Lone Wolf & Cub, Volume 12
Thought 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; and mentored some of Japan's best manga talent. Koike and artist Goseki Kojima's Lone Wolf and Cub was first serialized in Japan in 1970 and continued its hugely popular run for many years, being collected as the stories were published, and reprinted worldwide. 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 saga, 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. In 2000, Dark Horse Comics embarked on a landmark publishing program to bring all 8000-plus pages of Lone Wolf and Cub to American audiences for the first time. Over the next two years, Dark Horse will release 28 volumes of this revered material, with each volume containing approximately 300 pages of masterful samurai storytelling.