June 30, 2025 • 31 mins
Part 2 of Dave’s conversation with comic book legend Stan Sakai. The two discuss Stan’s early fanzine contributions, his writing process, collaborating with Peach Momoko, the long-lasting importance of friendship, and Usagi Yojimbo’s infinite future.
Watch part one here - https://youtu.be/BRDaMetpSZk?si=Xco317r-Vlry1Q_I
https://www.westcoastdavengers.com/direct-edition-podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
Welcome back to DIRECT Edition, a podcast about nothing and
everything. I am your host, Dave.
You Remember Me, the guy from the previous three seasons that
talked about comics and movies and music.
And you Remember Me, don't you? I won't sing a song, but I will
tell you that I'm excited to bring to you a little compendium
(00:36):
to an interview that I put on mycomic book based channel, West
Coast Avengers. This interview is with the
legendary creator, cartoonist Stan Sakai.
For the people that don't know who Stan Sakai is, if you're old
enough to remember the premiere of the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles cartoon and you're old enough to remember the figures,
(00:58):
the action figures that came with it, you'll remember Usagi
Ojimbo, the Samurai Bunny. I had been trying to get Stan on
my channel for a couple years and he finally had time and we
sat down and did about an hour. And then after that I kind of
wrapped it up on the end of WestCoast Avengers and he gave me a
(01:22):
little more time. So we talked for about 20
minutes, which is what you're going to hear today.
I suggest that if you're not subscribed to West Coast
Avengers and you are interested in this and go back and listen
to it or watch it and then come back and listen to this for
people that aren't interested inthat.
This will give you a taste of who Stan is.
(01:44):
He has been, he's been creating comics since the late 70s, early
80s. He's won pretty much every award
you could win in the comics field, both for his comics
creation, you know the artistry,and also additionally for his
lettering. He is an award-winning letterist
(02:04):
for Sergio Aragonese for the comic book Grew.
He also lettered the Spiderman news strip for 2 1/2 decades.
And we we talk about a lot of that in the West Coast Avengers
episode and he talks about how that influenced a lot of his
life and his storytelling and his mom being this really good
(02:25):
storyteller as well. And him, you know, he fact
checked a lot of the stuff that he based Usagi on, which is a
lot of Japanese folklore and history.
And so he's just, he's a wealth of knowledge of very, very, very
well spoken, friendly, warm human being.
I could listen to him talk for hours and I bet he would talk
(02:48):
for hours. But his his cartooning skills
are just something else. They really are.
I mean, he has done this character for 42 years and he
pencils it and he inks it and hewrites it and he letters it.
He's got somebody doing the coloring.
But I mean, in the early days, he was doing it all, even though
(03:11):
the comics themselves were blackand white.
But the paintings that he did for a lot of the covers
obviously weren't black and white.
His friendship with Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, more
specifically Peter Laird, is what got Usagi Ojimbo a toy and
in the, you know, the animated series and propelled him to a
(03:35):
new level of stardom. The character Stan has stayed
very much humble and does not seem to embrace the impact that
he has with his personality. He has completely stayed as just
a humble cartoonist and that's an amazing thing.
So I'm going to play this 20 minute interview.
(03:57):
You're going to hear me talk about fandom and fanzines and
some cartoonist talk and just a little bit of everything.
And I thought this would be a fun way to have you enjoy your
day. But before I even get into that,
I just want to say thank you to everybody who has come back for
this fourth season. I hope you've enjoyed the
episodes that have come out so far, even if it's just the one.
(04:18):
This is a, you know, I'm doing this out of the love of what I
enjoy doing, and I'm hoping thatyou'll help support it and help
grow it. That's all.
So without any further ado, why don't we speak to Mr. Stan
Sakai? Kind of going back to the fandom
(04:41):
and fanzines I've seen your namein.
I want to see maybe with some RBCC, some or or some of the
late 70s as Stanley Sakai. When you started submitting to
fanzines, how was your like? What was your introduction to
them? How did you even know that they
existed? Because there was no Internet.
(05:01):
Yeah, I suddenly just received acopy of a thing called Dallas
Fantasy Fair Magazine and it just came out of nowhere.
I had no idea how it got on thatmailing list.
And it has ads for different fantasy.
And so I, I, I bought a few and it was later on that that I
(05:26):
heard about the Comic book God reader Don and Maggie Thompson.
OK. You see, she's what?
I forgot what it was. Yeah, I know what you're talking
about. Yeah, the name escapes me too.
Yeah. But, and it was true that that I
really got into more into fandom, but before then it was
(05:46):
just fanzines anywhere from mimeograph to high quality
little press. Yeah, yeah.
I submitted to a lot like Chronicle, Yeah, I can't think
of any. That, but there's.
Quite a few. It's the most fascinating aspect
of like the lineage of comics tome because you look at
(06:09):
everybody, you, you can take a look at the sample from, you
know, 60s to the early 80s of fan scenes.
Everybody was involved, people running them.
You see guys like Bernie, obviously Bernie writes in and
Kaluda Steranko was the king of the fan scenes, you know, You
see. Hollywood had Whitsen, yeah.
(06:29):
Whitsen and I mean Marvel even tried to capitalize on it with
Foom and Foom was great. You know, Foom was great, but
you even see guys like later on,Mark Wade would be all over
amazing heroes. You know, obviously Gary got in
the Zen game with amazing heroesand it's like it's a treasure
trove of information. Like you can you can pick up
(06:51):
comic reader and see early Mike Mignola fan art and it's just
like. Miller.
Yeah, yeah. And what was the name?
There was one that Miller was part of, and I forget the name
of it. I think it was out of Portland.
But it's just a fascinating thing.
Or I think it it's desperately needed in some way, shape or
(07:13):
form these days because comics, they're mainstream in a way, but
not really. I love.
