Artist's Proof, Inscribed with Two Sketches
Usagi Yojimbo: Book Four
Publication: Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books, 1990. First Edition.
Notes: The fourth installment in the long-running Usagi Yojimbo graphic novel series, and the first with a hardcover issue made from first printing sheets (when Fantagraphics reissued the first three volumes in hardcover—all had been paperback originals—they used the sheets of later printings. Titled on the spine "The Dragon Below Conspiracy."
This is one of 1500 numbered hardcovers signed by Sakai with a substantial sketch on a publisher's bookplate mounted on the front pastedown (the typical Fantagraphics limited edition format). This volume includes an eight-page color story not previously published or included in the trade paperback issue.
Usagi Yojimbo is one of the longest-running comics series written and illustrated by a single artist, spanning 250 comic book issues over four decades. The books have won a number of Eisner and Harvey awards. The Netflix series, Samurai Rabbit, is based on Usagi Yojimbo characters. Sakai (born Sutan Sakai in Kyoto, Japan, in 1953) was raised in Hawaii and lives in California.
See Rothschild, Graphic Novels: A Bibliographic Guide to Book-length Comics, 209.
[4], 180, [8:color] pages. Foreword by Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing, with a numberline ending in 1). Fine in a fine dust jacket. This copy marked "Artist's proof" on the limitation bookplate. Sakai also drew a sketch of the title character with two blades drawn.
This came from the collection of cartoonist Bob Foster, who drew The History of Moosekind for Marvel's Crazy in the 1970s and later worked for Hanna-Barbera and Disney Publications, among other animation and cartooning jobs. Sakai additionally inscribed this copy with a small sketch on the half-title page.
Item No: #366195
Price: $250