Comic Fans, rejoice, There will be a new crossover between the TMNT and Usagi Yojimbo. Entertainment Weekly sat down with Usagi Yojimbo Creator Stan Sakai to discuss the project and many interesting details were mentioned. For one, although Usagi and the turtles have crossed over in the past, this crossover is between the new IDW incarnation of the turtles meeting Usagi. But Usagi remembers his previous meetings with the Mirage era turtles. How this will be explained will not doubt be amazing.
Sakai broke the story down in the interview.
The story is called “Namazu.” It’s based upon the folklore of a giant catfish that lives underneath the Japanese islands. When it moves, that’s what causes earthquakes. There’s a god, Kashima, who had trapped it, pinned it down with a huge capstone. In my story, a piece of the capstone has crumbled off centuries ago, and that has weakened it. Because of that, the catfish has gotten stronger and is able to move a bit more. Usagi and the Turtles come into possession of a fragment of the capstone, and they have to put the fragments back together to trap the catfish. Otherwise, it will literally tear the Japanese islands apart. One of my characters called Jei is on a sacred quest to destroy all evil in the world. He reasons if he destroys all people, he’ll be destroying evil. So he wants the Japanese islands to be destroyed and is preventing them from completing their mission. It’s just full of fun.
Jei is one of my favourite characters in the series, so for him to interact with the turtles is something I’ve wanted for a long time.
He also discussed the format, which will come as a one shot comic and also a hardcover version.
This story will come in a special hardcover edition. Can you talk about what goodies will be included?
The hardcover will include the preliminary drawings and notes I had done. These are new incarnations of the turtles, so they’re slightly different from what I’m used to drawing. For one thing, when I turned in the rough copy, my editor said these turtles don’t have tails. Oh, okay. There are little things like that. It will also have story notes, background. I also wanted to do a bibliography of story notes about the earthquake fish. It will have thumbnails, my story outline, pretty much the creative process.
Stan Sakai is a legendary writer and artist and this story sounds absolutely amazing. We have promises of Stan’s version of Splinter showing up ( does that mean kakaera the rat wizard?) Usagi meeting the new turtles, and more interaction. This will be amazing.
If you haven’t yet read our breakdown of the series, you can read it here.