VENUSARMS.COM, APRIL 05, 2009
Moderators: Mayhem, Steve Hubbell, Moderators
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venusarms
- Shugyosha<Student Warrior>
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VENUSARMS.COM, APRIL 05, 2009
I met Mr. Sakai in Seattle on Saturday and he was so cool. He was totally approachable and friendly, and gave us a great interview which can be heard here http://venusarms.com/content/index.php?topic=62.0 I was delighted to meet him and find that he is as nice as everyone says. And I want to take this opportunity to thank Todd Shogun and the people who make this site possible. You are the best kind of fans an artist can ask for (and the kind journalists love). Sorry I don't know all your names.
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Steve Hubbell
- Taisho
- Posts: 6052
- Joined: Thu Sep 19, 2002 15:25 -0700
- Location: Kalamazoo, MI
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Steve Hubbell
- Taisho
- Posts: 6052
- Joined: Thu Sep 19, 2002 15:25 -0700
- Location: Kalamazoo, MI
Re: Me too, at Fantagraphics on Apr.4
A transcript of the Venusarms.com interview has been posted on their website under the title
Stan Sakai: Fluffy Justice
Stan Sakai: Fluffy Justice
venusarms wrote:I met Mr. Sakai in Seattle on Saturday and he was so cool. He was totally approachable and friendly, and gave us a great interview which can be heard here http://venusarms.com/content/index.php?topic=62.0 I was delighted to meet him and find that he is as nice as everyone says. And I want to take this opportunity to thank Todd Shogun and the people who make this site possible. You are the best kind of fans an artist can ask for (and the kind journalists love). Sorry I don't know all your names.
-
Steve Hubbell
- Taisho
- Posts: 6052
- Joined: Thu Sep 19, 2002 15:25 -0700
- Location: Kalamazoo, MI
Re: Interview with Mr Sakai
STAN SAKAI: FLUFFY JUSTICE
by KURT and ANGELINA BROUGHTON (VENUSARMS.COM, APRIL 05, 2009)
We caught up with legendary comic creator Stan Sakai, bribed him, and picked his brain.
VENUSARMS.COM: How would you describe Usagi as an artist?
STAN SAKAI: I based Usagi on a person named Miyamoto Musashi and besides being a great swordsman, Musashi was also a poet and a sculptor and a writer. I think Usagi likes to do ink drawings like Musashi also did. He's done pottery making and even the art of the tea ceremony. That was fun. I did a lot of research on that. I also went and participated in three tea ceremonies. I was the second guest at one of them and they explained everything to me, what was going on, why they were doing what they were doing. That was a big help for me.
VENUSARMS.COM: Was this during your visit to Japan?
STAN SAKAI: This was actually during a visit to Seattle!
VENUSARMS.COM: How is Usagi accessible today?
STAN SAKAI: Usagi is in a lot of libraries which I am really happy with. Usagi has also received a number of library awards like the American Library Association Award and a four Young Adult Library Services awards. It was voted as one of the best graphic novels for teens in 2009. In about a month I'm going to Massachusetts to speak at librarian's conference. I speak at schools and libraries as well as conventions. I try to speak at places the public would go to, not just comic book fans.
VENUSARMS.COM: Besides self promotion what is the motivation to speak to the kids?
STAN SAKAI: Kids nowadays don't read. I learned to read, by reading comic books. Comics gave me my love of reading. Nowadays it's more novels than comic books, but I started off reading comic books and comic strips. But now days kids don't read as much so one of my goals is to promote literacy and to also promote the art form of comic books. I'm in four art exhibitions this year, which is cool. One of the high points is I have the Art of Stan Sakai going on at the Cartoon Art museum in San Francisco. I'm also in a show at the Pacific Asian museum which is a prestigious museum in Los Angeles.
VENUSARMS.COM: Besides Grasscutter, are there any other famous items or weapons you mention such as Muramasa or Masamune?
STAN SAKAI: I mention Muramasa but I focused on Grasscutter which is one of the three great treasures of Japan. It took about five years to completely do the research.
