artwork.

COMICS JOURNAL: When Jaime Hernandez did some stories for the Mechanics color series in the early '80s, he had to go back in and add textures and blacks for their appearance in the black and white collections.

STAN SAKAI: Right, those are things that would need to be done. Since we're on the subject of Mirage, I really enjoyed my tenure at Mirage. The only criticism I had is that I was the only freelancer that was not physically at the Mirage studios, because all the other contributors were either in or around Mirage. So I would hear everything second-hand or third-hand - such as, it was Tom Stazer who actually told me that Mirage was closing down the publications. I said, "No, that can't be, because they would let me know!" And sure enough... also, my first publishing director, or editor, or whatever they called the guy there - I had no idea that my editor had left until after the fact, and when I called to wish her luck and to tell her it was great working with her, she had already been gone for about a week. That was the only drawback about working with Mirage. But, other than that, it was a great experience. I especially liked it when I'd fly back east and they'd let me run rampant through the Ninja Turtle merchandising room.

COMICS JOURNAL: Do you have any qualms in retrospect about Usagi becoming as closely associated with the Turtles - being part of the merchandising roup, doing a lot of crossovers...?

STAN SAKAI: Well, it wasn't a lot of crossovers...

COMICS JOURNAL: Not a lot, but...

STAN SAKAI: He appeared in two episodes of their TV series, a couple of toys - one Usagi Yojimbo and the other Space Usagi - and maybe two or three comic book crossovers, but that's about it. And actually, I did pick up a few readers because of the crossover. They had seen my character in one of the TV series and decided to try the comic book. So, I have no regrets whatsoever. It's just that, if you saw the toy, it was not the Usagi that I had created. I knew going in that it would have to be part of the regular toylines, so I let it go at that. But the first prototype was rejected outright. It was even more extreme: it was like Rob Liefeld drawing Usagi, Usagi's head on He-Man's body. Like I said, it was rejected outright. The way the entire merchandising thing came about was the San Diego Con. Usagi was the first creator-owned character to get into the Ninja Turtle licensing line. Actually, it was going to be Cerebus at first, but they had some problems working with Dave Sim.

COMICS JOURNAL: (laughter) Hard to imagine.

STAN SAKAI: Basically, Peter (Laird) and I were just sitting together and talking and suddenly he turned to me and said, "You want a toy?", and I said, "Sure!", you know, thinking he was going to give me a toy ... and he said, "Okay, we'll make an Usagi toy", and that surprised me. So we worked everything out in just a couple months, and half a year later, the toys were on the shelves, and the first year, we sold two and a half million Usagi toys nationally. It did pretty well.

COMICS JOURNAL: Where do things stand in terms of ever getting Usagi licensed in a cartoon series? I assume there's been bites and nibbles and development galore...

STAN SAKAI: Yeah, and sometimes from strange sources. I think Fantagraphics got a call from Oliver Stone's company... that was the strangest. Every so often we get inquiries about Usagi and there's even been some merchandise, a computer game and even Usagi pajamas... But the second year I was at Mirage, they had approached me about developing Space Usagi for licensing, and with the success of the Ninja Turtles, they had all the contacts worldwide. It was with the intention of putting together a package, a TV series, getting it syndicated, and doing the licensing from there... and this was the first property that Mirage was launching since the creation of the Ninja Turtles, so there was a lot of interest in it. Turner Home Entertainment came on board to become the licensing agent. This was the first creator-owned property that Turner was undertaking; they took out ads and things, and we were getting licensees calling, inquiring about the project. We fully developed it, we wrote the series bible, we introduced new characters, we even did a three and a half minute animated clip, and Michael Dooney created some incredible toy designs. We had interest for a movie, and we had financing for 26 episodes for a TV series. At one time, we were offered a time slot for TV, but the deal breaker for that - there always is a deal breaker - was that everything hinged around getting a toy line. Apparently for licensing that's where the lion's share of the merchandising is, and at that time the toy companies were certain that superheroes was where everything was going to be in the next few years. This was the time when the big superhero explosion was coming about. Image Studios had just come about, everything was superheroes: Playmates had WildC.A.T.S., Galoob had the Ultraverse, Toy Biz had Marvel, and Kenner had DC.

The first thing they had against Usagi was that he was not a superhero, and the second was what killed a lot of the deals for Usagi in the late '80s: Bucky O'Hare. If you're familiar with Bucky O'Hare, he was a rabbit in the space that Neal Adams's Continuity Studios had created specifically for licensing. Unfortunately, when they launched Bucky O'Hare, Neal Adams dropped a bomb of such mega-tonnage that we can still feel the fallout. When toy companies saw "rabbit in space", they thought it was another Bucky O'Hare scenario and they stayed away from it. But, if nothing else, I've got a great three-minute clip that I show at conventions.

