From the creators of Lone Wolf and Cub comes Samurai Executioner!

Widely respected as a powerful writer of graphic fiction, Kazuo Koike has spent a lifetime reaching beyond the bounds of the comics medium. Aside from co-creating and writing the incredibly successful Lone Wolf and Cub and Crying Freeman manga, Koike has hosted television programs; founded a golf magazine; produced movies; written popular fiction, poetry, and screenplays. Koike collected numerous awards for his work on the series throughout the next decade. Starting in 1972, Koike adapted the popular manga into a series of six films, The Baby Cart Assassin series, garnering widespread critical acclaim for his screenwriting abilities, and presenting the epic manga basis of the hit films to a world of fans who were hungry for more stories from the Lone Wolf and Cub saga.

Dark Horse Comics published the landmark in graphic fiction, Lone Wolf and Cub, in its entirety for the first time in America. An epic samurai adventure of staggering proportions —over 8000 pages—Lone Wolf and Cub (Kozure Okami in Japan) is acknowledged worldwide for the brilliant writing of series creator Kazuo Koike and the groundbreaking cinematic visuals of the late Goseki Kojima, creating unforgettable imagery of stark beauty, kinetic fury, and visceral thematic power that influenced a generation of visual storytellers both in Japan and in the West.

Now Dark Horse once again brings another masterpiece from this proficient team— Samurai Executioner. Before Koike and Kojima created the unforgettable Lone Wolf and Cub character Itto Ogami, they brought to like Kubikiri Asa, better known to Lone Wolf and Cub readers as Decapitator Asaemon. In the Lone Wolf and Cub series, Decapitator Asaemon, equal in ability to Itto, was known as the bearer of the sword Onibocho and was the man in charge of testing weapons for the shogun. The Samurai Executioner series is based on the Decapitator, chronicling his like before his fateful duel with Lone Wolf.

“For the past fifteen years Dark Horse Comics has been a leader in bringing the highest quality manga to the world,” commented Dark Horse President Mike Richardson. “We are proud to present another masterwork from the creators of the greatest manga saga ever, Lone Wolf and Cub. Fans of that series, and fans of manga in general, will revel in this early work from Koike and Kojima.”

Samurai Executioner is a ten volume series scheduled to arrive in July. It will be presented in the Lone Wolf and Cub 4" x 6" format with a similar price.