"Samurai Lagniappe"--editing The Art of Blade of the Immortal by Philip R. Simon

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“Samurai Lagniappe”—editing The Art of Blade of the Immortal by Philip R. Simon

05/28/2010 11:06am

The Art of Blade of the Immortal, on sale this month from Dark Horse Books, is not only a testament to creator Hiroaki Samura’s technical and creative skills on paper and canvas—it’s a celebration of one of the longest-running manga titles in the English-reading world! With a lengthy publication history—rivaled only by the English-language editions of Oh My Goddess! (also published by Dark Horse)—Blade of the Immortal began its serialized run in the United States in June 1996 with a monthly comic-book series. Dark Horse’s first collection hit stores in March 1997, and Blade’s successful run continues to this day! While the monthly comics have ceased publication, Blade of the Immortal volume 22—Dark Horse’s latest volume—was released in January of this year, and our trade collection program is still going strong.

Samura’s riveting manga series (as much young Rin’s tale as it is the immortal Manji’s) has also spawned an anime series and a novel. The first prose piece inspired by Samura’s work, Blade of the Immortal: Legend of the Sword Demon by Junichi Ohsako, was also published by Dark Horse this year and is available now. Authorized by Samura, this novel expands upon Rin’s first months with Manji, gives a little more character info on Magatsu, and introduces a new threat that manga readers were not aware of. Told mainly from Rin’s point of view, the novel also includes new illustrations by Samura—all of which I was able to include in The Art of Blade of the Immortal.

Which brings us to the “lagniappe” portion of this missive. A common word in south central Louisiana—the heart of “Cajun Country” where I was raised—lagniappe simply means “a little something extra at no extra cost.” Whether you’re adding in some extra meat and vegetables to your restaurant’s gumbo or adding a free comic to your customer’s Wednesday comic-book pile or adding thirty-two extra pages and almost forty extra illustrations to your art book, lagniappe is a word that refers to that “extra something something” as well as the spirit of enthusiastically giving your customers some added incentive with each visit. In the Blade of the Immortal comic-book series, that “something extra” that I tried to add to each issue was a color, Blade-inspired pinup—which evolved from black and white lettercol pinups from fans to full-color images from professionals running on our back covers. Artists like Becky Cloonan, the Luna Brothers, Guy Davis, Dan Hipp, Vasilis Lolos, Nathan Fox, Rob Guillory, Farel Dalrymple, Zachary Baldus, and Seattle-area illustrator Stan Shaw all contributed illustrations. We also ran a Blade-inspired cartoon by Filipino sensation Jhomar Soriano and some rare images from Samura-dono himself!

So when the Japanese edition of Samura’s art book arrived, my immediate concern was how to make the Dark Horse edition even better—how to add something special that would make readers and art fans perk up and take notice. My first thought was to turn the softcover edition into a hardcover edition—at no extra cost to fans. Then I combed through all of the Japanese and Dark Horse editions of Blade and came up with almost forty additional images that I wanted to run in our art book. Designer Scott Cook helped me put together a digital file that showed our friends at Kodansha every image that we wanted to use, and licensing guru Michael Gombos helped put together our official request and guide that listed all of the proposed new pieces and where they first ran. An extra thirty-two-page signature would be needed, of course, so while I was waiting for an approval on images from Japan, I spoke with Dark Horse’s printer liaison, Darlene Vogel, about getting that extra signature added and budgeting for the additional pages. When I had a plan worked out, our publisher approved it, and all the behind-the-scenes paperwork moved forward!

And something else really strange and wonderful happened. Sometimes synchronicity blesses a humble editor. Pretty much out of the blue, American comics legend Geof Darrow called me—as a fan who wanted to chat about a series we both loved—and like any good, manipulative editor I saw that as a chance to exploit our friendship and make my “little art book project” even better. That’s how Geof got to write the foreword to The Art of Blade of the Immortal—and he wrote a nice appreciation of both Samura-dono and some other creative, Japanese titans who influenced his detailed, imaginative work.

Many of the images in The Art of Blade of the Immortal first ran as chapter breaks and tankobon (collection) cover art in Japan. Through these images, we can see that Samura’s work becomes more confident over the years, but we’re also given some clues as to what Samura enjoys drawing outside of his main body of characters and settings and how powerful his work can be when some of his illustrations are taken out of their original narrative sequences. Looking at the many new images that I wanted to include in our Dark Horse edition, I started to see certain themes and patterns developing, and in our final, approved edition, you’ll see themes of isolation and companionship—and Samura invoking seasonal and elemental forces.

When production began to ramp up on this book and we got full approval from Samura-dono and our friends at Kodansha in Japan, I actually found myself in a bit of a happy pickle—I had TOO MANY images to run, as ALL of them were approved for our use. With Scott Cook’s input (he’s also a huge Blade fan—and the book’s designer for several years), my solution was to use the front and back endpapers, which are usually blank, as our canvas for two amazing Rin images. Several small illustrations from the Blade of the Immortal novel tie-in were stacked on two pages instead of being blown up larger. Perfect fits!

The final piece in the art-book puzzle that sat before me was the text in the original edition—an afterword by Samura and a detailed catalog of illustration appearances. I pulled in Camellia Nieh to translate the text, as she’d just completed her translation of the Blade of the Immortal novel and had read every Blade graphic novel in order to familiarize herself with Samura’s violent and anachronistic universe. Our in-house proofreader, Annie Gullion, helped to keep all the catalog listings accurate, consistent, and concise.

Like most Dark Horse Manga editors, I love to talk about what I love. Once you get one of us going, it’s hard to stop, but that’s about it for this “project recap.” With my urge to add some killer lagniappe to the Dark Horse edition of The Art of Blade of the Immortal, I’ve hopefully not only given you a great book at a great price—but I also hope some of my deep fascination and love for the source material rubs off and is felt in the presentation and content. If you hold a copy of the Dark Horse hardcover in your hands and it just buzzes with energy—and gets you excited about the material—my “lagniappe instinct” has done its job!

--Philip R. Simon, Editor

Philip Simon has been with Dark Horse Comics since 2000 and has been an editor on such titles as Blade of the Immortal, Conan, and Eden. He is originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, has two cats, and is reteaching himself to skateboard. He knows more about zombies that anyone you will ever meet.

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“Samurai Lagniappe”—editing The Art of Blade of the Immortal by Philip R. Simon

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