Like I said, we're always getting some kind of inquiry. We were set to develop Space Usagi for ABC just this past year. Mark Evanier agreed to help me develop the property. Disney had bought out ABC earlier and made up huge public announcements saying they were going to maintain a "hands-off approach" with ABC; however, this past summer, they quietly told ABC they can only develop Disney properties, and so that again killed the Space Usagi deal. However, just this past week, we had another inquiry (laughter)... so it keeps going on.

We went through a lot in those three years we did all that development for Space Usagi. I had never dealt so much with lawyers - I had to join the Chamber of Commerce of Century City so that my trademark would be legal in Turkey and Brazil... it was that big of a project we were developing. Anyway...

COMICS JOURNAL: Everyone has one of those Hollywood horror stories where - did someone ever call you up and say, "We love Usagi but it's gotta be a sewer rat living in contemporary Brooklyn instead"?

STAN SAKAI: Actually, one of the things that attracted ABC to Usagi was that it was a rabbit. Disney had told them hands off ducks and mice. So being a rabbit was great. The TV studios loved it, they had no qualms about it. It was primarily the licensees, the toy companies, that were hesitant about it, because he is a rabbit - they had been burned so badly on Bucky. However, that was about seven years ago and maybe now they'd be willing to take another look at Space Usagi.

COMICS JOURNAL: In the early '80s there was a lot of fretting about violence in Saturday morning cartoons - I would imagine something like Usagi would be running straight into that kind of problems considering that it's, in its own way, a very violent comic.

STAN SAKAI: Well, we got around it in two ways. First of all, through syndication - you can get away with a lot more in syndication.

COMICS JOURNAL: You can get away with murder - literally...

STAN SAKAI: Yeah, I mean, look at Batman... The Warner Bros. Batman is terrific but there is a lot of violence in there. Even more so with some other shows. Because of the success of some syndicated shows, the networks have become more lenient when it comes to cartoon violence. Also, with Space Usagi, we were able to create all these robots and things which basically were there to be blown up and hacked up and everything... so you've got the violence there, but no person is being killed or mutilated, it's just these robots. It's the same thing with the Ninja Turtles, they had those Foot Clan robots that would get sliced and diced and still, because they were robots, the networks let them get away with it. But yeah, for a while, the standards and practices guys were really looking over everything: Popeye couldn't make a fist or hit anyone, or if a villain got beat up it was always his own fault, he would fall into the trap he had originally intended for the hero and get caught up in his own mess.

COMICS JOURNAL: Hoist on his own petard, to use the expression. Going back to the comic itself, how thin of a line do you walk on the violence, and to what extent do you consider Usagi to be a comic book for children?

STAN SAKAI: I put in whatever violence I'm comfortable with, and it seems to work so far. As far as the children part, it did receive the Parent's Choice Award and it was recommended for kids seven and up. In the samurai genre, there is a certain amount of inherent violence you have to contend with. I don't go beyond what I think is tasteful, but basically I'm my own panel of experts when it comes to violence in my comics. My wife Sharon used to comment on the book, but she doesn't have time to read Usagi any more. (laughter)

COMICS JOURNAL: Okay. You told me in this interview you'd reveal the never-before revealed secret origin of Usagi.

STAN SAKAI: Yeah. As you know, Usagi was based upon Miyamoto Musashi, a samurai during the turn of the 17th century Japan. But when I first created Usagi he was a secondary character in the Nilson Groundthumper epic. Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy are characters I created before Usagi. I had a definite storyline for them that would take about 1,000 pages; it was a Tolkienesque story where they'd be on a quest and basically the entire story would deal with Nilson's life: First he'd meet Hermy and then they'd go on to meet Usagi and have adventures. Then it would lead to the death of Nilson and Usagi, until finally it would end with the death of Hermy. Basically, the entire story was about funny animals who were devolving into animals, and a race of goblins who were evolving into humans, and they were out to find out why. So the very first Nilson story, which appeared in Albedo #1, was the first story in the Nilson Groundthumper storyline; it was eight pages, and there was supposed to be 992 pages after that. But I did one Usagi story (in Albedo #2) and I preferred worling with Usagi to the others so ... what can I say? There is about 2,000 pages of Usagi now.

COMICS JOURNAL: Sort of like Popeye taking over Thimble Theatre.

STAN SAKAI: Yeah, exactly. Except Usagi and Nilson had never met.

COMICS JOURNAL: Well, you've worked your way through a few of those 992 remaining Nilson Groundthumper pages since then...

STAN SAKAI: Yeah, about a hundred. I had this grand epic all planned out: there'd be the final stand against the goblins at the castle, but they'd be overrun... very Tolkienesque and very grand scale ... Hermy's the last one to die, he runs away with Nilson's son and ... well, I had it all planned out.

