When did you get hooked on the Rabbit Ronin?

[estee]

So post an the cover of the issue that made you a fan of Usagi.

For me it was Issue #31 from Fantagraphics. God, I'm old.

Picked it up one day cuz I liked the cover. Bought a couple more. Bam! Fandom born.

[Maka]

I borrowed some trade paperbacks from the Hawaiian library when I parents lived there. It’s weird because would have been after 1994 when I got married. But I did buy some Usagi comics from Fantagraphics end of the run. And I bought all the mirage comics off the shelf when they came out. Was that after 1994? That like 10 years after 1984. That can’t be right. My memory is telling its own stories. Hmmmm. Peace, maka

[maichan]

That's about right Maka! I didn't get "hooked" until the Mirage series, which I also purchased when they came out. I had to check the wiki for the dates though. Mirage ran from March 93 to October 95.



I knew about Usagi Yojimbo before that, but for some reason didn't pick it up until Mirage. My return to comic books was actually in the late 80's when a co-worker* got me interested in the TMNT. I started visiting a comic book shop close to work, where I shopped for at least several years. I recall seeing the iconic cover of Albedo 2 with a price tag of $20 (there were multiple copies), but I never grabbed one because I wasn't into Usagi at the time.


* a bit of trivia about this co-worker. He was a friend of another co-worker, and only worked with us for a short time. This was probably around 1987 to 1989 or there-abouts. Anyway, his name was Leroy Brazile, and he would go on to act briefly in several Star Trek series. He played the young Tuvok in the Star Trek: Voyager fifth season episode "Gravity" and Lonar in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine seventh season episode "The Dogs of War". https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Leroy_D._Brazile

[Mayhem]

I came about it in a slightly different way. My first exposure to Usagi was the Commodore 64 computer game in , which helped being really rather good. This was before he appeared on the TMNT cartoon in the UK for example. The artwork for the game was that on the cover of Anything Goes #6. Some years later I see the Usagi comic on the shelf when I'm looking for TMNT issues, I can't recall the issue number but it was reasonably early on in the Dark Horse run. Gave it a whirl and the rest is history... then went on eBay in due course to buy sets of Albedo, Fantagraphics and Mirage runs heh.

[McDuck_Enterprises]

I actually had the TMNT action figure first when I was kid and remember seeing him on the cartoon and wondering why his look in the show differed from the figure. Roughly 1995 I was visiting my older brother at college and he drove me to a comic shop where I saw and bought the first softcover printing of Fantagraphics book 2 of Usagi. That got me hooked for life.

[Steve Hubbell]

I knew about Usagi Yojimbo for a few years before I started buying it on a regular basis. Because of Stan Sakai's connection with Sergio Aragones' Groo the Wanderer (the only comic which I collected for most of the '80s and early '90s) I was aware of Stan's series. The first Usagi comics which I bought were Usagi Yojimbo v1 #11 (featuring a Catnippon backup story by Sergio Aragones) and Albedo v1 #3 (featuring an Usagi and Groo drawing by Sergio in the letter column). I started bying Usagi Yojimbo regularly with the move to Mirage and Tom Luth (another Groo crew member) started coloring the series.

[Casey Burns]

My comic book store in Hendersonville NC put FB issue 10 in my hold box as a suggestion, thinking I might like it.
I felt a little pressured to buy it, but was so glad I did. Maybe a week later I was home from school with a bad cold and my mom was kind enough to pick up the book one trade paperback (the only one there was at the time) for me at my request. And that's when I got 100% hooked. Really fell in love with those Albedo and Critters short stories. Fan for life.

[go]

My son was having trouble with reading school books at age 7 in 1987.
I learned to read by reading comics.
Bev, (our local friendly comic book seller owner of Collectors Ink in Chico California)
recommended the new Usagi Yojimbo One trade paperback (see photo above).
My son's reading improved dramatically.
He learned to enjoy reading.
Thank you Sensei Sakai!
I read them with him and felt like i did when i was young and read Classics Illustrated War of the Worlds or Justice league vs Starro.
I never recovered from the first bite of the ronan rabbit.
Nor do I wish to ever recover.
Thank you for reading.
Best wishes to all.
go

[estee]

Awesome stories!

Aren't comics fun!!??

[TheBroox]

My brother and I would get taken to a local comic book store by a neighborhood family when we were kids. We could usually pick out a book or two get with out saved allowances. My brother grabbed what was at the time the new issue, Vol. 3 #33, featuring A Potter's Tale and The Missive. I think his reasoning was because we had the action figure from the TMNT line. I liked it but didn't have the means to collect anything at that time. It always stuck with me and after I finished my schooling and got my first job I spotted UY on a list of the best comics. I did a bit of research and ordered the Special Edition hardbacks. I unboxed them and put them in my to read pile where they then sat for almost a decade while life happened. COVID was the opportunity I needed to really dig into my to read pile and last year I finally got around to reading them. Fell in love with the series promptly ordered all the Saga volumes and a few odds and ends left out as well as buying the new issues as they come out.

[Trevis Woods]

I was bored with other comics from the big two and was reading a magazine suggesting the top 100 TPBs everyone should read.
Usagi Yojimbo Grasscutter was listed and it sounded unique and interesting. I liked the fact that one person was doing everything to create the book. I was burned out from my favorite characters being passed around and handled by so many different creators each month with no consistency.
I ordered the trade and the rest is history. I dropped all other books except the occasional random story or book. I think I ended up ordering every trade from Amazon over the next couple months. That was almost 16 years ago!

[iamjosho]

I was vaguely aware of Usagi from the TMNT cartoon as a kid (I definitely remember the action figure), but didn't read any comics until I got a part-time job at a comic shop. I grabbed the first few IDW issues and was hooked. At that time, the Sagas were hard to come by, so I started with Saga 4 before eventually grabbing (most of) them out of order. It's been about 2 years now and I started a comic book box mostly to subscribe to Usagi and a few others. I'm still hoping for hardcover saga reprints to fill in the missing books in the collection, but am glad there is always something new to look forward to every month with the IDW issues, TPB and occasional HC.