VENUSARMS.COM: Would you say then that it is your favorite of these weapons?
STAN SAKAI: Yes. Actually it took a long time to find the image of Grasscutter because most artists have depicted Grasscutter as a Japanese sword, a katana. But it predates the katana, it was more like a Chinese weapon so thank god for the Internet. Even with fans looking on the Internet, it took three months to actually find an image of Grasscutter and another couple of months to verify that this is what Grasscutter looked like.
VENUSARMS.COM: Do you still send the originals to be published rather than scanning and emailing them?
STAN SAKAI: I am very old fashioned, I draw on Bristol Board with pen and ink and I fed-ex the original artwork to my publishers at Dark Horse and once its finished they send it back to me.
VENUSARMS.COM: What is the benefit of doing it the old fashioned way?
STAN SAKAI: I love the feel of drawing on two-ply, 500 series, draft board Bristol. It's comfortable for me and I love having my original artwork. I don't sell my original pages so I've got like, five-thousand pages stacked in my closet.
VENUSARMS.COM: What made you decide to add reference notes and bibliographies to your books?
STAN SAKAI: We did that with some of the earlier comic books, like I did a story about seaweed farming when Usagi was with Mirage Publishing. We put some story notes in the background and people liked that. When I did Grasscutter I did so much research that I wanted to put story notes in the background and a bibliography because there was so much more to the story than what I had told. When we published that we got letters saying "hey keep this up. We loved all the additional material" So we kept doing that whenever I would research of story. One of my favorite stories is about the tea ceremony. Usagi performed acts at a tea ceremony. There's very little dialog, no fighting or anything it's just the tea ceremony from the beginning to end. I love that story but I also did a lot of research so I added that, the history of tea and how the tea ceremony came to be. How it is performed.
VENUSARMS.COM: Have you researched martial arts postures?
STAN SAKAI: I've gone to Kendo tournaments and a couple of things but I do it for art's sake. Sometimes I like the little pinky to be out but I know that's totally wrong. I think graphically it looks kind of cute.
VENUSARMS.COM: What about real maps from that period?
STAN SAKAI: Some of those early stories mentioned certain passes. There was a shortcut from Kyoto to Edo that I actually looked up and studied and incorporated that into stories. It was a lot of work. I have a general idea of where Usagi is now and a general time period.
VENUSARMS.COM: What an average day like in the life of Stan Sakai?
STAN SAKAI: I get up at 5:30 every morning. I make lunches for my kids to go to school, send my wife to work, do the Internet stuff, walk to the post office and when I get back I turn on the television and start drawing. A break for lunch... If it's a Monday I wash whites, if it's a Tuesday its colors. About 4:30 I start dinner most times 'cause I'm at home. That's one of the neat things, I have no commute. It's just walking downstairs to the studio. Kitchens right next door to me. I watch TV while I'm working.
VENUSARMS.COM: If you could magically make someone else rich and famous based on the merits of their art, who would it be?
STAN SAKAI: I love Sergio. Sergio Aragones, I worked with him for so long. Groo the Wanderer, Mad Magazine, I've known him for 30 years. We're still waiting for the Groo movie to come out. They're working on the script right now. If someone could really make it big, it would be him.
VENUSARMS.COM: If you could choose anyone no matter how fantastic to direct the Usagi Yojimbo movie, who would it be?
STAN SAKAI: Kurosawa has always been my favorite. I would love to see a Miyazaki Usagi. Actually a few days ago on April fool's day one guy posted to the Internet "Miyazaki directs Usagi!"
VENUSARMS.COM: Where in Hawaii did you grow up?
STAN SAKAI: I grew up in Kapahulu which is next to Waikiki Beach. I went to Waikiki Elementary school.
VENUSARMS.COM: Do you speak Pigeon?
STAN SAKAI: Of course, everyone who grew up in Hawaii does. I lose it up here but once you go back to Hawaii, it all comes back.