COMICS JOURNAL: It's hard to imagine because Nilson Groundthumper turned into more or less a gag strip; you just never know where these things are gonna go. Do you have any grand narrative design for Usagi that you're following?

STAN SAKAI: Not really. I have certain landmark stories that I want to do, such as the "Grasscutter" story that I had planned a couple years ago. It was going to start with the 50th issue of the Fantagraphics black and white line; then, when I moved to Mirage, it was going to start with issue 24 of the Mirage series... and now I am finally going to start it with issue 13 of the Dark Horse series. Basically, it's an eight-issue story that starts off with the mythological creation of the Japanese islands and follows the sword Grasscutter throughout history. The sword actually did exist, it was one of the three imperial regalia - there was also a jewel and a mirror. The first two issues are just the prologue before we hit Usagi's time; the second issue deals with the great civil war, the Genpei Wars of Japan and the loss of the sword and then Usagi comes in possession of it and we'll take his adventure from there. And I'll mix history, folklore, and my own ideas for the story.

COMICS JOURNAL: Your first big epic storyline since the "Dragon Bellow Conspiracy"...

STAN SAKAI: There was also a three- or four-issue story that I did called "Daisho", in which Usagi's sword had been stolen.

COMICS JOURNAL: Obviously, you draw a lot of inspiration from the classic Samurai movies. Do you want to talk about that?

STAN SAKAI: Sure. I grew up watching the samurai movies. The theater down the street from where I lived showed them every Saturday; you'd get in for a quarter and you could stay there all day. So I grew up on all those Toshiro Mifune movies, I used to see them every week. There's one that I've been trying to find on videotape for the past, oh, 20 years. I don't know if it's out. I remembered it as a kid, it's called Satomi Hakkenden. It's based upon a classic 49-volume book from the 12th century, and that movie had everything. It had huge battles, lots of magic, witches, monsters, giant snakes, devil dogs, it had a transvestite prince, it had everything! I loved that. It was remade again in the late '80s, but I'm still looking for the 1957 version. Can't find it! I want to do a story that's inspired by that one. But if I find that video, I'm not sure if I should actually see it again, or I should just build the story upon my memories of it.

COMICS JOURNAL: Sometimes it can be very disappointing when you find something that really influenced you as a kid...

STAN SAKAI: I know. The special effects were really crude back then. Even as a five-year-old kid, I could see the snake was being held up by wires.

COMICS JOURNAL: What's your favorite samurai movie of all time?

STAN SAKAI: Oh, I love The Seven Samurai. I think that's probably the best movie ever made. The story... the cinematography is great, the characters are wonderful. Mifune's terrific in that movie. It's been remade a couple of times; as a Western (The Magnificent Seven) and even as a science fiction movie (Battle Beyond the Stars). Nothing quite as good as the original, though. Kurosawa's a genius.

COMICS JOURNAL: You've got a popular character and you're a very productive cartoonist; did you ever think, especially during the time when you were bouncing around publishers, of self-publishing?

STAN SAKAI: Oh...

COMICS JOURNAL: Because you'd seem to be one of the ideal candidates, especially the time when self-publsihing seemed like the great thing to do.

STAN SAKAI: I have a lot of friends who do self-publish and I hear more headache stories than anything. In fact, at one point Sergio (Aragones) was really encouraging me to self-publish - not only self-publish, but self-distribute. "I can't do that!" "Sure you can!" He had this whole plan where I'd make up a mailing list and basically mail out each issue every month. I don't want to do that! 10,000 copies in the mail? No! Then he'd say, "Well, how about this...?" He came up with all these ideas and self-publishing would definitely be one of them, but the thing is, he's such a big advocate for me to go into self-publishing but he would not self-publish himself.

COMICS JOURNAL: Really... that's suspicious.

STAN SAKAI: I think he wanted to see how I do first before he steps into the water.

COMICS JOURNAL: He wanted you to be the canary in the coal mine.

STAN SAKAI: Exactly (laughter).

COMICS JOURNAL: I knew there was a rumor floating around, just briefly, about you doing the book for Image.

STAN SAKAI: Well, actually, when I first went over to Mirage, there was a rumor going around that I was going over to Image. In fact, Martin Wagner called and said, "You're going to Image?" I said, "No, I'm going to Mirage". "Oh, okay." But later, Image was actually one of the publishers that I approached after Mirage. All of the Image creators that I talked to wanted it; however, they would hold their board meeting for another couple of months and I kind of wanted an answer right away, which Dark Horse gave me. At that time, Image had Groo the Wanderer, and Bone had just gone over, so I thought it was a perfect time, a perfect place to go... but again, just because they could not give me an immediate answer... and now I'm kind of glad they didn't. (laughter)

COMICS JOURNAL: Right. It didn't work out that great for Groo. If your book isn't wildly successful, Image is a real expensive proposition because of the way their deal is set up.

