Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

Dear UY Dojo,

A few of us are also fans of the Mike Mignola’s Art Facebook group. Craig McKnight in that group started a Mignola related raffle to raise money for various charities. For every $5 you donated, you got one ticket to win an original Mignola sketch, other original fan art, rare comics, etc. That group has raise several $1,000s for great causes. L

I was impressed by his effort and wondered if we could do something like that for the Usagi Yojimbo Dojo FB page. I talked with Steve and Kyle, the other main Admins of the FB page, and they were open to the idea. We contacted Stan to ask if he was okay with the idea and if so, what charity he would like the money to go to. Stan said he was okay with the idea and would donate something to be raffled off. The charity Stan choose was the The Heroes Initiative (The Hero Initiative, formerly known as A Commitment to Our Roots, or ACTOR, is the first federally recognized not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping comic book creators, writers and artists in need. Founded in late 2000 by a consortium of comic book and trade publishers, including Marvel Comics, Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Wizard Entertainment, CrossGen Comics and Dynamic Forces Inc., the 501(c)(3) charity aims to assist comic creators with health, medical, and quality-of-life assistance.)

Life is pretty busy with personal stuff right now, so we set January for the time to do the raffle. I was lucky enough to get one of the Usagi Skate Decks from Arts-Rec and am going to donate it for the raffle. If I get a chance to see Stan before the auction, I’ll have him sign it. I will look through my other stuff and see if there is any other Sakai stuff to help with this cause.

So this post is a call out to any of you UY Dojo fans who would like to donate something related to this charity auction in January. You can either pm me or reply to this thread. If you do, we will acknowledge you on the raffle dojo post to show are appreciation.

I’m just going to take PayPal payments (friends) and then donate to heroes Initiative when all the shipping costs have been paid and we have the total left over to give in the UYD name. We are thinking $5 a raffle ticket is fair enough.

Let us know any thoughts you have in this thread. Hopefully, we can make a significant donation to help out our fellow human beings in their moments of need. After all, they make our world a little better with their storytelling and art.

Peace, maka, Kyle, and Steve.

This is a great idea. I have several items I'd like to donate towards this raffle or to be used for some future raffle or outreach efforts if this one is successful. Once I gather things together I will contact you Maka.

I may be able to rustle up some spare stuff from things I’ve gotten or won (for the trivia etc) I can redonate for this. Let me have an inventory my end...

Awesome! I'm so down to buying some raffle tickets when the time comes.
I love the Heroes Initiative and have supported them for many years.
I will also look around to see if I have any spare Usagi items to donate to the cause.

Right off the bat I can tell you I have a TON of the Wasabi Usagi magazines I would love to send to you guys for prizes of the raffle and future trivia contests.
What happened was this... I have a lot of family & friends in Hawaii, and when the Wasabi magazine came out I asked them to please keep an eye out for me. The next thing I know they just start showing up at my door! Friends/Family etc... was mailing them to me.
The crazy part of it all was my father in law lol. I first asked him to grab me one if he ever saw it in Waikiki or any of the Japanese stores he frequents on Oahu. He then calls me and asks how many do you want...? I told him "one", then I said... well if you can find a few extra then send em to me because I could give it to some friends. Next thing I know he sends a Priority Mail flat rate box full of them!! LOL
So yeah...would like to donate them to the raffle or trivia prizes etc..
They are not worth anything, but man the art on the cover is sweet! I put my issue in a frame and it looks fantastic on my wall!

That's a lot of Wasabi!

It looks nice framed. Did you frame the entire issue or just the cover?


I wonder if there's someone out there with a stash of Albedo #2 like this...

Excellent! Thank you all!

I have found some:

-"Usagi Got Caught Reading posters" that we can offer one each time we do a charity raffle.
-I have duplicates on some comic issues, so I can put together a set or two per charity raffle.

Thanks again for your generosity. Kyle pointed out we have almost twice as many fans (~13,000+) on the UYD FB page than MM Art FB Page (~6,300). Hopefully, that transfers into more people participating and raising money funds to help our artist in need.

Peace, maka

Maka wrote:Excellent! Thank you all!

I have found some:

-"Usagi Got Caught Reading posters" that we can offer one each time we do a charity raffle.
-I have duplicates on some comic issues, so I can put together a set or two per charity raffle.

Thanks again for your generosity. Kyle pointed out we have almost twice as many fans (~13,000+) on the UYD FB page than MM Art FB Page (~6,300). Hopefully, that transfers into more people participating and raising money funds to help our artist in need.

Peace, maka

Dear Maka,

I have 3 Saga books that I purchased at half price when my local comic book shop moved, as well at two extra Roku Toys statues (which I need to locate).

None are signed, but I'm sure we could probably change that easy enough... making them a bit more sought for.

Thanks Miachan,

Those will take this charity auction to the next level. Thanks for your and everyone’s generosity.

And I feel hopeful that we could make a road trip to get Stan to sign these things for the cause. But even if that can’t happen, we have some great stuff for people to win. This community is great!

Peace, maka

maichan wrote: That's a lot of Wasabi!
It looks nice framed. Did you frame the entire issue or just the cover?

I framed the entire issue. That cover is my favorite Usagi cover ever, I love how it has Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach in the background.
If Stan still had the original art for it I would be very tempted to purchase it from him lol.

OK I put the Wasabi's in a flat rate box and still had some some room. So I looked around for some other Usagi related items that I could help donate to the raffle...
1. Wasabi magazines
2. (3) issues of Garfield #1 Stan Sakai variant cover
3. Usagi 11" Action figure
4. Sakai Project Art Book
5. (2) Dark Horse Presents (signed by Stan)
6. Usagi poster (signed by Stan)

Please feel free to use these towards the raffle, future contests, etc..
I will be shipping the box to Maka sometime today.
Thanks UY Dojo for organizing this raffle

How awesome! Thanks for your generous contributions Kaimuki!

I'm thinking Maka will have enough goodies for at least several raffles.

Maka wrote:I was lucky enough to get one of the Usagi Skate Decks from Arts-Rec and am going to donate it for the raffle.

Another one just sold for $375.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/USAGI-YOJIMBO- ... SwwU1deFJs

How exactly does this work? Do you purchase tickets for specific items?

Would we be better off selling high dollar items and then donating money or do you think high dollar items would get 100s of raffle tickets purchased?

Example: Sell UY Saga 1 for $400+ or give to raffle and hopefully get 80 raffle tickets purchased. 80 tickets x $5 = $400

Gaffey wrote:Would we be better off selling high dollar items and then donating money or do you think high dollar items would get 100s of raffle tickets purchased?

Example: Sell UY Saga 1 for $400+ or give to raffle and hopefully get 80 raffle tickets purchased. 80 tickets x $5 = $400

Good question and good points.

I was thinking similar thoughts as well as others.

There is a lot to consider, especially since this will be the Dojo's first effort. We have no idea how well it will be received or how much participation we'll get, so we don't want to put all our eggs in one basket and only raise $80.

Dear Gaffey,

We are still figuring it out. But Craig does it is, you buy a ticket (or multiple tickets) for $5 each. There is no limit to
How many tickets you can buy. All tickets are put in a hat and pulled. The winners will be contacted in the order that they were pulled. They get the first pick. The next person gets to pick from is left.

I like this because it is simple. But I’m open to other ideas. In the end, I’m going to do something that I can manage.

Peace, maka