I don't know if you've seen whatChip Sidarsky's been doing with
the Sidarsky Comic News, and he basically is producing his own
comic shop news thing now. That's great.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it's. Then it it died out with the
(07:36):
rise of the independent comic books, so.
Yes, and and Wizard kind of killed it too.
Bunch of couple of boxes of all all the old fanzines, so they're
kind of neat. No, they're great to look
through because I'm a huge Bernie Wrightson fan, as I
should be, as everybody should be.
And there is so much unpublishedlike art of his that ended up in
(08:02):
fan scenes. And same with you.
There's tons of your art out there that I've seen in fan
scenes of you doing characters that you would never do.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
And that's the beauty of that. And I mean, we can trace there's
a great book for anybody that doesn't know.
It's called Meet Me at San Diegoand it's about San Diego Comic
(08:23):
Con. You can the path of San Diego
Comic Con and fan scenes and fanculture, right?
You know they're parallel. Yeah, I wrote one of the
introductions to that. That's right book it is lots of
photos and it's really, it's really great.
Yeah. And then from what San Diego is
(08:44):
now, obviously it's a completelydifferent beast.
But if you go back and, you know, read these paragraphs told
by the people who started, who were there, who were tabling,
you know, a lot of shell dwarf stuff going on in there.
And so, yeah, when you're first doing conventions, what do you
remember beside San Diego and outside of the West Coast?
(09:06):
Do you remember the first convention you did, maybe on the
East Coast? Oh no, I don't.
I know. I did some early Heroes con.
We used to do middle higher con like every other year.
A few. I went to the old New York Con
(09:26):
Con when it was at the Javits Center.
Yeah, yeah. I remember I was yeah, 929394.
I think we're the first times I had gone.
And for me, that was like, Oh myGod, everybody that I have
enjoyed comics of is at this convention.
It was. Actually I when at Java Center,
(09:48):
I went to visit the people at Mirage Studios, the turtle
people and drove down, then wentto the went to the convention
and we all had a great time there.
Yeah, that must have been great.I mean, what Kevin and Peter had
built with that and then what they went on to do, you know,
(10:10):
tundra, admirable, amazing thing.
And then the Zurich, the Zurich benefit the.
Yeah, I was one of the guys there were judges and we go
through the submissions every quarter and or every six months
or so and choose which ones you want.
And there are some really impressive things in there.
(10:31):
I was just. So many careers.
That Peter asked me to be one ofthe judges.
He was. He was great.
So many careers kick started from that.
Derek Grant, because I mean, what the one that comes to mind
is just somebody that I'm friendly with is Derek Kirk, him
who, you know, would do a lot ofbooks and go, you know, work
with go work into animation. But then he came back this past
(10:54):
year with the the last mermaid and it's a fantastic book,
absolutely fantastic book. Is there anybody that you maybe
encountered as a young cartoonist when you were, you
know, kind of Usagi was in his his 90s, you know, glory that,
(11:15):
you know, you came back years later and you're like, oh, this
person is now this person. Like, I imagine there's a lot of
mentorship that maybe you've done throughout the years with
people being a cartoonist and not a penciller or an inker.
Right, right. Well, I used to be a thesis
advisor to the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont.
(11:38):
And I just did it for a few, fewyears and it was great to kind
of nurture upcoming talent. And I mean, they had such
wonderful talent. It's, it's, you know, it was my
pleasure to do that. And I kind of missed that.
I haven't done that for a while,but I talked to Julie about it
(12:00):
so maybe I should do it again orsomething.
There would be so many people that would benefit.
From it, you know, we've had people come over like Randy
Klute, who's a very young cartoonist himself, and he
stayed at the studio for about aweek where we brought together
and he'd see how I do things. And you know, I, I like to do
(12:22):
more things like that. Yeah, there's, you know, huge
community of indie creators. I think the indie creator
community has grown by leaps andbounds just in the last four or
five years. And for my part, I'm not a comic
creator at any way, but it's I think cartoonist kayfabe created
this real energy in people with Ed, what Ed Pisker and Jim Rugg
(12:44):
were doing and. It it.
Gains and gains. But is there, you know, as
somebody who does everything right, you know, what advice
would you give to somebody who is looking to get into creating
their own comics and trying to maintain a sense of balance of
how to get it all done? If you were the writer,
(13:05):
penciller, inker letter. Well, you need to discipline and
I'd like to work every day and which you know, might work
almost every day. But first of all, get at least
basic writing or art classes. They're in the principles of
perspective. A lot of times.
(13:27):
I mean, nowadays I, I don't workon the computer.
So I think there's respective program.
However, they're they're in the principles of perspective of
storytelling. One of the most important things
is go to conventions. Go to our Sally Network, Make
your way. Show your work.
Show your work. No matter how good you are, if
(13:48):
you don't show your work to others, no one will know the
issue. And with the Internet, it's
easier now to have have you workout there.
However, because there's so muchwork out there, it's hard to to
get noticed. Yeah, but go to conventions,
network, show your work to friends, teachers,
(14:08):
professionals, editors, publishers.
Make your way up the ladder and because you know I say friends
like to work with friends. A lot of my non Saudi work has
come from friendships like with Jeff Smith.
I did a rib that backup stories for him Sergio.
(14:29):
He I started working for group because you know of our
friendship and in the old phantom graphics days, I used to
have a backup stories for every issue.
Again, friends like to work withfriends and so I invite friends
to submit 88 stories or something.
So network is probably one of the most important things a
(14:50):
young cartoons can do. Now table an artist alley.
You know, you never know if the guy sitting next to you is going
to be in a position to offer youwork 10 years from now.
Right, right. And that story is a echoed
throughout everybody I've talkedto that got their start doing
conventions. It's the same thing.
It's, you know, I talked to Sanford Green a couple weeks ago
(15:13):
and it he went to Wizard World Chicago whenever it was in the
late 90s, early 2000s. And that's what he did.