STAN SAKAI: Yeah, that's exactly how I feel. But Image was definitely one of the publishers I thought about.

COMICS JOURNAL: So let's talk about Sergio. How long have you known him?

STAN SAKAI: Nineteen years now. A mutual friend introduced us way back and we've been good friends ever since. I've been doing the lettering on a lot of projects for him, including Groo and Magnor. In fact, I became a letterer because of Sergio. I was teaching calligraphy courses at one time and Sergio heard about it and said, "I'm starting a comic book, do you want to letter it?" I had never professionally lettered a comic book but I said sure, just for the opportunity to work with Sergio.

COMICS JOURNAL: And you figured, a funny barbarian, how many issues can this last for?

STAN SAKAI: Exactly. But fortunately, at that time, there was a magazine called Comic Scene; they were going through all the stages of producing a comic book and it so happened they were spotlighting lettering that month. It showed exactly how do to it - the lettering guide, what size to make it, and everything - so I just followed that and I became a letterer! In the first issue of Groo, or maybe the first two issues, you can see how the lettering changes every few pages, and that's because I was testing out new lettering pens and it wasn't until about the third or fourth issue that I found a pen that I liked. But even before I started lettering for Sergio he was recommending me to other people, and so I began doing lettering for comic strips. He would say, "Oh, what a great letterer Stan is!" and he'd never seen my lettering before then.

COMICS JOURNAL: What comic strips did you letter?

STAN SAKAI: Oh, let me see. Mr. Abernathy, Simpkins....

COMICS JOURNAL: I don't think I've heard of that one....

STAN SAKAI: I've only seen it in Canada. I also lettered a few strips for the L.A. Times Syndicate, when they were developing new strips to try to sell. I can't remember any of them off-hand, that was so long ago.

COMICS JOURNAL: Of course, you lettered the Spider-Man strip for a while.

STAN SAKAI: Oh yeah, I still do. I received the Eisner Award for best letterer this year, but, for the longest time, I didn't consider myself a letterer. I was an artist or cartoonist who happened to do lettering. There was a meeting of letterers at one of the San Diego Cons. Todd Klein was there. So was Richard Starking and about ten others, myself included. It was fascinating. I had never been around so many letterers before. We talked about one's style, influences, and studying other letterers the way inkers talk about style or pencillers talk about influences. To me it was a revelation that letterers see themselves this way too. But then, it really is a craft and, though I letter comparitively few books a year, I really work at it. I've been lettering Groo ever since his second appearance. The first time I ever saw Groo was 1978. I belong to an organization called C.A.P.S., the Comic Art Professionals Society. In 1978 we did a C.A.P.S. portfolio, works by all the members, and Sergio's drawing was a picture with Groo in it - four years before the official first publication. So, Sergio had been working on that character for a long time. He just inked a story for me.

COMICS JOURNAL: Oh, he did?

STAN SAKAI: Yeah. I had water-colored an eight-page story for the hardback edition of Usagi Yojimbo Book 4, called "Return to Adachigahara Plain". I still had the pencils for that, and because that particular book, in hardback, was completely sold out, not too many people actually got to see the story. I kind of tweaked the pencils a bit, because Usagi had changed over the years, and I asked Sergio to ink that for me; it'll appear in Usagi #10. I had thought that he and I had pretty much similar styles of inking but after seeing his inks over my pencils I was surprised: "Wow, his inking is completely different from mine!" It's kinda neat.

COMICS JOURNAL: Well, your inking has certainly changed over the years as well. It's gotten a lot looser and a lot more lively.

STAN SAKAI: Even my pencils have gotten looser. I think it's working with Sergio, because his pencils are incredibly loose.

COMICS JOURNAL: They're barely even pencils.

STAN SAKAI: Exactly. But I had seen some really tight pencils that Sergio had done for Sergio Destroys Marvel and Sergio Destroys DC, and yeah, they were beautiful. His pencils were just gorgeous.

COMICS JOURNAL: Right, because he was working with other inkers...

STAN SAKAI: Some of the inkers were compatible with his style, others were not. John Byrne completely overwhelmed Sergio's pencils; others, like George Perez, complemented his work beautifully, which surprised me, frankly.

Sergio and I have been planning to do a mini-series together for the longest time, about the past five years or so. He has a character called Catnippon, of which he's done a couple of stories, one of which appeared in one of the Fantagraphics Usagi books (#11). When we were in Detroit last year, we finally sat down and plotted out a six-issue story of Catnippon and Usagi; we're writing the series together, but it's a challenge, two creators working on the same book. First of all, finding time to do it, and then trying to figure out who does what, who does the pencils, who does the inking, do we switch over every other issue or every issue, every page, do I draw your characters, will you draw mine, or should I draw my own...? You know, that type of thing.

