Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

Hi everyone!

I wanted to share with you guys the two pieces of Sakai art that I own.

I run a convention called the Emerald City ComiCon in Seattle. Stan Sakai was a guest a few years back. I have a "theme" for the official art for the show, which is monsters attacking Seattle (specifically the Space Needle).

I asked Stan to do it and he said he would as long as it was okay to have Usagi as the "monster." I couldn't have been more happy with how the art turned out and I purchased the original from Stan:



The art was also featured in the Art of Usagi book, which I was thrilled with.

For promo use, I also had it digitally colored. I couldn't think of anyone more appropriate to color it than Tom Luth, of course! Tom did a bang-up job and here is the color version:



At the show, we sell mini laser prints of the art (limited to 500), they're really cool and I continue to thank Stan every time I see him at a show (most recently in San Diego).

The other piece I own is from the Eisner-award winning Grasscutter story arc. It is the cover to Usagi Yojimbo #19 (Grasscutter Part 7) and features Usagi himself and my other favorite Usagi character, Gen:



A color version, from the Dark Horse site, can be seen here:



Thanks for looking and to everyone for sharing their amazing Sakai art!

Best,

Jim Demonakos

Sometimes you'll see those dots on the upper right hand corner of original cover art. Each dot represents 100 hand-drawn dots on Usagi's kimono, not counting his "mon" or family crest.

Jim's cover for UY 19 has 10 dots at the top, so there are 1,000 dots on Usagi's "shirt".

Cool! Now I know what those dots mean!
I still have yet to find some Usagi art for myself, though...

I never knew that, very cool and quite the attention to detail!

And since I have you here, thanks again for the ECCC art Stan!

Jim

jimdemonakos wrote:
And since I have you here, thanks again for the ECCC art Stan!

Jim

You're welcome. It really was a fun project. It's not often that I get to put Usagi in the role of the villain.

I've keep hearing great things about the Emerald City Con. It is now two days, and I encourage anyone in the Pacific Northwest to attend one of these shows.

We have one of those posters, signed. It is an awesome work of art.