He walked around and somebody said, yeah, I got a book
actually, you know, I'd love youto work on it.
And you know, Sanford now another amazing, amazing
cartoonist who goes on to go create Bitterroot.
(15:34):
But it's funny how we just came full circle with that because
it's all about connecting with the community, the fandom, or
the other side of it, the the creator.
And it's about staying connected.
Exactly. Actually I had mentioned Usagi
was first published. I heard about Steve Galachi
through a friend at Caps, and, you know, Fred had told me, oh,
(15:58):
Steve needs more stories, so he's looking for something.
I sent him a story and more than42 years later, I mean, yeah, he
published. It's, it's amazing the legacy
of, of this character will, you know, be around and you know, I
mean, it could be another 40 years, could be even longer.
(16:19):
You know, I, I'm, we're, we're all hoping for it because, you
know, it's interesting you mentioned Jeff Smith and we're
talking about Sergio and Kevin and Peter between the four
entities right there. It's interesting how the
anthropomorphic thing came in and Kevin and Peter talk about
(16:39):
it, right? It was an ode to Frank Miller.
It was, it was a parody on Daredevil, but Usagi wasn't.
Usagi was just happened to be a Bunny.
But these stories are not parodying anything.
They're not even taken from anything but real.
Life. Do you think that's a piece, if
not a huge part of why he is still here?
(17:03):
And everything is still awesome And you know, things are going
great, the stories are great, and people are reading it and
still talking about this character.
Well, because it doesn't. It's not parroting anything.
So it just has its own storyline.
Like of course, the beer, right?We remember this is in the 80s
or early 90s. Each issue was a parody of of
(17:27):
something. And you just can't do that for
that long. But we threw soggy.
I own a soggy. I can do anything I want.
I've had the soggy, you know, stories of just plain adventure.
I've had romances, I've had historical cultural, I've had a
soggy fight on the Martians. I've had all all kinds of stuff
(17:48):
And it's whatever I want. I'm in the mood for sure.
And that, I think for me, makes it more interesting and I think
for the readers as well. Yeah, as the creator, I, I
always, you know, it's with music or movies or anything, if
you can tell the passion of the creator through their work and
(18:10):
if they're bored or not. And I would just like to say
there is one, one person that has been able to make a career
out of parroting and does not ever seem to be slowing down.
That's Weird Al Yankovic, who is, you know, he's I, you know,
he lives in Hawaii. I want to say most of the year,
not half of the year, but that's, that's music.
(18:33):
I did want to ask, just because I'm, you know, I love video
games and I, you know, the turtles have had such a great
history and video games. Will we ever see an Usagi video
game? He he has a Roblox game.
OK, he's got a block game, but. I've never played it but but
yeah. Is that?
(18:53):
They they will be. We are working on a few other
things with Usagi right now. That has not been announced, but
right, Right. Yeah, the Netflix show was, you
know, was a, a show set in the future, was a descendant of
Usagi, which I know he ran for two seasons.
Correct. Correct.
Yeah. I, you know, there's really no
(19:15):
desire for me to see ever see anything like a movie of Usagi.
I think what would be interesting if is there any
audio book versions or like haveyou ever re narrated?
There's some online. There's an online site that has
audio versions of Usagi. Yeah, it really lends well
(19:38):
because there's a great narrative throughout all these
stories that you've created thatI'd almost want to listen to
somebody reading it, you know, and, and and I don't know why I
don't listen to audiobooks, but it's just the joy I get from
reading Usagi is, is very unlikeanything else I read.
And you know, like I said, Barksis and then Toriyama with with
(20:01):
Dragon Ball, like that's anotherthing.
And I know he was born, I think I want to say he's like 2.
He was two years younger than you or something like that.
And obviously we lost him. But when I read that.
I and I think about Barks and I think about Usagi.
I'm like, this is how you do pacing absolutely perfectly and
then. Thank you.
(20:21):
Yeah. And I wonder if there's anything
just as a storyteller that pacing, does it come naturally
you or is there things that you kind of look to to inspire you
for that? Because I don't even know how
you would like pacing, how that works as a storyteller.
I don't know how you get really good at it like you did I.
(20:42):
Don't know it's just whatever ifit feels good or it reads well
then because I go through the story a couple of times.
Once I do a story outline and I paste the story that way.
However, the real pacing comes to in the in the thumbnails
where I the pages down right tryto make sure the story flows
(21:06):
nicely. Each page ends in either
completes thought or a cliffhanger.
But yeah. So yes, that's how I determine
the pasting and I'll change it again when I'm on my final
pencils. And your, your final pencils,
you're doing still 1 by 17, right?
And you're, you're just kind of kept it the way it's always
(21:27):
been. Yeah, exactly.
Still hand hand ink with a pen that's been discontinued for the
last 25 years and. So I was in Tokyo last year at
Comic Con. I saw you there, but you were
super busy, so I didn't want to take up your your time.
But did you do art supply hunting when you were there?
(21:48):
Oh, of course. Of course, yeah.
The old platinum black, opaque and yeah.
It, it was my first trip there. I, I spent 3 1/2 weeks there and
I've never seen, I, I never knewhow much they embrace the comics
making, making aspect. It's like part of the culture.
You go to 711 and you can get you can get art supplies.
(22:11):
Paper and everything. It's mind blowing.
Imagine this in this country adopted that just 1% as much as
the Japanese. We'd have some, you know, people
having access to art supplies and, you know, going to
Mandorake. Oh my God, what a mind blowing
experience. It's like they celebrate the
culture is is celebrating the creators, you know, so and one
(22:38):
last thing I just want to mention because I really enjoyed
seeing your your collaboration with Peach.
Anything more to come? Because I mean, I look at her
and she's doing what nobody elseis doing for the.
Rightful, she teach. And yeah, they they're, they're
terrific. Yeah.
I just did a cover for one of her X-Men books.
