Usagi Yojimbo Leaves Dark Horse: Why and What’s Next?

Dark Horse Comics started publishing Stan Sakai’s “Usagi Yojimbo” series way back in 1995.  This was “Usagi’s” third official publisher following a 38-issue run at Fantagraphics and a 16-issue run at Mirage.  “Usagi’s” run at Dark Horse handily eclipsed its previous ones with the series lasting for 165 issues, a graphic novel, a couple of spinoff miniseries, various one-shots and short stories, and two artbooks.  This also includes the seven-issue “The Hidden” miniseries which will be published as vol. 33 this summer and will be the last new story featuring the Rabbit Ronin to come from Dark Horse.

It was announced by Sakai to the New York Times over the weekend that “Usagi” has a new home:  IDW Publishing. I believe Sakai and his signature creation will be in good hands at that company and I’ll continue to buy any future “Usagi” stories published by IDW.

Yet you have to wonder why Sakai decided to leave Dark Horse after such a long association with the company.  “Usagi” has been at the company so long that it was frequently featured in advertising and promotional material for Dark Horse itself.  After such a long association I believed that we’d only stop seeing new “Usagi” stories from the company only after Sakai had passed away.  That (thankfully) didn’t happen and now my worldview is shaken. Not so much for “Usagi’s” future, but what it means to Dark Horse.

We’ll probably never know the exact reason why Sakai decided to leave Dark Horse.  Everything about the split has been polite with neither Sakai nor the company saying anything negative about the other party so far.  I can only speculate as to the reasons why this happened, so please take everything that I’m about to write with the appropriate grains of salt.  For me, this isn’t so much about armchair-quarterbacking an industry development and its ramifications. It’s more like trying to figure out why mommy and daddy don’t want to be together anymore.

It bears mentioning that “Usagi” is not the first title to leave Dark Horse in recent years.  The company lost the “Star Wars” license to Marvel when Disney bought Lucasfilm, lost the “Firefly” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” licenses to BOOM!, and lost the “Conan” license to Marvel when the House of Ideas decided they wanted to start publishing those comics again.  As far as creator-owned titles go, the most significant loss I can think of is “The Goon” after Eric Powell decided to start publishing it through his own company Albatross. I’m sure there have been more, but they’re usually miniseries or graphic novels that the creators have decided to republish through Image or another company.

What I’m getting at here is that there’s been kind of a mini-exodus of creators and titles from Dark Horse in recent years.  While the company maintains strong ties with a number of creators like Neil Gaiman via his “Library” books, Jeff Lemire and the “Black Hammer” universe, and Matt Kindt’s various creator-owned works, there’s no denying that it has lost a lot of titles that people have associated with it over the years.  While Dark Horse hasn’t offered any direct comment on these losses beyond the standard “We’re not going anywhere” statements from president and publisher Mike Richardson, for all of us fans looking in from the outside it appears that the last few years have been pretty rough for the company.

Not helping that perception is the Chinese venture capitalist investment that happened last year.  While this was publicized as a way for the company to continue development of new titles, develop movies and TV shows based on existing series, and to better sell their products in China, it was still a shocking move.  Dark Horse had, up until then, been the largest privately-held comics company in the U.S. They had turned down previous such offers from outside investors before, having valued their independence. For them to accept this kind of deal now after the last few years they’ve had does make you wonder if it was done out of necessity for the company’s survival more than anything else.

Which is a very roundabout way of coming to my first theory of why Sakai left:  Because he saw the writing on the wall and wanted to get out before the company collapsed or changed into something unrecognizable.  I’ll admit that the latter is more likely than the former here. While Dark Horse is still clearly committed to publishing comics, it’s clear that they’ve been significantly diversifying their efforts as of late.  We’ve got a new “Hellboy” movie coming soon, “The Umbrella Academy” series just debuted on Netflix, and more and more videogame/TV/movie artbooks keep showing up in their solicitations each month.

You’ve also got to consider that Dark Horse hasn’t been able to launch a major comics hit in the last few years as well.  “Black Hammer” has done well enough to warrant several spinoffs, but its sales don’t approach the level of top-tier Image titles like “Saga.”  Ditto for the adaptation of Gaiman’s “American Gods.” The Berger Books imprint looks to be doing OK for itself, and maybe its launch of “Invisible Kingdom” from G. Willow Wilson and Christian Ward will be a fortune-changing hit.

While this isn’t good news, the fact remains that Dark Horse has been able to make up their losses in comics sales elsewhere.  “The Hyrule Historia” was a massive success for them and is likely the main reason we’re seeing more and more artbooks from them each month.  So when I say that Sakai left before the company became unrecognizable, I’m talking about the company becoming one that pushes comics secondary to stuff like artbooks or movies and TV shows.  It’s kind of halfway there already.

The other reason I can think of for Sakai to leave is that it may have been Kevin Eastman’s fault.  Which is kind of a fancy way of saying that IDW just offered him a better deal. For those of you who don’t recognize that name, Eastman is the co-creator of the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and while he doesn’t own them anymore, he’s still heavily involved with them.  He’s been co-plotting and providing art/variant covers for IDW’s main ongoing “Turtles” title since its start. Eastman, and the “Turtles” other co-creator Peter Laird, have also been friends with Sakai since the 80’s and were instrumental in bringing “Usagi” to a wider audience via comics crossovers, a guest spot on the “Turtles” animated series, and even an action figure as well.

I’m guessing they’re still friends or the latest “TMNT/Usagi” special wouldn’t have happened otherwise.  I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to think that Eastman may have wanted to do Sakai another solid by getting him a better publishing deal via IDW.  This is COMPLETE speculation on my part, as it’s just as likely that Sakai was approached by IDW with a better deal that included more money and reprinting all of “Usagi” in color.  Going even further down the Rabbit Ronin hole has me thinking that Sakai would’ve seen if he could get Dark Horse to match or exceed that offer. When they couldn’t, that’s how we wound up with the announcement that “Usagi” now had a new home.

Sakai is a regular presence at Comic-Con each year, so there’s always the possibility of asking him about this in person.  I won’t do it, though. There are better ways of interacting with one of the nicest guys in comics than asking him about something that is frankly none of my business.  Furthermore, if there is actually any trouble behind the scenes at Dark Horse then we’ll hear about it eventually. In the meantime I plan on seeing Sakai again at Comic-Con to pick up a copy of “The Hidden” to mark the end of an era.  I’ll be back next year to mark the beginning of a new one by picking up the first collection of his work from IDW. In glorious color no less!