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USAGI YOJIMBO LETTERS COLUMN
Send comments to: Usagi Yojimbo ~ Letters Column c/o Dark Horse Comics
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Hi, Stan and Diana.
I’m curious as to how much consideration goes into architectural accuracy when penciling. It seems to my untrained eye to be quite accurate. Most of the peasant housing Usagi encounters is gasshou style, if I’m not mistaken, which is standard fare, but when getting into drawing temples, castles, and residences of the aristocracy, you have a large range of styles to choose from. I’m guessing that shoin and sikuya are the predominant styles for the affluent in Usagi’s timeline, though you have a lot more freedom to experiment with the styles that suit.
I have a couple of books on Japanese architecture on my shelf (Architecture and Authority in Japan and The Way of the Carpenter, both by William Coaldrake, and What is Japanese Architecture by Nishi and Hozumi), all of which are fantastic insights into how the Japanese built their structures. I’m curious to know what references you use when deciding what style of building to illustrate.
Ben Kelly
bwkelly@ozemail.com.au
I have quite a few books on architecture in my library, including: Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings by Edward S. Morse; Kura: Design and Tradition of the Japanese Storehouse by Teiji Ito; and Japanese Detail: Architecture by Sadao Hibi. I also have many books specific to themes, such as Palaces of Kyoto, Villas of Kyoto, and Japanese Castles.
Dear Stan Sakai,
First off, I’d like to thank you for being so friendly and approachable at A-Kon. I’ve never had a particularly bad experience with a celebrity, but you were as outgoing as I’ve ever seen them.
I’ve noticed that you’ve received at least one award for lettering comics. I had never thought about lettering as any kind of entity before, so it surprised me to realize that it was something that one might receive an award for. What then, I wondered, made for good lettering? What would make one person’s lettering so outstanding as to warrant an award?
Usagi Yojimbo, the only sample of lettering by you that I have, is consistently neat and plain, except when Jei is speaking: his text seems soft and eerie. It took me a while to notice what was different in the lettering, when observing his speech patterns. The balloons, obviously, were wavy, and this contributed largely to the effect. The main difference, however, is that he speaks in lower case, whereas everyone else speaks in all caps. Stuff like this seems to subtly contribute to the mood and flavor of his character. Writing Jei in this manner makes him sound different in the reader’s head. Perhaps his voice is a harsh, painful whisper.
Speaking of which, I have a Jei theory. Looking at Jei, I noticed that his kimono is crossed left over right, which is, as I understand, traditional for the garb of the deceased. Everyone else wears their kimonos right over left. I conjectured that Jei wasn’t so much possessed as risen from the dead. There’s actually a role-playing game (called Kindred of the East, published by White Wolf Game Studios) that deals with Oriental vampire/ghosts who were sent to hell, but escaped to re-inhabit their own bodies. I’m not sure of the name for the critter they based these on, but in the game they were called wan kuei or kuei jin. This, I imagined, would fit nicely with Jei as someone - perhaps an ashigaru due to his preference for the spear - who died (dishonorably?), was punished, but returned to do the gods’ bidding and punish the wicked.
Then I noticed that everyone else had their kimono crossed left over right as well. It’d probably be silly to speculate that every character in Usagi Yojimbo was deceased, on the basis of their fashion habits. But I still like the idea about Jei.
Danny Sutton
elemek@yahoo.com
Actually, the kimono is crossed left over right. It is crossed the opposite way after one has died. Many translated manga are crossed the latter way because the pages are “flopped” to accommodate American readers, as Japanese is read right to left as opposed to our left to right.
As you said, good lettering is part of the storytelling. It should not be intrusive, but a part of the background like the soundtrack of a film. It can also be used to convey a person’s emotion or character.
Hi there, Stan.
I just wanted to take a second to thank you for all of your work on Usagi Yojimbo through the years. I started reading UY with book 10, and have spent a terrible (yet wonderful) time tracking down the hardcover editions that you’ve published with Dark Horse and Fantagraphics. It’s an interesting life from store to store, convention to convention (found two at the Alternative Press Expo last year...), but it’s like a little Christmas every time I get my hands on another one of them. I appreciate the fact that your stories make sense to my seven-year-old cousin as well as my 82-year-old grandmother. Interestingly enough, two of my roommates have now read their way through the seven books I own, as well.
One of these days I’d love to commission a Space Usagi piece from you for my company. The name of our little development firm is Rocket Society Industries. I think it’d fit the name.
Aaron Nunleyaaron@rocketsociety.com
Usagi does have a wide range of readers. The stories, though, are really written for an audience of one - me. I write the kinds of stories that I would like to read. I’m just glad other people have similar tastes to mine.
Speaking of Space Usagi, there is still another SU story I would like to tell. Another story I’ve long wanted to do was one of the original ideas I had for Usagi back in 1984: What if H.G. Wells’s Martians had landed in feudal Japan? Maybe I’ll develop one of these stories as a miniseries for Usagi’s 20th anniversary in a couple of years.
Speaking of Stan’s original art, you can find a number of pieces for sale - various convention sketches as well as the cover art for Space Usagi vol. 2 #3 - on the darkhorse.com gallery, at: http://www.dhgallery.com/stan.
- Diana
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Usagi Yojimbo, 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 authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events, institutions, or locales, without satiric content, is coincidental.