USAGI YOJIMBO
An American Komikkusu
by Will Eisner

Will Eisner is well-known as a pioneer in the comic industry, starting with his creation The Spirit in 1940.
Since the 1980's his name has been attached to one of the most prestigious trophies of comics, the Eisner Awards, which are awarded each year to dozens of comics artists, writers, colorists and creators.

While I have known about Stan Sakai's work for some time, I came upon Usagi Yojimbo only recently. This is because my attention over the years has been centered on what I regarded as the expansion of the medium as literature, and I look for those works that seem to be "pushing the envelope." From time to time I make a "discovery" such as Bone or encourage what I believe is a promising new self-published work. More often my attention is centered on trends, a focus that seemed so necessary during my years of teaching.

While I have always been a staunch apostle of the internationalization of our medium, I confess that I really assumed the form emanated from American comics. Oh, yes, as a student I studied early Japanese prints like the narrative work of Hiroshige, and I used a Japanese brush myself for a long time. I have admired modern Japanese graphic storytelling. But I believed it to be insular and even untranslatable. I never anticipated an integration such as that demonstrated by Usagi.

In the Autumn of 1994 I was shepherded through Japan by Fred Schodt, a leading American scholar and expert on Japanese comics, in the company of a group of American artists and writers. I was stunned by what I found. I saw a booming industry, an enormous readership, and a pervasive social presence of the medium beyond any of my fondest dreams, for the medium to which I've devoted my life. There are obvious cultural reasons for this but the fact remains that manga, or komikkusu as the Japanese also call it, is a very singular form of the art of sequentially arranged images and text to narrate a story or dramatize an idea. As in America, manga occupies a place somewhere between films, literature, and "fine" art. The range of an American comic's subject matter, however, is limited mostly to the interest of young males. They are the best sellers, and the outer margins are left to the foraging of those who address children, women, and adults. In Japan, comic books occupy nearly the same public acceptance as novels and films. The medium has a legitimacy not yet attained anywhere else. But perhaps the most significant characteristic of manga is their range of readership and subject matter. There are komikkusu specifically addressed to expectant mothers, little children, pre-teens, boys, girls, adults, and seniors male and female. Many are centered on sports and games.

However enviable is this later coverage, the fact remains that Japanese publishers make little effort to reach beyond what is "commercial." The art is designed to shock, titillate, or emulate animation. Style and surface technique dominate art and content. Like the American superhero and horror comics, their plots are generally simple.

As far as I could see, the Japanese comics are reluctant to introduce stories or ideas of another culture. Save for a surface fascination with American names and certain Western physical characteristics, it is hard to find manga that undertake subjects with realistic problems of the human condition. Work by other nationals that introduce foreign cultures such as those that appear in European and American comic books is rarely seen.

Yet for all of that, the Japanese comics have an undeniable fascination and have succeeded in invading the American and European markets. There is little doubt that they deliver exciting graphics. The trouble is that they have provided us with very little insight into Japanese life, culture, or history such as in the work of Tezuka or the classic Gen.

So, it was with this prejudice that I began to read the Usagi Yojimbo books Stan Sakai sent me. My first reaction was dismissive. I shrugged at his use of anthropomorphic characters as a way of avoiding the demands of realistic art, which made Frank Miller's Ronin so compelling. Gradually, however, as the story absorbed me I changed my opinion. I felt I was somehow reading a komikkusu in Japanese! Stan's animal-people faces allow the reader to imagine and insert "real" faces out of their own memory. After I finished several stories, the accomplishment was obvious. I was transported into the fascinating world of Japanese folklore.

This is an important event in the progress of this medium because Stan Sakai has successfully brought to American comics a collection of Japanese fables well told in the American style. He has a good control of sequential art, and his compositions have the ability to create powerful understatements.

Usagi Yojimbo is an enduring work. Bravo.

– Will Eisner