(23:03):
Oh wow. Yeah, so again, it's a variant
cover. And yeah, I did another cover
for a thing called Rivals and it's a Punisher cover and I
think it's a character designs were done by Peach.
Yes, yeah, she she did a lot of great character designs for that
game. Yeah, she's delightful, So
(23:24):
talented, so talented. But and I just want to say I've
also got to say how much I really love the Strange Tales
Hulk story that you did. You know, it's about 20
something years ago now, but I think that's.
Yeah, yeah, I just got a call out of the blue for Marvel and
they said I can do use any of the characters, do whatever I
(23:49):
want with him. And I said right away I want to
do some that I Hulk and I'm going to kill him at the end.
Well, it's the such an interesting time for Marvel
because that they had come out of that really dark period and
Quesada and Palmiotti take over and really just give us an arrow
of like 5 to 10 years of Marvel's going to do anything
(24:11):
and you're never going to see itcoming.
But I'm glad that you really have just stuck to this path of,
of yeah, yeah. And we're all better off for it.
I mean, as as fans and readers, as, you know, other fellow
comics creators like you've, you've done so much for this
(24:36):
medium that, you know, we can never thank you enough.
But I want to say thank you for your time.
Besides the first issue of Tabo and the eBay live, any
convention appearances coming upor anything else I will be at?
San Diego Comic Con. I've cut down on my convention
hearing, but I'll be at San Diego.
(24:58):
I think this would be my, my 47th year or something, or
something like that. And I hope to be at one more
convention later this year. It's there's some convention I
love that I have the need to return to for such a long time,
but I I love you. Well, for anybody watching or
(25:18):
listening, you will find all of stands links below in the
description and yeah, I'll make sure that all the bases are
covered and thank you so much for your time.
It's. Been a pleasure, thank you.
Thanks for listening to that little mini interview and once
(25:43):
again, I really implore you if you enjoyed that, go check out
West Coast Avengers, my YouTube channel and click on the
interview. I'll link it in the description
below. Even if you're on Spotify or
Apple or any of the audio only formats, I'll throw it in the
description, but you can just find it.
West Coast Avengers, Stan Sakai or you know, I was hoping that
(26:05):
if you typed in Stan Sakai interview on YouTube, it would
come to it. But it's it's a testament to
somebody who has just mastered acraft and kept at it.
And what's really amazing about Usagi Ojimbo, which is in the
original interview, is he owns the entire IP.
(26:27):
Nobody gets to do anything basedoff Usagi Ojimbo if he doesn't
want it, or nobody gets to make any licensed product unless he
wants it. Nobody can ever.
You know, he had a Netflix show.There was two seasons of it.
I didn't watch it because it wasmore geared towards kids and it
was a about a descendant of Usagi.
(26:47):
In the future I will watch it atsome point.
In today's world, capitalism is destroying everything.
People don't get credit for the work that they do or they get
taken advantage by a corporationand you know, the corporation
buys, you know, does does everything, makes billions of
dollars and doesn't give the creators anything.
Stan is a very unique person in that that he has complete
(27:10):
control and that affords him to say yes or no to anything he
wants, which is amazing. And that's for creators or
creatives. I think that's the goal is to
make something that will provideyou a comfortable, you know,
means of living and you don't feel like you're being exploited
(27:32):
or you don't feel like you're doing this all for nothing.
And Stan has a family and, you know, they, I know his stepson
works with him and Julie's a cartoonist, his wife, and she
does conventions with him. And he just seems to really
enjoy what he does and in that enjoys his life.
(27:53):
It's admirable. I mean, it's so admirable.
And I can say this for somebody that's going down the the the
path of reading everything that he's ever put out with Usagi,
it's so enjoyable. You don't have to be a comic
book fan. You don't even have to like
really think about it as a comicand you're just reading this.
(28:17):
It just flows so well. It's like very much like the old
Sunday strips where you're just you want to read more, you want
to read more. So pick up a book and redo
soggy. So yeah, I was super delighted
to talk to him. And it means so much to me that
I get to put like, this is my thing now.
This is what I do. I get to interview people that I
(28:39):
appreciate or admire, and this podcast is my Ave. to do So the
third the third season was fantastic.
It really opened up some just metaphorical doors for me, not
with talking to people, but the people that I can talk to and
how I can really bring any type of conversation here.
And I'm excited to see who's in store for this season and who I
(29:04):
get to bring these great conversations with to you, my
listener. And Speaking of my listener, now
that we're in the fourth season,I can comfortably say that my
plan by the end of this season is to start either a Patreon or
some type of subscription service.
Not to put this podcast behind apaywall and it still will be
(29:28):
free to everybody, but as a way to support and maybe make some
money back because I'm not making any money on this
podcast, but I'd love to hear from you in the comments,
whether it's on YouTube or Spotify, I'd love to hear from
you in the comments. What, what you think would be a
good bonus for the listeners. Early access to episodes,
(29:52):
additional interview times, a shirt, something you know that
you can wear. What you know, I, I subscribe to
a bunch of Patreons. Some offer early, early
interviews exclusive, you know, chat asking questions, I guess
(30:12):
before they appear. Some offer, well, I can't offer
this, but it's, you know, like avinyl once a year, like a
special vinyl or, or piece of merch.
But you know, I don't think anybody listening to this is
going to be like, oh, this guy wants money.
I don't want I don't want to deal with that.
You know, I'm not asking for fora ton of money, but it would be
(30:34):
something like 5 bucks a month just because I pay an editor for
this. And right now this is not
monetized. But you know, just chime in with
anything in the comments that you think is good.
If you subscribe to any podcastsor anything like that, support
it. But really excited for for what
I've got in store this season and hopefully can bring in some
(30:55):
of these interviews that I've been trying to get some people
you might know and some people you might not know.
