Dark Horse Comics Usagi Yojimbo #4       Bats, the Cat, and the Rabbit   July 1996 (Click on the thumbnails to view full size cover art)

USAGI YOJIMBO LETTERS COLUMN
Send comments to: Usagi Yojimbo ~ Letters Column c/o Dark Horse Comics
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Dear Usagi Yojimbo

Loved Usagi Yojimbo [Vol. 3] #1 of 3! [No, it's ongoing! – Jamie] I ran down to my favorite retailer, Broadway Comics & Cards, to pick it up. This is a comic that my whole family enjoys and shares. My son is a green belt in karate/tae kwon do and your stories have brought him inspiration. I love the way you throw in so much history of 17th-century Japan. Japan is rich in history, and when I was in Tokyo, Japan, I discovered that the people were very proud of the history that they were part of. They have something to be proud of! Nowadays, we live in a mixed culture and our blood is mixed with many other bloods, like me, for example. I'm part Filipino, Chinese, Mexican, French, English, Irish, and Arabian. It is hard for me to identify with any nationality. I think it is very important that all cultures know of their heritage and history. Usagi is not just another martial-arts story with shogun and ninja thrown in, but a story with a historical Japanese background. When in the Army, I dabbled with kung fu, karate, tae kwon do, and even some professional wrestling. I wish I had stuck it out, and maybe if Usagi was around during my stint in the Army, I would have been a black belt by now. Keep up the good work. Usagi is one cool rabbit!

Sincerely yours,
Paul Dale Roberts
Sacramento, CA
e-mail: Probert2@hw1cahwnet

Dear Jamie and Stan:

Since Usagi Yojimbo will be a black-and-white comic book, I shall be perverse and begin by considering the color of its first issue's cover.

I liked it very much. The shades and lights were place splendidly, reflecting off the light-blue robe and tattered brown of the ronin's trousers, and the pale green and black spots preserved the cuteness of the lizard, while suggesting that the creature was a bit more formidable than you'd think. Still, in black-and-white, the characters didn't suffer at all.

The four-page recap was well done and spurred me a bit: having only met "Zato-Ino the Blind Swordspig" in the first collection, I was astonished to find that he had become Usagi's ally. (That first story ended with the suggestion that they would become bitter foes.) How their relationship changed would make for good reading, and I will have to pursue it soon.

"Noodles" was far tastier than Noodles' soba, although the terrific running gag about the inedibility of same may make that seem like a back-handed compliment. (Quoth Huey Lewis: "Sometimes bad is bad…") Trust me, it's not; in twenty pages, Stan brought to life:

a) Usagi – who can fight when he must, but who would rather look for work. With Noodles and Kitsuné – especially with Kitsuné – we saw what a good friend he was, and why you'd want to retain his friendship;

b) Kitsuné – a thoroughly foxy lady, with a philosophy of life too good-spirited to seem criminal and too joyous to mind if the gods do use her for their sport;

c) Noodles – a gentle giant, John Steinbeck's Lennie Small relocated to another time. Here's hoping he sees a happier ending, if not the rabbits, George;

d) Masuda – the corrupt police administrator, who seemed to have a smidgen of honor left in him (leaving Usagi alone) but not enough; and

e) The culture – Neil Gaiman made me aware of Lord Susano-O-No-Mikoto in his Season of Mists, but Stan made him a hero and not simply Loki's dupe; the street vending – tops and noodles – showed how some things didn't change in four centuries; and the ladder brigade was wonderful.

All this plus a dramatic cliffhanger, as we prepare to see how true to her word Kitsuné is and how Usagi will help her. Plus simple yet expressive artwork, which brought out the foxiness of Kitsuné, the rashness of the Yoriki's police, the baffled sweetness of Noodles, the complexity of Masuda, and the richness of a samurai who, at heart, is truly "searching for harmony." The gods may sport with Miyamoto Usagi, but he sports back.

I'm sorry this will only be a trilogy. May your sales shoot through the roof and the future of the Rabbit Bodyguard be a long and fruitful one.

As always, thank you for listening. See you!

Very truly yours,
Charles J. Sperling
Flushing, NY

The relationship of Usagi and Zato-Ino did change over time. Besides the first collection, Ino appeared in a story in Book 3 and throughout Book 4. Book 7 contains "The Last Ino Story" in which he finally finds the peace he was looking for.

You got the characters right on the money, though you made Masuda a bit more honorable than I intended. I always liked the relationship between Lennie and George and, as you surmised, I had Lennie in mind when I created Noodles.

Dear Stan,

Oh, my! The "magic" is back! Usagi – once again in (gasp!) black-and-white!

There's something about this series. I don't know if I'd have felt this way had I first encountered it in color, but it seems that on Usagi Yojimbo color is unnecessary. I felt the same way about reprints of Will Eisner's The Spirit. He put so much work into the black-and-white art that color just seemed to distract not only from the story, but from the appreciation of the line work itself. (Of course, Young Frankenstein probably wouldn't have worked as well had it been in color, either.)

So Usagi has finally made it to one of the, ahem, "big" companies. Often when try to recommend a comic to someone who doesn't read them regularly, it's a Dark Horse book. This is because of the exceptional high quality, as well as the short-term nature of most DH books. It's like getting movies, or series of movies, as opposed to weekly TV shows. Of course, I find myself wishing there'd been a single numbering of issues, instead of now being up to 3 volumes…

Apart from noting how you nicely recapped Usagi's life in four pages (for the benefit of readers who've never encountered him before, I bet) I haven't much to say about this issue's story. As usual, you know what you're doing, and I'm enjoying it immensely. Keep it up.

Sincerely,
Henry R. Kujawa
Camden, NJ

Dear Stan,

Your Usagi Yojimbo #1 story, "Noodles," is typically wonderful. I enjoyed the return of Kitsuné and look forward to following how she and Usagi resolve the arrest and accusation of her friend Noodles.

The book's production quality is as high as a regular Dark Horse reader is accustomed to. The return to black-and-white interior pages is perfectly fine; while I felt the color work of recent Usagi comics was very well done, your stories and art style lend themselves to black-and-white fine. I would argue with fans who wrote to you with their opinion that the mood was lost with color. I felt you handled it well. Without Tom Luth on the book, is that your color work on the cover? It's definitely a different look; more moody, less bright and sparkly…I like it.

Wishing you continued success in all your endeavors.

Dick Rodgers
Bellevue, WA

I colored the first three covers of the current series, but Tom Luth and his excellent color sense returns with this issue.