It's been on the schedule for a couple of years now, and it's finally arrived:

The Usagi Yojimbo Special Edition from Fantagraphic Books.

Now, I'm a Johnny-come-very-lately to Usagi Yojimbo, mainly because I'm an idiot who dismissed what looked like a funny animal book buried deep in the alphabetical new releases at my local comics shoppe.

But a friend really talked it up (Hi, Robert!), and a found a trove in the quarter bin, and dammit, I'm hooked. So much for saving money by buying fewer books.

But as a (relatively) inexpensive way to catch up quickly, this new tome is one helluva great package.

It comes in a deluxe slipcase with two gorgeous hardbound volumes, with fabulous reprinting of the B & W art on high-quality glossy paper. It reprints basically everything from the original Fantagraphics run (38 issues), plus two of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossovers, plus an exquisite cover gallery, plus a long sketchbook and interview with genius Stan Sakai.

And yes, it contains the justly famous Sharktopus battle, with Usagi fighting a shark and an octopus simultaneously. Because that's how he rolls.

It's not a cheap volume...the cover price is $100...but you can get it on Amazon for just $63, which is even cheaper than you could buy the corresponding paperback trades for. It's a great idea for a Christmas present for a comics fan, or even a non-fan, because Sakai's work is extremely accessible and infectious. Or just treat yourself.

Hey...I didn't even mention Doctor Doom!!

This Saturday night, SyFy (sigh) will be launching the greatest event in the history of humankind, with the debut of their latest "SyFy Original" movie, SHARKTOPUS.

Now, no one more than I loves the weekly tradition of SyFy taking either a natural disaster or a wild animal and adding "Mega" to the name; finding one actor with a tenuous science fiction media connection and surrounding them with unknown Europeans with indecipherable accents (and indecipherable acting); wrapping the whole enterprise in special effects that 5-year-old me could have bettered with a Lite Brite and a stop-motion camera; and then dropping the turd on undiscerning Saturday audiences who can't be bothered to wait for it to turn up 5 minutes later on Netflix. Hey, it's just part of SyFy's hidden agenda to make EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE WORLD DUMBER. Why change the channel, because there's nothing else on...

But Sharktopus? I can top that...

For this week's Friday Night Fight, rabbit ronin Miyamoto Usagi is wandering about feudal Japan, when:




Now, we've got the octopus...and not just any octopus:



That's it then, right?

No, because this is an octopus DEMON:


Well, things couldn't get any worse, could they?

YIPES!!! And there's our shark!!

How to get out of this one??



OK, stabbing the shark and riding his dying body to the surface is a good start...



And slicing the heck out of the octopus is a good finish!!

An as the shark and the octopus slowly sink, Spacebooger suggests you enjoy the trailer for SHARKTOPUS:



Even though I didn't have Eric Roberts sliming up the screen, Stan Sakai's writing and drawing and inking and lettering clearly carry the day in Usagi Yojimbo #27 (1991).

Now go vote, dang it, before SyFy unleashes, oh, I don't know, HYPER HAILSTORM or GIGA-NEWT or MANSQUITO 2 or something...