So big thank you to Stan Sakai. Big thank you to my producer,
Daniel. Big thank you to Andrew for
helping me out with all of the stuff that he helps me out with
on the synopsis and titles. And thank you to my dear
listener for being here for Season 4 of Direct Edition, a
(31:15):
podcast about nothing and everything.
I'm your host, Dave, and I'll see you later.
Welcome back to DIRECT Edition, a podcast about nothing and
everything. I am your host, Dave.
You Remember Me, the guy from the previous three seasons that
talked about comics and movies and music.
And you Remember Me, don't you? I won't sing a song, but I will
tell you that I'm excited to bring to you a little compendium
(00:36):
to an interview that I put on mycomic book based channel, West
Coast Avengers. This interview is with the
legendary creator, cartoonist Stan Sakai.
For the people that don't know who Stan Sakai is, if you're old
enough to remember the premiere of the Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles cartoon and you're old enough to remember the figures,
(00:58):
the action figures that came with it, you'll remember Usagi
Ojimbo, the Samurai Bunny. I had been trying to get Stan on
my channel for a couple years and he finally had time and we
sat down and did about an hour. And then after that I kind of
wrapped it up on the end of WestCoast Avengers and he gave me a
(01:22):
little more time. So we talked for about 20
minutes, which is what you're going to hear today.
I suggest that if you're not subscribed to West Coast
Avengers and you are interested in this and go back and listen
to it or watch it and then come back and listen to this for
people that aren't interested inthat.
This will give you a taste of who Stan is.
(01:44):
He has been, he's been creating comics since the late 70s, early
80s. He's won pretty much every award
you could win in the comics field, both for his comics
creation, you know the artistry,and also additionally for his
lettering. He is an award-winning letterist
(02:04):
for Sergio Aragonese for the comic book Grew.
He also lettered the Spiderman news strip for 2 1/2 decades.
And we we talk about a lot of that in the West Coast Avengers
episode and he talks about how that influenced a lot of his
life and his storytelling and his mom being this really good
(02:25):
storyteller as well. And him, you know, he fact
checked a lot of the stuff that he based Usagi on, which is a
lot of Japanese folklore and history.
And so he's just, he's a wealth of knowledge of very, very, very
well spoken, friendly, warm human being.
I could listen to him talk for hours and I bet he would talk
(02:48):
for hours. But his his cartooning skills
are just something else. They really are.
I mean, he has done this character for 42 years and he
pencils it and he inks it and hewrites it and he letters it.
He's got somebody doing the coloring.
But I mean, in the early days, he was doing it all, even though
(03:11):
the comics themselves were blackand white.
But the paintings that he did for a lot of the covers
obviously weren't black and white.
His friendship with Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, more
specifically Peter Laird, is what got Usagi Ojimbo a toy and
in the, you know, the animated series and propelled him to a
(03:35):
new level of stardom. The character Stan has stayed
very much humble and does not seem to embrace the impact that
he has with his personality. He has completely stayed as just
a humble cartoonist and that's an amazing thing.
So I'm going to play this 20 minute interview.
(03:57):
You're going to hear me talk about fandom and fanzines and
some cartoonist talk and just a little bit of everything.
And I thought this would be a fun way to have you enjoy your
day. But before I even get into that,
I just want to say thank you to everybody who has come back for
this fourth season. I hope you've enjoyed the
episodes that have come out so far, even if it's just the one.
(04:18):
This is a, you know, I'm doing this out of the love of what I
enjoy doing, and I'm hoping thatyou'll help support it and help
grow it. That's all.
So without any further ado, why don't we speak to Mr. Stan
Sakai? Kind of going back to the fandom
(04:41):
and fanzines I've seen your namein.
I want to see maybe with some RBCC, some or or some of the
late 70s as Stanley Sakai. When you started submitting to
fanzines, how was your like? What was your introduction to
them? How did you even know that they
existed? Because there was no Internet.
(05:01):
Yeah, I suddenly just received acopy of a thing called Dallas
Fantasy Fair Magazine and it just came out of nowhere.
I had no idea how it got on thatmailing list.
And it has ads for different fantasy.
And so I, I, I bought a few and it was later on that that I
(05:26):
heard about the Comic book God reader Don and Maggie Thompson.
OK. You see, she's what?
I forgot what it was. Yeah, I know what you're talking
about. Yeah, the name escapes me too.
Yeah. But, and it was true that that I
really got into more into fandom, but before then it was
(05:46):
just fanzines anywhere from mimeograph to high quality
little press. Yeah, yeah.
I submitted to a lot like Chronicle, Yeah, I can't think
of any. That, but there's.
Quite a few. It's the most fascinating aspect
of like the lineage of comics tome because you look at
(06:09):
everybody, you, you can take a look at the sample from, you
know, 60s to the early 80s of fan scenes.
Everybody was involved, people running them.
You see guys like Bernie, obviously Bernie writes in and
Kaluda Steranko was the king of the fan scenes, you know, You
see. Hollywood had Whitsen, yeah.
(06:29):
Whitsen and I mean Marvel even tried to capitalize on it with
Foom and Foom was great. You know, Foom was great, but
you even see guys like later on,Mark Wade would be all over
amazing heroes. You know, obviously Gary got in
the Zen game with amazing heroesand it's like it's a treasure
trove of information. Like you can you can pick up
(06:51):
comic reader and see early Mike Mignola fan art and it's just
like. Miller.
Yeah, yeah. And what was the name?
There was one that Miller was part of, and I forget the name
of it. I think it was out of Portland.
But it's just a fascinating thing.
Or I think it it's desperately needed in some way, shape or
(07:13):
form these days because comics, they're mainstream in a way, but
not really. I love.
I don't know if you've seen whatChip Sidarsky's been doing with
the Sidarsky Comic News, and he basically is producing his own
comic shop news thing now. That's great.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it's. Then it it died out with the
(07:36):
rise of the independent comic books, so.
Yes, and and Wizard kind of killed it too.
