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Plus: The Winx saga continues, Usagi turns 40, the Dreadnoks return and more!
Slugfest is a roundup of cool announcements about projects coming to a shelf near you. Hit the links for more information.
Lester of the Lesser Gods, which was originally published by Albatross Funnybooks, is finding new life at Dark Horse this year.
Written by Eric Powell and Lucky Yates, and featuring artwork by Gideon Kendall, Lester began life as unproduced animated short before finding its way to comics.
Continue reading “Slugfest | Dark Horse resurrects ‘Lester of the Lesser Gods’”Stan Sakai and Emi Fujii channel the supernatural in this outer space tale.
Stan Sakai will return to the future version of his popular ronin rabbit in Space Usagi: Yokai Hunter this fall.
The full-color one-shot by Sakai and colorist Emi Fujii, who is coloring the current Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Usagi Yojimbo: WhereWhen miniseries, will find Usagi facing supernatural horrors in outer space. It will be published by Dark Horse Comics under Sakai’s Dogu Publishing imprint.
Continue reading “Space Usagi hunts Yokai in a new one-shot this October”Stan Sakai’s rabbit samurai contends with the mystical villain Jei in a new miniseries.
Stan Sakai’s long-eared samurai, Usagi Yojimbo, will return to Dark Horse this fall in a new miniseries, Usagi Yojimbo: Ice and Snow. The five-issue miniseries is part of Sakai’s Dogu Publishing imprint, which Dark Horse announced last fall.
“I’m very excited, honored and thankful to have my own publishing imprint with Dark Horse,” Sakai said at the time. “As the sole creator and owner of Usagi Yojimbo, this is a significant milestone. I’ve known Mike Richardson for more than 30 years and he is one of the pioneers and champions of creator-owned IP. As the industry continues to change, I feel he brings a unique progressive perspective.”
Dark Horse published Usagi Yojimbo for about 20 years, up until 2019 when it moved to IDW. That relationship did not last long, but did result in several Usagi-related projects, including color versions of the famously black-and-white title and a graphic novel featuring Chibi Usagi. This new miniseries will be in color, thanks to HiFi Colour Design.
Continue reading “Usagi returns to Dark Horse this September”The limited edition apparel is now available on Sakai’s website.
2023 is the year of the rabbit, and in honor of the Lunar New Year, Stan Sakai is offering a new shirt on his website featuring his signature creation, Usagi Yojimbo.
It’s a natural tie-in, given that Usagi is, obviously, a rabbit. And it’s a really stunning shirt as well, featuring Sakai’s artwork:
Continue reading “Stan Sakai celebrates ‘Year of the Rabbit’ with a new shirt”Stan Sakai will write and draw a new miniseries bringing the old friends together.
Earlier this year Dark Horse Comics announced that Stan Sakai and Usagi Yojimbo would return to the publisher as part of the Dogu Publishing imprint after spending a few years at IDW, but it looks like Sakai’s time at IDW isn’t quite up. IDW announced today that Sakai is writing and drawing a team-up between the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Usagi Yojimbo, titled WhereWhen.
“I am so pleased with the story and art for WhereWhen,” Sakai said. “There is a lot of emotion and, of course, lots of action. I actually wrote this story about five years ago and had been anxious to get to it. In the past, the Turtles have met just a few of Usagi’s friends. This time, everyone is thrown in—Gen, Tomoe, Jotaro, Yukichi, Kitsune, Chizu, and more! This one is epic!”
Continue reading “Usagi + Ninja Turtles meet again in ‘WhereWhen’”Usagi and Tomoe share a snowy moment in the latest limited-edition wooden ornament.
Usagi Yojimbo creator Stan Sakai has once again teamed up with artist and woodworking expert Chris Schweizer to offer a Christmas ornament featuring Sakai’s signature creation — and his signature, too, if you’d like.
This is the third year that they’ve offered an ornament featuring the samurai rabbit in a seasonal pose — this time he’s also joined by Tomoe. While Sakai provided the artwork, Schweizer handcrafted each wooden piece. When he’s not drawing comics like The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton, Schweizer creates and sells wooden pieces and papercraft, like this Die Hard Christmas ornament, this collection of Santas from around the world and this Lord of the Rings chess set.
Continue reading “Sakai + Schweizer present a new Usagi Yojimbo ornament for 2022”‘Usagi Yojimbo’ returns to the publisher as a part of Sakai’s Dogu Publishing imprint.