COMICS JOURNAL: Who would you say are the major influences on the way you draw? I remember an interview of yours, you once mentioned Milo Manara.

STAN SAKAI: Yeah, his earlier style. I think he's gotten a lot more sparse recently.

COMICS JOURNAL: Sparse?

STAN SAKAI: Sparse, or not as detailed - it might be that he's working more in color now.

COMICS JOURNAL: That happens to a lot of European cartoonists - they simplify and at the same time they go to color. But then, a lot of cartoonists' work gets simpler as they get older.

STAN SAKAI: And also, of course, Sergio, just because I've worked with him so long and so much over the past years. But the first real influence was Steve Ditko.

COMICS JOURNAL: What is this weird hold Ditko has over Hawaiian cartoonists? He's obviously been a major influence not just on you, but also Gary Kato and Dennis Fujitake.

STAN SAKAI: I don't know, he was just so different from everyone else. Kirby's art was powerful but there's something about Ditko and his style... the way he drew Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, it was just different. Batton Lash has a lot of Ditko influence, too.

COMICS JOURNAL: And Eric Stanton... although I'm not sure who influenced whom there. Who's doing the Spider-Man strip these days?

STAN SAKAI: Stan Lee still writes the story, the inker is Joe Sinnort - at least for the Sundays, which I letter - but the penciller prefers not to be credited, so I won't mention his name. (laughter)

COMICS JOURNAL: That's odd!

STAN SAKAI: Yeah, I think so, too.

COMICS JOURNAL: Is it someone we all know?

STAN SAKAI: Yeah. He's been in the industry for decades and his pencils on Spider-Man are very nice but he just doesn't want people to know they're his. But I've been working for Stan [Lee] for about 12 [years]. Stan had needed a new letterer for the Spider-Man strips and Scott Shaw!, who was working at Marvel Productions at that time on Muppet Babies, referred me and Stan gave me a call, I went down and I picked up a Spider-Man strip that day and I've been lettering it ever since.

He's a neat guy. I really like Stan. The strangest thing is that he was exactly how he was hyped up to be... very energetic, very friendly. I used to love going into Marvel Production on Fridays; whenever I'd come in with strips, he'd drop what he was doing, if he was in a meeting he'd excuse himself, and we'd spend a few minutes together. I remember one Friday he had to leave early that day and his secretary apologized, so I just drew a little picture on a Post-it note which basically said, "Sorry I missed you, here are the strips", and the next time I came in, he'd had that framed and mounted on his wall. He's a terrific guy.

He wrote the introduction for Usagi Yojimbo Book Five. He writes a lot of introductions and much of them are all hype, but the introduction he wrote for me was very sincere, it was very nice; I really thank him for that. I had sent him a note saying that my son, Matthew, has just gotten into superheroes and he watches Marvel Action Hour on TV and the next day, Stan sent a Spider-Man backpack full of toys and cards and things, and everything was signed by Stan. Matthew uses the backpack whenever he goes to conventions.

COMICS JOURNAL: Do you ever still read Marvel Comics?

STAN SAKAI: Nope.

COMICS JOURNAL: How long ago did you stop reading them?

STAN SAKAI: Actually I read - or I don't actually read it, - I buy Generation X, just because I kind of like the artwork. I don't know if I like it or dislike it, I haven't figured it out yet, but I've been buying it ever since the first issue just because the artwork is different. A lot of it is just talking heads, but it is good talking heads.

COMICS JOURNAL: Who's the artist on that?

STAN SAKAI: Chris Bachalo.

COMICS JOURNAL: Do you read any superhero comics?

STAN SAKAI: I don't know if this really qualifies as superhero comics, but I like Sandman Mystery Theater. Guy Davis is just fantastic and his artwork is great. I love his work a lot. He used to do the Baker Street series.

COMICS JOURNAL: Which comics do you read to recharge your creative batteries?

STAN SAKAI: I don't read that many comics. Let's see, hmmm. The only one I look forward to reading is Sandman Mystery Theatre. Astro City I like, because it has a different slant on the whole superhero thing. James Robinson is a terrific writer. Leave It To Chance is the best new series I read all year. And I wish Bruce Timm would do a lot more comic books. Umm... other than that I'm not sure.

COMICS JOURNAL: Did you read a lot of the superhero comics?

STAN SAKAI: Back in the old Ditko days, but in the past 10 years, no. A friend gave me a whole bunch of the X-men comics, and I tried reading those and got lost. It was just hard to get back into.

COMICS JOURNAL: Yeah, they're pretty incomprehensible to me, to. I remember also you mentioned that you didn't read that many Japanese comics either, which surprised me.