Bunch of couple of boxes of all all the old fanzines, so they're
kind of neat. No, they're great to look
through because I'm a huge Bernie Wrightson fan, as I
should be, as everybody should be.
And there is so much unpublishedlike art of his that ended up in
(08:02):
fan scenes. And same with you.
There's tons of your art out there that I've seen in fan
scenes of you doing characters that you would never do.
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
And that's the beauty of that. And I mean, we can trace there's
a great book for anybody that doesn't know.
It's called Meet Me at San Diegoand it's about San Diego Comic
(08:23):
Con. You can the path of San Diego
Comic Con and fan scenes and fanculture, right?
You know they're parallel. Yeah, I wrote one of the
introductions to that. That's right book it is lots of
photos and it's really, it's really great.
Yeah. And then from what San Diego is
(08:44):
now, obviously it's a completelydifferent beast.
But if you go back and, you know, read these paragraphs told
by the people who started, who were there, who were tabling,
you know, a lot of shell dwarf stuff going on in there.
And so, yeah, when you're first doing conventions, what do you
remember beside San Diego and outside of the West Coast?
(09:06):
Do you remember the first convention you did, maybe on the
East Coast? Oh no, I don't.
I know. I did some early Heroes con.
We used to do middle higher con like every other year.
A few. I went to the old New York Con
(09:26):
Con when it was at the Javits Center.
Yeah, yeah. I remember I was yeah, 929394.
I think we're the first times I had gone.
And for me, that was like, Oh myGod, everybody that I have
enjoyed comics of is at this convention.
It was. Actually I when at Java Center,
(09:48):
I went to visit the people at Mirage Studios, the turtle
people and drove down, then wentto the went to the convention
and we all had a great time there.
Yeah, that must have been great.I mean, what Kevin and Peter had
built with that and then what they went on to do, you know,
(10:10):
tundra, admirable, amazing thing.
And then the Zurich, the Zurich benefit the.
Yeah, I was one of the guys there were judges and we go
through the submissions every quarter and or every six months
or so and choose which ones you want.
And there are some really impressive things in there.
(10:31):
I was just. So many careers.
That Peter asked me to be one ofthe judges.
He was. He was great.
So many careers kick started from that.
Derek Grant, because I mean, what the one that comes to mind
is just somebody that I'm friendly with is Derek Kirk, him
who, you know, would do a lot ofbooks and go, you know, work
with go work into animation. But then he came back this past
(10:54):
year with the the last mermaid and it's a fantastic book,
absolutely fantastic book. Is there anybody that you maybe
encountered as a young cartoonist when you were, you
know, kind of Usagi was in his his 90s, you know, glory that,
(11:15):
you know, you came back years later and you're like, oh, this
person is now this person. Like, I imagine there's a lot of
mentorship that maybe you've done throughout the years with
people being a cartoonist and not a penciller or an inker.
Right, right. Well, I used to be a thesis
advisor to the Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont.
(11:38):
And I just did it for a few, fewyears and it was great to kind
of nurture upcoming talent. And I mean, they had such
wonderful talent. It's, it's, you know, it was my
pleasure to do that. And I kind of missed that.
I haven't done that for a while,but I talked to Julie about it
(12:00):
so maybe I should do it again orsomething.
There would be so many people that would benefit.
From it, you know, we've had people come over like Randy
Klute, who's a very young cartoonist himself, and he
stayed at the studio for about aweek where we brought together
and he'd see how I do things. And you know, I, I like to do
(12:22):
more things like that. Yeah, there's, you know, huge
community of indie creators. I think the indie creator
community has grown by leaps andbounds just in the last four or
five years. And for my part, I'm not a comic
creator at any way, but it's I think cartoonist kayfabe created
this real energy in people with Ed, what Ed Pisker and Jim Rugg
(12:44):
were doing and. It it.
Gains and gains. But is there, you know, as
somebody who does everything right, you know, what advice
would you give to somebody who is looking to get into creating
their own comics and trying to maintain a sense of balance of
how to get it all done? If you were the writer,
(13:05):
penciller, inker letter. Well, you need to discipline and
I'd like to work every day and which you know, might work
almost every day. But first of all, get at least
basic writing or art classes. They're in the principles of
perspective. A lot of times.
(13:27):
I mean, nowadays I, I don't workon the computer.
So I think there's respective program.
However, they're they're in the principles of perspective of
storytelling. One of the most important things
is go to conventions. Go to our Sally Network, Make
your way. Show your work.
Show your work. No matter how good you are, if
(13:48):
you don't show your work to others, no one will know the
issue. And with the Internet, it's
easier now to have have you workout there.
However, because there's so muchwork out there, it's hard to to
get noticed. Yeah, but go to conventions,
network, show your work to friends, teachers,
(14:08):
professionals, editors, publishers.
Make your way up the ladder and because you know I say friends
like to work with friends. A lot of my non Saudi work has
come from friendships like with Jeff Smith.
I did a rib that backup stories for him Sergio.
(14:29):
He I started working for group because you know of our
friendship and in the old phantom graphics days, I used to
have a backup stories for every issue.
Again, friends like to work withfriends and so I invite friends
to submit 88 stories or something.
So network is probably one of the most important things a
(14:50):
young cartoons can do. Now table an artist alley.
You know, you never know if the guy sitting next to you is going
to be in a position to offer youwork 10 years from now.
Right, right. And that story is a echoed
throughout everybody I've talkedto that got their start doing
conventions. It's the same thing.
It's, you know, I talked to Sanford Green a couple weeks ago
(15:13):
and it he went to Wizard World Chicago whenever it was in the
late 90s, early 2000s. And that's what he did.
He walked around and somebody said, yeah, I got a book
actually, you know, I'd love youto work on it.
And you know, Sanford now another amazing, amazing
cartoonist who goes on to go create Bitterroot.
(15:34):
But it's funny how we just came full circle with that because
it's all about connecting with the community, the fandom, or
the other side of it, the the creator.