Stan Sakai’s legendary run on Usagi Yojimbo has walked the path with multiple publishers over the decades, including Fantagraphics and, most recently, IDW. But now the legendary ronin rabbit will return to the publisher where he stayed the longest — Dark Horse Comics.
Following a more than two-year stint at IDW, Stan Sakai will return to Dark Horse to helm his own imprint: Dogu Publishing — joining Karen Berger, Matt Kindt, Kevin Smith and Brian Michael Bendis, who also have their own imprints at Dark Horse. Prior to 2019, Dark Horse had published Usagi for more than 20 years.
Continue reading “Stan Sakai returns to Dark Horse to spearhead a new imprint”The hand-crafted wooden ornament is limited to 200 pieces.
Stan Sakai and Chris Schweizer have teamed up again to offer a Christmas ornament featuring Sakai’s signature creation Usagi Yojimbo (and his signature, too, if you’d like).
This is the second year that the duo have teamed for an ornament featuring a festive version of the samurai rabbit. While Sakai provided the artwork, Schweizer handcrafted each wooden piece. When he’s not drawing comics like The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton, Schweizer creates and sells wooden pieces and papercraft, like this Die Hard Christmas ornament and this collection of Santas from around the world.
Continue reading “Sakai and Schweizer re-team for a new Usagi Yojimbo ornament”New middle-grade graphic novels from Stan Sakai, Kim Dwinell, India Swift, Ray Friesen and more will arrive next year.
IDW has announced six new graphic novels aimed at the middle-grade (9-12 years old) audience, coming in summer 2021 from both IDW Publishing and their Top Shelf imprint.
The line-up includes new books by Kim Dwinell, India Swift, Ray Friesen and more. Plus: Chibi Usagi!
“Today’s young readers have an insatiable appetite for vibrant, thoughtful stories, so we’re thrilled to deliver an inspired mix of titles that showcases the full potential of graphic storytelling,” said Justin Eisinger, Editorial Director, Graphic Novels & Collections for IDW. “These books run the gamut from outright fun to introspective and even educational, further evidence that IDW and Top Shelf are home to an eclectic, necessary library of fiction and non-fiction graphic novels.”
Here are the publisher’s descriptions on what was announced:
Continue reading “IDW announces six new graphic novels for 2021”Annual awards ceremony recognizes ‘the creativity, skill and fun of comics.’
The winners for the 2020 Ringo Awards were announced today, marking the fourth year for the awards program named for artist Mike Wieringo, who passed away in 2007.
The awards were presented virtually as part of the Baltimore Comic Con‘s online programming, and started with an introduction and keynote from Kevin Smith and Geoff Johns. It was also live, which led to some logistical/technical issues as they tried to “cut over” to winners for their acceptance speeches.
Here are the winners, in the order they were presented during the ceremony. They include the “fan favorite” awards, which have a different process than the rest of the awards. You can find more details on the process here.
Continue reading “Ringo Awards winners announced”‘Usagi Yojimbo,’ ‘They Called Us Enemy’ recognized in the NCS divisional awards.
This has been a very busy weekend for comics, from DC FanDome to the Small Press Expo and the Ignatz Awards to the National Cartoonist Society‘s virtual NCSFest, their annual event where the winner of the Reuben Award is announced (as well as other awards).
As announced during NCSFest, cartoonist Lynda Barry has won the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year. The award has been presented annually since 1954 and was named for Rube Goldberg.
Continue reading “Lynda Barry wins the Reuben Award”Judges choices include Nell Brinkley and E. Simms Campbell.
Comic-Con International has announced this year’s nominees for the Eisner Hall of Fame. They include two judges’ choices — who will be automatically inducted — and 14 other nominees, four of whom will be inducted based on voters’ choices.
The judges’ choices are Nell Brinkley and E. Simms Campbell, both of whom worked in the magazine industry. Brinkley, a.k.a. the “Queen of Comics,” created comics and illustrations for many Hearst newspapers, including the Denver Post and the New York Journal-America. She became well-known for her “Brinkley Girl” illustrations circa 1913 through the 1940s. Campbell, meanwhile, helped define the visual style of Esquire magazine and created comics for it, Life, Cosmopolitan and Playboy during his career. He was the first African-American cartoonist published in nationally distributed slick magazines.
Continue reading “2020 Eisner Hall of Fame nominees announced”