STAN SAKAI: I'm not really into manga or anime. There's a few that I like. I enjoy the early Dragonball comics and the early Dr. Slump comics but that's about it. I would sometimes pick up things here and there, but there's nothing I really dig around for.

COMICS JOURNAL: What about European comics? Any favorites there?

STAN SAKAI: My first introduction to European artists was in 1971 when I saw some of the Asterix graphic novels. The stories, artwork, and coloring were wonderful. Head and shoulders above what was being put out by American publishers at that time. In many ways, Usagi is very similar to Asterix in that they're both set in very specific times in world history - Asterix during the expansion of the Roman Empire and Usagi during the initial days of the Tokugawa Shogunate.

Anyway, a few years later Heavy Metal came out and I was blown away by Moebius's "Arzach". The concepts and art style was so radically different than anything I had been exposed to before. In just a few pages he told a story of high drama and humor in an alien environment that you wanted to learn more about. He has got to be the best all-around artist working today. He crosses all genres with ease - from his bigfoot art to westerns to science fiction / fantasy to those spiritual adventures that a lot of times go way over my head - and he's equally competent in each genre.

Incredible. Other European artists I like are Loisel, who illustrated the Roxanna series as well as Peter Pan, Michetz, who does a series that takes place in feudal Japan called Kogaratu - I just have a couple of his books. It's difficult to find his work here. Edvin Biukovic who, with Darko Macan, created two Grendel stories for Dark Horse, is terrific. His style is very cinematic, although I think Darko has much to do with it.

It's still difficult to find a wide range of European comics here but, fortunately, with magazines like Heavy Metal and companies like NBM and Fantagraphics, we're exposed to a lot more creators, such as Alfonso Azpiri or Fabrice Lamy or Franco Saudelli.

COMICS JOURNAL: I seem to remember in the early days of Usagi you'd do more manga inspired designs or continuities and that seems to have fallen away - panels of grass rustling or things like that.

STAN SAKAI: I didn't know that was manga inspired; I thought that was more cinema inspired. I'm more inspired by the movies than I am by the comic books - the method of storytelling. Bill Stout and I were once talking about how characters are introduced in the movies, and I brought up the point where in Frankenstein, the old classic Karloff movie, when you first see the Monster, he comes through the door backwards, and then he slowly turns around and then you see him and that tells a lot about the character. James Cameron is another one who really introduces characters well. I was watching Terminator 2 the other day. When you first see the Linda Hamilton character, Sarah Conner, you see her from the back, she has her bed on its side and is doing chin-ups, using the leg of the bed for a chinning bar, and then she steps down and slowly turns around, and she has all this hair in front of her face, and that's great, and you see the strength in here, so different from the first Terminator movie.

COMICS JOURNAL: Are there any other filmmakers that inspire you?

STAN SAKAI: Kurosawa, of course. A few things here and there. When I'm drawing, I like to have the TV onand a lot of times, just because I don't have to watch the TV to know what's going on and whenever there's some explosion or something, that's when I can look up and watch for a while. That's my companion while I'm working. Other creators would have the radio on. Jack Kirby, I think, had the TV on to a Spanish station; he didn't understand a word of Spanish, but he liked the distraction and the company.

COMICS JOURNAL: You do a lot of research for Usagi, obviously.

STAN SAKAI: Oh, I do as much research as I can. I have a pretty extensive reference library at home, and again, I try to make it as authentic as I can, within reason. There are a few very minor things, such as sandals, that I use a lot of artistic license on, but as far as the big things - the code of the samurai, Bushido, houses, and the general culture - I try to get it as accurate as I can.

In fact, one of my very favorite Usagi stories was the kite story (#20), and that actually took about two years to write just because of all the research involved. It started out as a grain of an idea when I bought a book on Japanese kites. It dealt with a kite festival, so I figured, "Oh, it'll be terrific to have a Usagi story based on the kite festival." I did some research and I found out how kites were made in that time, so I created a story from three different viewpoints; the kite maker, a gambler who was in town during the festival, and Usagi. I integrated all three elements into one story and I was really pleased with the outcome.

Also, a lot of the character [are] based on historical figures. Usagi, like I said, was based on Miyamoto Musashi. Tomoe Ame, the female cat warrior, was based upon Tomoe Gozen, who was a female warrior famed for her beauty and her skill with the lance. She's an interesting character. There's not that much written about her; she lived during the time of the Gempei Wars, and her husband was a famous general who eventually committed seppuku but refused to let her die with him because he would have lost face if he was to die with a woman. So she eventually became a nun. Lord Hikiji, around whom a lot of the stories revolve, is based upon Date Masamune, who lived around the turn of the 17th century, and was one of the most powerful lords in feudal Japan. He too wanted to become Shogun, but he never did. Interestingly enough, he sent the first Japanese emissaries to Rome to meet the Pope, and it was a mission that ended in failure. But he was one of the most powerful and influential lords of Feudal Japan.