And it's about staying connected.
Exactly. Actually I had mentioned Usagi
was first published. I heard about Steve Galachi
through a friend at Caps, and, you know, Fred had told me, oh,
(15:58):
Steve needs more stories, so he's looking for something.
I sent him a story and more than42 years later, I mean, yeah, he
published. It's, it's amazing the legacy
of, of this character will, you know, be around and you know, I
mean, it could be another 40 years, could be even longer.
(16:19):
You know, I, I'm, we're, we're all hoping for it because, you
know, it's interesting you mentioned Jeff Smith and we're
talking about Sergio and Kevin and Peter between the four
entities right there. It's interesting how the
anthropomorphic thing came in and Kevin and Peter talk about
(16:39):
it, right? It was an ode to Frank Miller.
It was, it was a parody on Daredevil, but Usagi wasn't.
Usagi was just happened to be a Bunny.
But these stories are not parodying anything.
They're not even taken from anything but real.
Life. Do you think that's a piece, if
not a huge part of why he is still here?
(17:03):
And everything is still awesome And you know, things are going
great, the stories are great, and people are reading it and
still talking about this character.
Well, because it doesn't. It's not parroting anything.
So it just has its own storyline.
Like of course, the beer, right?We remember this is in the 80s
or early 90s. Each issue was a parody of of
(17:27):
something. And you just can't do that for
that long. But we threw soggy.
I own a soggy. I can do anything I want.
I've had the soggy, you know, stories of just plain adventure.
I've had romances, I've had historical cultural, I've had a
soggy fight on the Martians. I've had all all kinds of stuff
(17:48):
And it's whatever I want. I'm in the mood for sure.
And that, I think for me, makes it more interesting and I think
for the readers as well. Yeah, as the creator, I, I
always, you know, it's with music or movies or anything, if
you can tell the passion of the creator through their work and
(18:10):
if they're bored or not. And I would just like to say
there is one, one person that has been able to make a career
out of parroting and does not ever seem to be slowing down.
That's Weird Al Yankovic, who is, you know, he's I, you know,
he lives in Hawaii. I want to say most of the year,
not half of the year, but that's, that's music.
(18:33):
I did want to ask, just because I'm, you know, I love video
games and I, you know, the turtles have had such a great
history and video games. Will we ever see an Usagi video
game? He he has a Roblox game.
OK, he's got a block game, but. I've never played it but but
yeah. Is that?
(18:53):
They they will be. We are working on a few other
things with Usagi right now. That has not been announced, but
right, Right. Yeah, the Netflix show was, you
know, was a, a show set in the future, was a descendant of
Usagi, which I know he ran for two seasons.
Correct. Correct.
Yeah. I, you know, there's really no
(19:15):
desire for me to see ever see anything like a movie of Usagi.
I think what would be interesting if is there any
audio book versions or like haveyou ever re narrated?
There's some online. There's an online site that has
audio versions of Usagi. Yeah, it really lends well
(19:38):
because there's a great narrative throughout all these
stories that you've created thatI'd almost want to listen to
somebody reading it, you know, and, and and I don't know why I
don't listen to audiobooks, but it's just the joy I get from
reading Usagi is, is very unlikeanything else I read.
And you know, like I said, Barksis and then Toriyama with with
(20:01):
Dragon Ball, like that's anotherthing.
And I know he was born, I think I want to say he's like 2.
He was two years younger than you or something like that.
And obviously we lost him. But when I read that.
I and I think about Barks and I think about Usagi.
I'm like, this is how you do pacing absolutely perfectly and
then. Thank you.
(20:21):
Yeah. And I wonder if there's anything
just as a storyteller that pacing, does it come naturally
you or is there things that you kind of look to to inspire you
for that? Because I don't even know how
you would like pacing, how that works as a storyteller.
I don't know how you get really good at it like you did I.
(20:42):
Don't know it's just whatever ifit feels good or it reads well
then because I go through the story a couple of times.
Once I do a story outline and I paste the story that way.
However, the real pacing comes to in the in the thumbnails
where I the pages down right tryto make sure the story flows
(21:06):
nicely. Each page ends in either
completes thought or a cliffhanger.
But yeah. So yes, that's how I determine
the pasting and I'll change it again when I'm on my final
pencils. And your, your final pencils,
you're doing still 1 by 17, right?
And you're, you're just kind of kept it the way it's always
(21:27):
been. Yeah, exactly.
Still hand hand ink with a pen that's been discontinued for the
last 25 years and. So I was in Tokyo last year at
Comic Con. I saw you there, but you were
super busy, so I didn't want to take up your your time.
But did you do art supply hunting when you were there?
(21:48):
Oh, of course. Of course, yeah.
The old platinum black, opaque and yeah.
It, it was my first trip there. I, I spent 3 1/2 weeks there and
I've never seen, I, I never knewhow much they embrace the comics
making, making aspect. It's like part of the culture.
You go to 711 and you can get you can get art supplies.
(22:11):
Paper and everything. It's mind blowing.
Imagine this in this country adopted that just 1% as much as
the Japanese. We'd have some, you know, people
having access to art supplies and, you know, going to
Mandorake. Oh my God, what a mind blowing
experience. It's like they celebrate the
culture is is celebrating the creators, you know, so and one
(22:38):
last thing I just want to mention because I really enjoyed
seeing your your collaboration with Peach.
Anything more to come? Because I mean, I look at her
and she's doing what nobody elseis doing for the.
Rightful, she teach. And yeah, they they're, they're
terrific. Yeah.
I just did a cover for one of her X-Men books.
(23:03):
Oh wow. Yeah, so again, it's a variant
cover. And yeah, I did another cover
for a thing called Rivals and it's a Punisher cover and I
think it's a character designs were done by Peach.
