Absolute Usagi: A Lifetime of Love for Usagi Yojimbo by Ryan Hill

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Absolute Usagi: A Lifetime of Love for Usagi Yojimbo by Ryan Hill

06/30/2010 2:37pm

Usagi Yojimbo is one of Dark Horse's longest running and most critically acclaimed titles. And Production Artist Ryan Hill knows exactly why that is.

I think, in part, what adulthood can be for certain people is trying to hold on to the notion of “absolutes.” Obviously as kids our limited experiences allow just about anything to be the “best thing ever” up until the next thing shows up. It can be pretty awesome to live in a world where the greatest movie/book/song you’ve ever seen/read/heard is always the last movie/book/song you’ve ever seen/read/heard. And you know it with total certainty cause you don’t know anything else. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the best thing ever since Thundercats had been the best thing ever since Legos had beaten out my mother’s spaghetti (and a bunch of other stuff). I love TMNT as do most reading this probably, and like some of that audience it lead to another best thing ever: Usagi Yojimbo.

Usagi was a samurai, which sounded cooler. Ninjas were everywhere and If Michael Dudikoff could join, how special is your club? He was a rabbit…and I liked rabbits more than turtles. He wore clothes, which I felt was ultimately smarter. And he was a loner. He had to do it all on his own (more often). I loved it. The art. The stories. The little dinosaurs. The big rhino guy. It was the best thing ever.

You grow up though, and sooner or later you’ve cased the joint once or twice. The tricks get seen and the patterns have been noticed. “Best thing ever” gets a lot more grey and unsure... and I’m not trying to harken to the “loss of awe with age” sterotype. The world is way too big for that. It’s just the frequency adjustment that can sometimes suck. But obviously we trade frequency for depth. I love Usagi as hopefully most reading this do, and like all of that audience it lead me to a better best thing ever: Stan Sakai.

I can go on and on about the quality of the book itself. That’s something many have expressed in far better ways than I ever could and for quite sometime. But with the fortune I received in my career, I’ve been afforded the opportunity to work on one of the few comics that made the transition from being the greatest thing ever to still being one of the greatest things ever and really knowing why. With a few years behind you, absolutes can start becoming just circumstance… things like appointment dates and alarm clocks settings. Your biggest celebration or your laundry reminder can all be equal when read from I-Calendar. But an absolute I trust now, that brings me more joy and amazement each time it happens, that I could chart dates and set clocks to…is that Stan will deliver 24 pages of Usagi. Done. Every month. Without fail. Always. It will be as good or better than the previous month. Always. It’ll have been done all by himself. Always. He’ll be kind and approachable to whatever needs to be done on any aspect of the book from corrections to design. Always. He is an insanely nice man. Always.

Of all the books I work on Usagi is an absolute. I never worry about it. And as a production guy I can say that’s pretty incredible. Something that might not be as known about Stan, that I have come to truly admire, is his total and complete professionalism. Of course it’s easy to see in the quality of the work; that speaks for itself. But it’s also just as true in HOW he works. It is the reason this last year we celebrated 25 years of Usagi. And it’s why we’ll be celebrating many many more. And I know that. Absolutely.

--Ryan Hill

Ryan Hill has worked on Usagi Yojimbo since he started at Dark Horse six years ago. Ryan is an 8th Level Production Artist with a +3 Cintiq of Retouching.

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Absolute Usagi: A Lifetime of Love for Usagi Yojimbo by Ryan Hill

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