There are a lot of other characters that I took from Japanese movies. Zato-Ino, the blind swordspig, is taken from the blind swordsman, Zatoichi. He had a very unusual fighting style and appeared in a TV series as well as 27 films. Of course, I used "Lone Goat and Kid" from Lone Wolf and Cub. Gen the bounty hunter is a tip of the hat to Toshiro Mifune's Yojimbo character...

COMICS JOURNAL: Right, from Yojimbo... all the way down to the way he scratches himself all the time.

STAN SAKAI: His scratching himself, his five o'clock shadow, and also the way he kind of manipulates people and things.

COMICS JOURNAL: Aside from authenticity of decor and costumes to what extent do you work within the moral parameters of classical Japanese society - do you reinterpret it somewhat for American audiences?

STAN SAKAI: I think I reinterpret it for American audiences. For one thing, I'm third generation Japanese-American. I'm not close enough to the source to portray it as accurately as someone else who is first generation; because of that most of my research is through books and films, and I reinterpret it. Also, there are a few things that I may allude to that I really don't go into much detail, such as the eta, which, at that time, was kind of comparable to the untouchables of India, the very lowest class of the social order, and they dealt with things having to do with death, I may make a commentary every once in a while, like the eta was, as a class, disbanded in the 19th century but they basically changed the name from eta to burakunin but basically it's the same social class. They deal with death and a lot of them have shoe stores because shoes are made out of leather.

COMICS JOURNAL: I would imagine the idea of classes would be something an American audience would recoil at. How do you handle Usagi's response?

STAN SAKAI: Well, you know, he's pretty friendly; he pretty much treats all the social classes the same, which a real samurai at that time would not do. I think he reflects my own personality to a degree.

COMICS JOURNAL: But then, just about every cartoonist's major character tends to become a surrogate for the cartoonist.

STAN SAKAI: That's me - a maniacal sword-wielding bunny rabbit. One thing I want to mention, though, is that Usagi fans are great. I get a lot of really intelligent questions through the mail, and if I make any big blunders as far as historical accuracy or cultural accuracy goes, I hear about it from the readership. They take things like that seriously. There's even an Usagi web site that's pretty comprehensive that was done by a guy in Long Beach named Todd Shogun. It was created and is maintained by the fans; I really don't have access to the Internet so basically it's the fans who keep it up. They have things like character profiles, story synopses, they even have a color gallery, a printing history of all the Usagi books and everything. They run contests. It's pretty neat. (The web site is: www.usagiyojimbo.com/usagi.html )

COMICS JOURNAL: Do you have any Japanese fans who write to you from Japan?

STAN SAKAI: Not really, not on a consistent basis. I would get a couple every so often but Usagi's not translated in Japan. There's never been an American comic book that has really made a big impact on the Japanese market. I was featured in a prominent Japanese magazine but aside from that, there's been no response as far as the Japanese market goes.

COMICS JOURNAL: The Japanese market is pretty, no pun intended, insular. So you're bigger in Germany than you are in Japan?

STAN SAKAI: Uh-huh. (laughter) And Croatia!

COMICS JOURNAL: Dark Horse had started Usagi as a limited series then just kept it going.

STAN SAKAI: Right. It is a nine times a year series, but we've been going pretty much on a monthly schedule, going from Space Usagi straight into Usagi Yojimbo. For the first 15 issues of Space Usagi and Usagi we've only missed one month.

COMICS JOURNAL: You're getting faster.

STAN SAKAI: Yeah. My penciling has become a lot more non-existent since I began working with Sergio. I remember when I did the Usagi story for Critters #1, I was proud that I did that eight-page story in just one month. Now I can do a 24-page story in a month.

COMICS JOURNAL: It's no wonder you don't have any time to see movies or read comics.

STAN SAKAI: Well, I've got kids now, too. They love going to conventions. Hannah is six now, and she's been making mini-comics. She made $35 at the last San Diego Con. Quite an entrepreneur.

COMICS JOURNAL: Cartoonists' daughters are real shakers and movers. One of the things you mentioned earlier was the fact that you sold two and a half million Usagi dolls... and still Usagi the comic is doing 10,000, 12,000? So, why can't we get every one of the kids who gets a Usagi doll to also buy Usagi comics, or even just one in a hundred of the kids? How do we make comics a mass market again?

STAN SAKAI: It's really hard. Kids just don't read any more. They spend much more time with video games. It's just hard to get kids to read anything. Book sales have dropped dramatically, too. I think 90% of the books are bought only by 5% of the US population. Evanier makes the comparison between the US and Japan, where the literacy rate is 99%, and even adults, businessmen read comic books on the streets, and here, it's pretty much a children's medium.