VENUSARMS.COM: Samurais vs. ninjas: The way that we look back on history with the morals that we have today the samurais don't seem all that cool and some of the ninjas were like American revolutionaries. What is your take on that as someone who has devoted your life in a way to the samurai?
STAN SAKAI: Usagi is the idealized samurai. I have three basic ninja clans. One is the Neko ninjas which are the cats which are very honorable... Kind of honorable, for ninjas. There are two major ninja clans, the Iga and the Koga. The Koga are my bat ninjas. There are also the mole ninjas which are mercenaries. They’re the scum of the earth literally because they burrow under the earth.
VENUSARMS.COM: Have you considered doing the voice of Usagi in the cartoons yourself?
STAN SAKAI: No. At one point when we almost got Usagi on television they were suggesting "maybe you should do the voice" but I'm not interested in acting.
VENUSARMS.COM: What is your favorite music?
STAN SAKAI: The Beatles. Early rock from the sixties to the seventies. Early seventies.
VENUSARMS.COM: What would you say is the greatest work of art that you have ever personally witnessed?
STAN SAKAI: There are things that surprised me. Like at the Louvre, how big Whistler's Mother is and how small the Mona Lisa is. It's on a huge wall and its small! My take on museums is that 10% of the artwork is museum worthy, or I would love to see. But the Louvre has so much stuff in it 10% is a huge amount. My favorite museum in the world is the Musée d'Orsay which concentrates on impressionists which is my favorite period of painting. That is also in Paris and it was built in an old train station so it has a nice feel to it.
VENUSARMS.COM: Who is your favorite Star Wars character?
STAN SAKAI: I grew up with the early stuff so it's gotta be Luke.
VENUSARMS.COM: When talking about writing Usagi and the direction it's going, you use the word we. When you say we, do you mean you and Usagi?
STAN SAKAI: In a way, because Usagi sometimes takes on a direction that I had not intended. Even his appearance. Sometimes people remark "I see Usagi is taller now or he has a little bump for a nose that he didn't have before. I thought I was drawing him the same all the time but he just develops and matures, kind of on his own. I had mentioned Sergio before and Groo is the same way. If you compare the early Groo to the current one he looks very different, the same as Usagi.
VENUSARMS.COM: What are you promoting right now?
STAN SAKAI: Usagi is still going on, there is a new trade paperback collection from Dark Horse called Bridge of Tears that comes out in July. Fantagraphics is coming doing the complete Fantagraphics Usagi as a two hardcover, slip case edition. And in November there is a brand new original graphic novel, fully painted, I'm doing watercolor paintings for this one, called Yokai. It deals with a lot of the Japanese monsters of folklore. The horrific stuff and also really goofy stuff like the walking umbrella. I'm having lots of fun with that.
VENUSARMS.COM: If you could destroy a recognizable work of art with no consequences, what would it be and how would you do it?
STAN SAKAI: I think I would be very ordinary and just say...
Mustache, Mona Lisa... And round glasses.
by KURT and ANGELINA BROUGHTON (VENUSARMS.COM, APRIL 05, 2009)
We caught up with legendary comic creator Stan Sakai, bribed him, and picked his brain.
VENUSARMS.COM: How would you describe Usagi as an artist?
STAN SAKAI: I based Usagi on a person named Miyamoto Musashi and besides being a great swordsman, Musashi was also a poet and a sculptor and a writer. I think Usagi likes to do ink drawings like Musashi also did. He's done pottery making and even the art of the tea ceremony. That was fun. I did a lot of research on that. I also went and participated in three tea ceremonies. I was the second guest at one of them and they explained everything to me, what was going on, why they were doing what they were doing. That was a big help for me.
VENUSARMS.COM: Was this during your visit to Japan?
STAN SAKAI: This was actually during a visit to Seattle!
VENUSARMS.COM: How is Usagi accessible today?
