13 Facts About Stan Sakai

Stan Masahiko Sakai is a Japanese-born American cartoonist and comic book creator.

Stan Sakai is best known as the creator of the comic series Usagi Yojimbo.

Stan Sakai's father was a second-generation Japanese American from Hawaii, who was stationed in Japan with the US occupation forces.

Stan Sakai studied Fine Arts at the University of Hawaii before continuing his training at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Stan Sakai began his career by lettering comic books and wrote and illustrated The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy; a comic series with a medieval setting, influenced by Groo the Wanderer.

Stan Sakai became famous with the creation of Usagi Yojimbo, the epic saga of Miyamoto Usagi, a samurai rabbit living in late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth-century Japan.

Stan Sakai was the artist for Riblet, the back-up feature in the Bone spinoff miniseries and trade paperback, Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails.

In 2013, Stan Sakai illustrated the limited comic book series 47 Ronin, an adaptation of the famed story of the 47 Ronin written by Dark Horse Comics Publisher Mike Richardson and with Lone Wolf and Cub writer Kazuo Koike as an editorial consultant.

In 2020, it was announced that Stan Sakai would serve as an executive producer on the then-upcoming Netflix original animated series Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, which is based on Usagi Yojimbo.

Stan Sakai's contribution is an original Usagi Yojimbo story in which the main character comes to the aid of refugees fleeing the invasion of their land by a warlord, themes that speak to the events in Ukraine.

From 1993 through 2005, Stan Sakai has received twenty-one Eisner Award nominations.

Stan Sakai has been nominated for the Comics Buyer's Guide Award for Favorite Writer in 1999 and 2000.

In 2020, Stan Sakai was inducted into the Eisner Award Hall of Fame.