Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

April 2006 will represent the 10-year mark for Usagi published by Dark Horse Comics. I'd like to take the time to acknowledge the fine folks at Dark Horse for being absolutely the most successful publisher for Usagi ever. I remember sitting in my university's computer lab in early 1996 planning out the very first page of the UY Dojo in raw HTML, and visiting Dark Horse's site to get the latest scoop on the Usagi Yojimbo "Limited Series". Fortunately for us, the 3-issues series expanded to 5 issues, and then to an infinite number of issues as the series just took off.

Congratulations and Arigato Gozai Masu, Dark Horse, for your 10 years of excellence in publishing Usagi Yojimbo!!!

Todd Shogun

And Diana is such a joy to work with.

10 years eh? Amazing Congradulations DH!

It really is quite remarkable that Usagi has found such a fantastic permanant home after so many years of wandering (remember how long it took for him to even earn his first series with Fantagraph?). I can't believe Usagi's about to have a 100th issue. Truly remarkable.

Truthfully though, the most credit obviously belongs to Stan. Both the quality of the comic and Stan's enduring spirit have kept Usagi running continuously throughout the years in spite of publisher related difficulties (the Mirage Earthquake being the biggest one that comes to mind) and the end of the Anthropomorphic craze. Wheres all of Usagi's contemporaries have stopped or at least paused at some point, Usagi has been the only major anthropomorphic comic to keep going continuously with a solid fan base to this day. Dark Horse was just smart enough to keep him around.

it is, indeed, amazing that Stan has kept going, producing such amazing content for so long. and certainly thanks are in order to DH for consistently getting UY out there month after month (or every other month after every other month, as the case may be). it makes it so much easier for me to not miss issues of Usagi.

if you look at any of my recent posts, you might have figured out that i've missed a couple dozen issues of UY over the years due to its limited release and inconsistent publication schedule (also, globe-hopping). the fact that a big(ger) name like DH has been releasing Usagi -- and for ten years -- means that every comic shop i go to will have a copy.

don't forget to send me a piece of the birthday cake!