STAN SAKAI: Usagi is in a lot of libraries which I am really happy with. Usagi has also received a number of library awards like the American Library Association Award and a four Young Adult Library Services awards. It was voted as one of the best graphic novels for teens in 2009. In about a month I'm going to Massachusetts to speak at librarian's conference. I speak at schools and libraries as well as conventions. I try to speak at places the public would go to, not just comic book fans.
VENUSARMS.COM: Besides self promotion what is the motivation to speak to the kids?
STAN SAKAI: Kids nowadays don't read. I learned to read, by reading comic books. Comics gave me my love of reading. Nowadays it's more novels than comic books, but I started off reading comic books and comic strips. But now days kids don't read as much so one of my goals is to promote literacy and to also promote the art form of comic books. I'm in four art exhibitions this year, which is cool. One of the high points is I have the Art of Stan Sakai going on at the Cartoon Art museum in San Francisco. I'm also in a show at the Pacific Asian museum which is a prestigious museum in Los Angeles.
VENUSARMS.COM: Besides Grasscutter, are there any other famous items or weapons you mention such as Muramasa or Masamune?
STAN SAKAI: I mention Muramasa but I focused on Grasscutter which is one of the three great treasures of Japan. It took about five years to completely do the research.
VENUSARMS.COM: Would you say then that it is your favorite of these weapons?
STAN SAKAI: Yes. Actually it took a long time to find the image of Grasscutter because most artists have depicted Grasscutter as a Japanese sword, a katana. But it predates the katana, it was more like a Chinese weapon so thank god for the Internet. Even with fans looking on the Internet, it took three months to actually find an image of Grasscutter and another couple of months to verify that this is what Grasscutter looked like.
VENUSARMS.COM: Do you still send the originals to be published rather than scanning and emailing them?
STAN SAKAI: I am very old fashioned, I draw on Bristol Board with pen and ink and I fed-ex the original artwork to my publishers at Dark Horse and once its finished they send it back to me.
VENUSARMS.COM: What is the benefit of doing it the old fashioned way?
STAN SAKAI: I love the feel of drawing on two-ply, 500 series, draft board Bristol. It's comfortable for me and I love having my original artwork. I don't sell my original pages so I've got like, five-thousand pages stacked in my closet.
VENUSARMS.COM: What made you decide to add reference notes and bibliographies to your books?
STAN SAKAI: We did that with some of the earlier comic books, like I did a story about seaweed farming when Usagi was with Mirage Publishing. We put some story notes in the background and people liked that. When I did Grasscutter I did so much research that I wanted to put story notes in the background and a bibliography because there was so much more to the story than what I had told. When we published that we got letters saying "hey keep this up. We loved all the additional material" So we kept doing that whenever I would research of story. One of my favorite stories is about the tea ceremony. Usagi performed acts at a tea ceremony. There's very little dialog, no fighting or anything it's just the tea ceremony from the beginning to end. I love that story but I also did a lot of research so I added that, the history of tea and how the tea ceremony came to be. How it is performed.
VENUSARMS.COM: Have you researched martial arts postures?
STAN SAKAI: I've gone to Kendo tournaments and a couple of things but I do it for art's sake. Sometimes I like the little pinky to be out but I know that's totally wrong. I think graphically it looks kind of cute.
VENUSARMS.COM: What about real maps from that period?
STAN SAKAI: Some of those early stories mentioned certain passes. There was a shortcut from Kyoto to Edo that I actually looked up and studied and incorporated that into stories. It was a lot of work. I have a general idea of where Usagi is now and a general time period.
VENUSARMS.COM: What an average day like in the life of Stan Sakai?
STAN SAKAI: I get up at 5:30 every morning. I make lunches for my kids to go to school, send my wife to work, do the Internet stuff, walk to the post office and when I get back I turn on the television and start drawing. A break for lunch... If it's a Monday I wash whites, if it's a Tuesday its colors. About 4:30 I start dinner most times 'cause I'm at home. That's one of the neat things, I have no commute. It's just walking downstairs to the studio. Kitchens right next door to me. I watch TV while I'm working.
VENUSARMS.COM: If you could magically make someone else rich and famous based on the merits of their art, who would it be?