COMICS JOURNAL: A children's medium that children don't read.

STAN SAKAI: Exactly. Even those who buy comic books don't read them any more. There was a sudden decline in both book and magazine sales and they traced it back to the time when Pac-Man first came out. Kids are spending all their time paying video games, or watching TV.

COMICS JOURNAL: Proportionately, comic books cost a lot more for the entertainment that you're getting.

STAN SAKAI: And a lot of the adults don't realize there are still comics around. I've done a couple of interviews for the L.A. Times and right after those interviews come out, there is a run on Usagi comic books in the L.A. area. I would get responses like, "Gee, I didn't know they made comic books anymore." If they could advertise on TV or something...

COMICS JOURNAL: So, what's the answer?

STAN SAKAI: I don't know.

COMICS JOURNAL: No one has any idea.

STAN SAKAI: Even with the success of the Batman movies, sales on the Batman comic were dropping like anything...

COMICS JOURNAL: Yeah, Batman sells something like 70,000 copies. So, if comics actually did completely and utterly die, what would you then do for a career?

STAN SAKAI: I have no idea!

COMICS JOURNAL: That might be the main reason there's so many cartoonists sticking around; they just have no idea what they can do other than comics.

STAN SAKAI: I think so, yeah.

COMICS JOURNAL: That's what Peter Bagge and Dan Clowes say. They have no other marketable skills whatsoever.

STAN SAKAI: That's probably where I am.

COMICS JOURNAL: Well, you've done commercial artwork. Do you do much of that any more?

STAN SAKAI: Not really. Most of my time is spent doing Usagi Yojimbo but once in a while I may take the odd job in commercial artwork, and it does pay a lot more. About 10 years ago I did some work for Mattel on their Captain Power games and things like that, and I would make $300 a hour. Comic books - they pay a little less.

COMICS JOURNAL: You're lucky if you get $300 a week.

STAN SAKAI: It gives me the autonomy. I have my studio at home. I have a separate room that I can set up in, and the commute time is almost non-existent (laughter).

COMICS JOURNAL: And you have complete control, especially now that you're back in black in white, so in its own way it's a dream job.

STAN SAKAI: If only I could make a lot more money off it.

COMICS JOURNAL: Anything else you want to talk about?

STAN SAKAI: Well, besides the ongoing series for Dark Horse, I'm also doing a couple of things for other publishers, like that six-page story for Crusade Comics, with real human figures.

COMICS JOURNAL: I know, it's weird - somehow disquieting.

STAN SAKAI: Well, I had to go back and count everyone's fingers after I had done it just to make sure I had put five fingers on them. And I'm doing things like covers and pinups for other publishers. There will be a role-playing game. Oh, Antarctic Press is going to publish an Usagi Sketchbook. Basically, it's a pin-up book. A lot of it is things like the endpapers for the Usagi hardback books, calendar art and drawings that were very rarely seen, convention sketches, and commissions.

Also, the Diamond Previews catalog is serializing a Usagi story over the period of one year. There is a two-page episode each month, which is a new challenge. The story has to be paced so that each two-page installment has to interest the reader and end with a cliffhanger. The plot has to be summarized every so often for the benefit of new readers but not too often or too obviously or it will become redundant when the entire story is collected into a single volume. Frankly, I had a difficult time thinking up a story but I happened to be reading Musashi by Elji Yoshikawa and one of the chapter titles, "Green Persimmons", caught my eye, so I wrote a story about a mysterious green porcelain persimmon which comes into Usagi's possession and everyone seems to be after it.

I've enjoyed my tenure with Dark Horse. It's pretty much the same with all my other publishers in that they leave me alone.

COMICS JOURNAL: You've worked with all the big non-interfering publishers.

STAN SAKAI: Which is pretty nice.

COMICS JOURNAL: Moreover, you told me once you worked with all the big publishers of the '80s who crashed and burned, and you still managed not to get screwed by any of them.

STAN SAKAI: Yeah - Eclipse, Comico, I got paid by all of them. In fact, I didn't even know First was having financial problems at the time. I'd gotten paid a week after I sent in my artwork - a "Munden's Bar" story - and about a week later I told someone, "Oh, yeah, First is terrific to work with..." and they said, "What? They owe me a couple thousand dollars!"

COMICS JOURNAL: To what do you attribute that miraculous state of affairs?

STAN SAKAI: I don't know. It's like the world is made up of two kinds of people, Laurels and Hardys. Laurel goes through the world not knowing anything but nothing really bad happens to him, while Hardy, no matter how hard he works or how hard he tries, nothing ever works out for him. I'm kind of like Laurel: I have no idea what I'm doing, but decent things seem to happen.