Monday, January 19, 2009

Leo & Usagi by Stan Sakai

Usagi Yojimbo was a book that I always wanted to get into, thanks to his many crossovers with the TMNT. Sometime last year, I finally decided to purchase the first three collected volumes. I was instantly hooked. Stan Sakai made such an impression on me with his story telling and his art that when he began accepting commissions for SDCC via his website, I just had to get something from him. Like the other artists I featured on the blog, I asked him to draw his favorite turtle, but I also requested for Usagi to be in the piece. No real surprise to TMNT fans: Stan chose Leo.

People always blog about how Stan Sakai is one of the nicest people in the comic books business. I met Stan for the first time last year during SDCC, and now I can understand why the fans love him. He was a pleasure to talk to, and extremely patient with everyone who came up to his booth. Stan genuinely enjoyed talking to his fans, and he even took the time to answer a few of my n00bish questions. It was one of my personal highlights from comic con.

For more on Stan and all things UY, check out his official website:

Usagi Yojimbo Dojo

And to see what Stan is currently up to, here's his blog:

usagiguy

Coming Up Next: TMNT & Splinter art prints by Rak
Coming Up Soon: Hawkman by Ramona Fradon
Coming Up Later: Mikey by Ryan Brown

Friday, January 16, 2009

Happy New Year!

Well, it's the beginning of a brand new year, and one of my New Year resolutions was to dedicate more time to my blog. I initially started this blog to post about TMNT news, but Roseangelo is already doing an incredible job with that (click here for her blog). Then I decided to start posting TMNT art that I have collected, and I think I'll start that up again for 2 main reasons: 1) I'd like to share my TMNT stuff with my fellow fans, and 2) I'd like to document what I actually have. I tend to lose track of what I have (I'm really disorganized), so I figure blogging about it will help me remember.

I'll continue posting more TMNT artwork according to the old schedule I had listed in my last post. That means a commission I received from the one and only Stan Sakai will be up next. That will be posted sometime this weekend, and I'll continue updating about once every two weeks until I run out of artwork to show (which may actually last me until the next SDCC, so hopefully I'll have even more to share afterwards).

I do want to sprinkle in a few other things I've gotten, like TMNT prints (ie. the ones by Rak) as well as a few non-TMNT sketches (ie. an indredible Hawkman sketch I got from hall of famer, Ramona Fradon).

We'll see how this goes. If I stick to my New Year plans, I should have a nice, deep archive of posts that I can look at by the time 2010 rolls around.

Best of luck to everyone on their plans for 2009!