STAN SAKAI: I love Sergio. Sergio Aragones, I worked with him for so long. Groo the Wanderer, Mad Magazine, I've known him for 30 years. We're still waiting for the Groo movie to come out. They're working on the script right now. If someone could really make it big, it would be him.
VENUSARMS.COM: If you could choose anyone no matter how fantastic to direct the Usagi Yojimbo movie, who would it be?
STAN SAKAI: Kurosawa has always been my favorite. I would love to see a Miyazaki Usagi. Actually a few days ago on April fool's day one guy posted to the Internet "Miyazaki directs Usagi!"
VENUSARMS.COM: Where in Hawaii did you grow up?
STAN SAKAI: I grew up in Kapahulu which is next to Waikiki Beach. I went to Waikiki Elementary school.
VENUSARMS.COM: Do you speak Pigeon?
STAN SAKAI: Of course, everyone who grew up in Hawaii does. I lose it up here but once you go back to Hawaii, it all comes back.
VENUSARMS.COM: Samurais vs. ninjas: The way that we look back on history with the morals that we have today the samurais don't seem all that cool and some of the ninjas were like American revolutionaries. What is your take on that as someone who has devoted your life in a way to the samurai?
STAN SAKAI: Usagi is the idealized samurai. I have three basic ninja clans. One is the Neko ninjas which are the cats which are very honorable... Kind of honorable, for ninjas. There are two major ninja clans, the Iga and the Koga. The Koga are my bat ninjas. There are also the mole ninjas which are mercenaries. They’re the scum of the earth literally because they burrow under the earth.
VENUSARMS.COM: Have you considered doing the voice of Usagi in the cartoons yourself?
STAN SAKAI: No. At one point when we almost got Usagi on television they were suggesting "maybe you should do the voice" but I'm not interested in acting.
VENUSARMS.COM: What is your favorite music?
STAN SAKAI: The Beatles. Early rock from the sixties to the seventies. Early seventies.
VENUSARMS.COM: What would you say is the greatest work of art that you have ever personally witnessed?
STAN SAKAI: There are things that surprised me. Like at the Louvre, how big Whistler's Mother is and how small the Mona Lisa is. It's on a huge wall and its small! My take on museums is that 10% of the artwork is museum worthy, or I would love to see. But the Louvre has so much stuff in it 10% is a huge amount. My favorite museum in the world is the Musée d'Orsay which concentrates on impressionists which is my favorite period of painting. That is also in Paris and it was built in an old train station so it has a nice feel to it.
VENUSARMS.COM: Who is your favorite Star Wars character?
STAN SAKAI: I grew up with the early stuff so it's gotta be Luke.
VENUSARMS.COM: When talking about writing Usagi and the direction it's going, you use the word we. When you say we, do you mean you and Usagi?
STAN SAKAI: In a way, because Usagi sometimes takes on a direction that I had not intended. Even his appearance. Sometimes people remark "I see Usagi is taller now or he has a little bump for a nose that he didn't have before. I thought I was drawing him the same all the time but he just develops and matures, kind of on his own. I had mentioned Sergio before and Groo is the same way. If you compare the early Groo to the current one he looks very different, the same as Usagi.
VENUSARMS.COM: What are you promoting right now?
STAN SAKAI: Usagi is still going on, there is a new trade paperback collection from Dark Horse called Bridge of Tears that comes out in July. Fantagraphics is coming doing the complete Fantagraphics Usagi as a two hardcover, slip case edition. And in November there is a brand new original graphic novel, fully painted, I'm doing watercolor paintings for this one, called Yokai. It deals with a lot of the Japanese monsters of folklore. The horrific stuff and also really goofy stuff like the walking umbrella. I'm having lots of fun with that.
VENUSARMS.COM: If you could destroy a recognizable work of art with no consequences, what would it be and how would you do it?
STAN SAKAI: I think I would be very ordinary and just say...
Mustache, Mona Lisa... And round glasses.