Lone Wolf and Cub has for decades been a member of that exclusive club among graphic novel series—those titles discussed as being among the best comics ever created. And series writer/creator Kazuo Koike has rightly earned his place among the most significant writers in comics history, not only for his LW&C stories, but for an impressive oeuvre that includes Samurai Executioner, Lady Snowblood, Crying Freeman, and many others. Koike is forever linked to his Lone Wolf and Cub collaborator, the late artist Goseki Kojima, with whom he formed a long partnership that produced over 15,000 pages of stories set in Japan’s samurai era, including Lone Wolf and Cub, Samurai Executioner, and Path of the Assassin. Kojima’s spectacular Lone Wolf work has influenced many comics artists, Frank Miller among them.
Less well known—but no less accomplished—is artist Hideki Mori, illustrator of New Lone Wolf and Cub, the sequel to the original Lone Wolf and Cub series. Best known prior to NLW&C for his excellent Bokko, Mori paid tribute to the late Kojima by adapting elements of Kojima’s style into his own. Mori brought a looser, more gestural approach to his usual densely rendered realism, creating a spectacular hybrid that that never imitates, never appropriates. With New Lone Wolf and Cub, Mori’s respect to the master has paid off in one of the most beautifully illustrated manga in recent memory.
As I’ve said on many occasions, you don't have to be a manga enthusiast to appreciate Lone Wolf and Cub, and the same follows for its sequel. And if, like me, you believe that the art of comics illustration and visual storytelling is what truly makes the medium of graphic fiction special, you shouldn't miss out on Hideki Mori’s dazzling contribution to New Lone Wolf and Cub.
—Chris Warner, Senior Editor