LETTERS

[The first letter this issue requires a response from Stan Sakai himself, but I'll be back at the end of the column. – ED.]

Honored Sakai-San,

"Silk Fair" was a nice, light change of pace after Usagi's four-issue origin. (Which was itself a classic.) We were supposed to notice right off that Matsutaro wasn't a real samurai, weren't we? He didn't have a daisho, only the katana .

Besides the "mulch" joke and the appearance of a certain mendicant, I notice a bit of Sr. Aragonés' influence in Usagi, notably those little skulls floating out of the dead, and that wonderful story about the war horse in which everyone ended up wanting to kill Usagi. Some of the very early art even looked a little Grooish. (No offense). But you've developed and improved your own style rapidly. Notice on the cover of #5 how Usagi looks taller and thinner, more humanly proportioned?

About what time period is Usagi operating in? Specifically, would the teppo have made its appearance yet? (For the sake of our readers, "teppo" is Japanese for "arquebus," and "arquebus" is in the dictionary). Usagi's first encounter with the weapon might make an interesting story. Also, might he travel to China or Korea at some future date?

Have you got any other characters in the works besides Nilson Groundthumper? I'd love to see a "funny" animal strip set in Napoleonic Europe.

And one last thing, although it's really none of my business: Are you related to Saburo Sakai, the World War II Japanese air ace?

John Henry Sain
Medford, OR

[Usagi lives in the early 17th century, historically, the time that the Tokugawa Shogunate was established. Though the "Teppo" was in use then, I've resisted introducing it into Usagi's Japan, preferring the more traditional weapons. However, I've just plotted a "novel" in which it plays a central part. The story also reunites Usagi with Lord Noriyuki and Tomoe as well as Gennosuké and Zato Ino. I've got a few shorter stories I want to do first so it probably won't see print for a while.

There are no plans for Usagi to leave Japan. Nilson and Hermy may visit him someday, though.

I do have some other characters I would like to work on but I just don't have the time to fully develop them right now. None of them have to do with Napoleonic Europe. Sorry.

No, I don't believe I'm related to Saburo Sakai. – STAN SAKAI]

Dear Mr. Sakai,

The Japan I've sped through is compressed into a small city whose darkening streets merge into lonely stretches of clean, order cityscape as I ramble through them. The sailors have all found bars; there are no homeless people to ignore. Sipping canned coffee from a vending machine, I fail to realize that the insulation I carry against the sights and sounds and feel of the world will not allow me to imagine this Japan as ever having been different.

Naturally, I can't help being a little awed at the scope of the world you've sculpted for Miyamoto Usagi. Your setting might be a mutant version of seventeenth century Tokugawa Japan, the Shogunate having eclipsed the Imperial throne in importance, and a long period of internecine wars almost paradoxically winding to a close. I smile at the thought of Usagi, taking the Shinto religion's austerity seriously, being a little wary of visiting the cultural capital, Kyoto, where members of the warrior cast were regularly corrupted by such "immoral" entertainments as the kabuki. But I'm straining after a degree of specificity you hadn't intended, the Lord Hikiji's bloody power politics are simmering, then, in a setting as mythical as the Lone Ranger's American West.

Well, our hero is of appropriately mythical stature, striding into town at just the right time to resolve problems too big for the locals to handle. It's a none too respectable way for an ex-career military man to make a living, mediating between townies and thugs with the bloodletting skills that alienate him from the former by making him twenty times as clever and dangerous as the latter. You've been careful, though, to quietly emphasize that it's only Usagi's unwavering adherence to the extremely demanding moral code of bushido that gives him the edge he needs to best opponents equally skilled in combat (and which makes the idea of a Usagi/Tomoe Ame duel so intriguing). Kenichi, Gennosuké, Gunichi, and Ino are kindred spirits who, sadly, belong after all to the pragmatic, "real" world from which irritating absolute values have been expelled. Kenichi and Gen are the most interesting of the book's supporting characters to date: Usagi's boyhood rival is a good man who's too easily confused by the boiling cauldron of his emotions, while the conniving, amoral bounty hunter is an arrogant clown whose totally disarming manner wins us over even though we should know better. (C'mon, let's have a Gennosuké solo adventure. Please).

It's remarkable how well you evoke, rather than just represent, nature in your art. Even if I had the technical knowledge to define your style of drawing, would it explain the trick of how a few lines representing "snow" in "The Goblin of Adachigahara" trigger, as no piece of cartoon art I can remember has, my memory of a two a.m. trek through six inches of eastern Pennsylvania snowfall with teeth-chattering immediacy? Or how the dust whipping through the first panel of "Bounty Hunter" seems to stick in my throat, or how the loamy smell of the woods wafts up from the pages of the forest battle scene in "Silk Fair?" I'm enthralled and baffled by the illusions; I won't presume to try to explain them.

Maybe I'll sound a little less inarticulate if I consider your growing assurance in the areas of characterization and dialogue, especially in Samurai! I never looked too hard to find fault with your character writing, although it wasn't until "Blind Swords-Pig" (Critters #7) that I first noticed some emotion creeping outward from the core of your martial arts superhero. Now Samurai! , ah! Here, in pursuing the highest reaches of excellence in the sullen art of swordsmanship, Usagi is gradually awakened to the sacrifices, as well as the discipline, that the pursuit entails. I think the most terrible moment of that awakening comes, not with the slaughter of Lord Mifune's family, but in a scene containing the germ of that sense of loss: the last two pages of issue #3's installment, a beautifully subtle dinner scene in which Usagi tells Mariko, the woman he's loved for years, of his long-sought entry into military service. If he notices Kenichi's paranoid frown, as if the comment had been a deliberate swipe at him in Mariko's presence, it's meaningless. He watches helplessly as his innocent words twist in the young woman's heart. She asks resignedly if Kenichi plans to walk away by that same hard path, and his shame barely allows him to utter his denial. The soft "no" is a life preserver to Mariko; Kenichi's despair is washed away in her surge of hopefulness; Usagi silently realizes that her choice between the two of them was determined long before that night, determined in fact by his own passionate devotion to the sword. The soul of the mythic hero seems to shrink a little.

The Japan I've sped through was anonymous. I prefer yours.

C.E. Dinkins
Oakland, CA

[Thanks for a thoughtful letter, C.E.

Next issue of Usagi, #8, will go on sale in March (see below). In addition to a story in which Usagi finds himself embroiled in a rather bitter family dispute, it will feature the premiere of "Rockhopper" by Tom Luth, who has made frequent appearance in Usagi (or rather, on Usagi ) as Stan's colorist of choice.

Also in the next issue, we'll have details of a special contest that will allow one or more lucky winners to get their own piece of Stan Sakai artwork.

And a final notice to readers: we love to get your letters, so keep on writing them – long short, adulatory, critical, analytical, we enjoy them all! Our address is Usagi Letters, 1800 Bridgegate Street Suite 101, Westlake Village, CA 91361. Don't forget the suite number; it's very important. – ED.]