Yes, yeah, she she did a lot of great character designs for that
game. Yeah, she's delightful, So
(23:24):
talented, so talented. But and I just want to say I've
also got to say how much I really love the Strange Tales
Hulk story that you did. You know, it's about 20
something years ago now, but I think that's.
Yeah, yeah, I just got a call out of the blue for Marvel and
they said I can do use any of the characters, do whatever I
(23:49):
want with him. And I said right away I want to
do some that I Hulk and I'm going to kill him at the end.
Well, it's the such an interesting time for Marvel
because that they had come out of that really dark period and
Quesada and Palmiotti take over and really just give us an arrow
of like 5 to 10 years of Marvel's going to do anything
(24:11):
and you're never going to see itcoming.
But I'm glad that you really have just stuck to this path of,
of yeah, yeah. And we're all better off for it.
I mean, as as fans and readers, as, you know, other fellow
comics creators like you've, you've done so much for this
(24:36):
medium that, you know, we can never thank you enough.
But I want to say thank you for your time.
Besides the first issue of Tabo and the eBay live, any
convention appearances coming upor anything else I will be at?
San Diego Comic Con. I've cut down on my convention
hearing, but I'll be at San Diego.
(24:58):
I think this would be my, my 47th year or something, or
something like that. And I hope to be at one more
convention later this year. It's there's some convention I
love that I have the need to return to for such a long time,
but I I love you. Well, for anybody watching or
(25:18):
listening, you will find all of stands links below in the
description and yeah, I'll make sure that all the bases are
covered and thank you so much for your time.
It's. Been a pleasure, thank you.
Thanks for listening to that little mini interview and once
(25:43):
again, I really implore you if you enjoyed that, go check out
West Coast Avengers, my YouTube channel and click on the
interview. I'll link it in the description
below. Even if you're on Spotify or
Apple or any of the audio only formats, I'll throw it in the
description, but you can just find it.
West Coast Avengers, Stan Sakai or you know, I was hoping that
(26:05):
if you typed in Stan Sakai interview on YouTube, it would
come to it. But it's it's a testament to
somebody who has just mastered acraft and kept at it.
And what's really amazing about Usagi Ojimbo, which is in the
original interview, is he owns the entire IP.
(26:27):
Nobody gets to do anything basedoff Usagi Ojimbo if he doesn't
want it, or nobody gets to make any licensed product unless he
wants it. Nobody can ever.
You know, he had a Netflix show.There was two seasons of it.
I didn't watch it because it wasmore geared towards kids and it
was a about a descendant of Usagi.
(26:47):
In the future I will watch it atsome point.
In today's world, capitalism is destroying everything.
People don't get credit for the work that they do or they get
taken advantage by a corporationand you know, the corporation
buys, you know, does does everything, makes billions of
dollars and doesn't give the creators anything.
Stan is a very unique person in that that he has complete
(27:10):
control and that affords him to say yes or no to anything he
wants, which is amazing. And that's for creators or
creatives. I think that's the goal is to
make something that will provideyou a comfortable, you know,
means of living and you don't feel like you're being exploited
(27:32):
or you don't feel like you're doing this all for nothing.
And Stan has a family and, you know, they, I know his stepson
works with him and Julie's a cartoonist, his wife, and she
does conventions with him. And he just seems to really
enjoy what he does and in that enjoys his life.
(27:53):
It's admirable. I mean, it's so admirable.
And I can say this for somebody that's going down the the the
path of reading everything that he's ever put out with Usagi,
it's so enjoyable. You don't have to be a comic
book fan. You don't even have to like
really think about it as a comicand you're just reading this.
(28:17):
It just flows so well. It's like very much like the old
Sunday strips where you're just you want to read more, you want
to read more. So pick up a book and redo
soggy. So yeah, I was super delighted
to talk to him. And it means so much to me that
I get to put like, this is my thing now.
This is what I do. I get to interview people that I
(28:39):
appreciate or admire, and this podcast is my Ave. to do So the
third the third season was fantastic.
It really opened up some just metaphorical doors for me, not
with talking to people, but the people that I can talk to and
how I can really bring any type of conversation here.
And I'm excited to see who's in store for this season and who I
(29:04):
get to bring these great conversations with to you, my
listener. And Speaking of my listener, now
that we're in the fourth season,I can comfortably say that my
plan by the end of this season is to start either a Patreon or
some type of subscription service.
Not to put this podcast behind apaywall and it still will be
(29:28):
free to everybody, but as a way to support and maybe make some
money back because I'm not making any money on this
podcast, but I'd love to hear from you in the comments,
whether it's on YouTube or Spotify, I'd love to hear from
you in the comments. What, what you think would be a
good bonus for the listeners. Early access to episodes,
(29:52):
additional interview times, a shirt, something you know that
you can wear. What you know, I, I subscribe to
a bunch of Patreons. Some offer early, early
interviews exclusive, you know, chat asking questions, I guess
(30:12):
before they appear. Some offer, well, I can't offer
this, but it's, you know, like avinyl once a year, like a
special vinyl or, or piece of merch.
But you know, I don't think anybody listening to this is
going to be like, oh, this guy wants money.
I don't want I don't want to deal with that.
You know, I'm not asking for fora ton of money, but it would be
(30:34):
something like 5 bucks a month just because I pay an editor for
this. And right now this is not
monetized. But you know, just chime in with
anything in the comments that you think is good.
If you subscribe to any podcastsor anything like that, support
it. But really excited for for what
I've got in store this season and hopefully can bring in some
(30:55):
of these interviews that I've been trying to get some people
you might know and some people you might not know.
So big thank you to Stan Sakai. Big thank you to my producer,
Daniel. Big thank you to Andrew for
helping me out with all of the stuff that he helps me out with
on the synopsis and titles. And thank you to my dear
listener for being here for Season 4 of Direct Edition, a
(31:15):
podcast about nothing and everything.
I'm your host, Dave, and I'll see you later.
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