USAGI YOJIMBO
Classic Storytelling
by James Robinson

James Robinson, currently writing quite a few projects for various publishers, has won praise both for DC's Starman and The Golden Age and his own Leave it to Chance, published by Homage.

It surprises me I'm writing this.

I was asked to write this introduction because, I presume, I've made it known in interviews and to Stan himself how much I like the book. And I'm surprised I was asked for that very reason...because I'm surprised I like the book at all. Or still like it. more to the point, and here lie my feelings on what I (perhaps cruelly and dismissively) call gimmick books.

It seems to me that Usagi was somewhat the product of the black-and-white boon, back in the late '80s, in that when he first appeared in Albedo and Critters, he seemed very much suited to the trends then in comics.

There were a lot of different books, with quirky, sometimes endearing characters published by Aardvark-Vanaheim, Fantagraphics, Kitchen Sink, and a lot of other less noteworthy publishers. Looking back, that period in comics was filled with a surprising degree of diversity. Superheroes were the main thing then, as they have been since the 1960s, but at the same time, people were trying new stuff. Books with more of a crime or horror or humor emphasis than we'd seen since the 1950s began appearing. This was also a time when a new wave of storytelling reinvention was occurring with Frank Miller, Matt Wagner, Alan Moore, and Howard Chaykin leading the way. And what resulted was a pleasing time of anything goes. For this reason, this was a time of great ideas, good ideas, and bad ideas, and other ideas that, while good, were flawed by their own limitations.

By this I mean a comic with a neat hook. This resulted in a few nice stories, but nothing beyond that. Nothing that compelled you to read issue after issue. Read one, read them all. Read five, read them all. Read twenty, read them all. You'd see these series launch with an often large degree of hoopla and acclaim, and by issue four or five, fans would consider them "hot." The first couple of underordered issues shot up in price. Then, after a while, the fire would ebb, the once sought-after early issues went back into the back-issue bin. And in a year the series was all but completely forgotten.

At that same time of relative diversity one of the phenomena to occur was the resurgence of the "funny animal" comic. Some of these were straight humor. Some carried on from Pogo and were closer to satire. And some were animorphic books featuring serious subject matter. Books that depicted the adventures of characters who could have been purely human, but due to the creator's inclination were depicted as quasi-human/animal instead.

Cutie Bunny, Omaha, Usagi Yojimbo, and the other series that premiered in Critters along with Usagi, were all ones that could have been told just as well using real people. The animorphic element helped them stand apart, I guess. Likewise, Usagi could have merely been the adventures of a samurai. But the rabbit element helped people take notice. It worked. But it could have been the book's undoing too.

To my mind, Usagi Yojimbo was a gimmick book. A samurai rabbit. Cool. Funny and cute, but with death and sword fights. It was well received, going from the pages of the Critters anthology book to its own comic. And I enjoyed it the whole time.

But there was the lurking fear in my mind that one day I'd pick up an issue and feel I'd been there, done that, as I had with a lot of other books from that era. Books that had seemed so rich and diverse were beginning to seem stale and repetitive. Black-and-white implosion or not, that era of comics was dying. The best...the very best lingered. Some are still published today. But most aren't even remembered anymore.

And as for funny animals...all the Critters strips apart from Usagi, Neil the Horse, and Cutie Bunny. All were gone because after a certain point, all the stories you could tell with that character were told.

So what of the little rabbit with the big sword? He was still being published. And I was still reading it. And the sameness of storylines that marked the beginning of the end for a book seemed nowhere in sight. I had long ago resigned myself to one day no longer caring about the adventures of Usagi, and yet I still did. And the stories continued to surprise and interest me. In fact, I feel as Stan evolved as a creator the stories have managed to become even better conceived.

Which brings us to the present. Many years and three publishers later for Usagi Yojimbo, the gimmick book...

I remember reading issue eleven's five-page preamble to the story, detailing how a samurai's sword is made – and enjoying it immensely for the history lesson it was – while the sequence also quantified the stakes that were at hand for Usagi in needing to regain his lost swords. I remember thinking then how combining those two aspects of the narrative, while keeping it interesting, was a delicate balance Stan pulled off brilliantly.

The historic aspect of Usagi is something Stan has never shied away from. His research of the era makes the stories feel authentic, despite the fact that the book features a cast of talking animals. But at the same time, Stan's historic referencing is deftly scattered throughout the book in a way that doesn't make it seem heavy-handed.

Stan isn't afraid of the silent panel/sequence for mood or the conveying of emotional resonance. His storytelling and graphic abilities are such that he is able to veer away from dialogue and explanatory captioning for sequences of quiet nuance that is both sophisticated and assured.

Stan never allows himself to be too clever. His storytelling is simple at the same time. Panel layouts are never so flashy as to detract from the story. Captions are never in first or second person, meaning that peoples' actions are defined through thought that is never more interesting than the compelling characters themselves.

And, oh, what characters. Usagi; his lost love Kinuko; the stray dog ronin Inukai; the even more mysterious Jei; and the brash, beloved Gen. Stan has woven a varied and rich cast around Usagi, all with different driving motivations and inner demons that make them stand apart from our central character and make them unique to themselves.

I guess ultimately that's what make this book. Not the fact that it's animorphic with a central character that's a rabbit. If that had been the be all and end all, I doubt the book would have lasted a year. No, the book is masterfully written. Always fresh, with compelling characters and with a sense of authenticity. And the plots keep coming. Just when you fear you've seen it all, Stan comes up with some new twist on samurai themes or avenue of experience for Usagi, and we're on unfamiliar, fresh ground. The book is solid, well-crafted, imaginative storytelling. Classic storytelling.

Hmm. Maybe that was the gimmick to begin with.

– James Robinson

“Usagi Yojimbo” and "Space Usagi", including all prominent characters featured in the stories and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks of Stan Sakai and Usagi Studios. Usagi Yojimbo is a registered trademark of Stan Sakai.  Names, characters, places, and incidents featured in this publication either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric content, is coincidental.