WhereWhen: The Story Behind Our First Book
In 1984, two independent comics changed the industry. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird self-published Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Stan Sakai introduced a rabbit ronin named Miyamoto Usagi. Both were anthropomorphic heroes steeped in Japanese culture, and both creators became lifelong friends. Their characters have been crossing paths ever since, in comics, cartoons, and toy aisles.
In April 2023, they met again in the biggest crossover the two properties have ever had.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Usagi Yojimbo: WhereWhen ran five issues and 144 pages, all written, drawn, and lettered by Stan. The Turtles chase a cyborg named Dr. WhereWhen through a time portal into feudal Japan. There they find Usagi twenty years older, now a general on the eve of war, and a villain who has spent decades building an army of clockwork samurai. The story isn't a side adventure. It sits right before Senso in Usagi's official timeline.
The cover lineup reads like a who's who of the medium. Stan drew a wraparound cover for every issue. Kevin Eastman, the Turtles' co-creator, drew variants, including a black-and-white edition shipped at one per hundred copies. David Petersen of Mouse Guard drew five connecting covers that form one continuous image across the whole series, a nod to Jim Lee's famous X-Men #1 covers. Sarah Myer added her own take, and a blank cover gave artists a canvas for commissions. Issue #1 alone came in roughly twenty-five versions once incentive, store-exclusive, and later-printing editions were counted.
Critics responded. AIPT gave the debut a 9 out of 10. Three years later, the book's influence turned up in an unexpected place: NECA's 2026 line of TMNT and Usagi action figures, sculpted in Stan's style.
That's the book. What most people don't know is how close it came to never existing, and why it ended up being the first thing Dogu Publishing ever put its name on.
At a Glance
5 issues · 144 pages · April 2023
IDW Publishing × Dogu Publishing × Paramount
Covers: Sakai, Eastman, Petersen, Myer
Written, drawn & lettered by Stan Sakai
It started as a story that didn't fit
WhereWhen didn't begin in 2023. It began in 2017.
When Stan sat down to plan Namazu, the IDW one-shot that reunited Usagi and the Turtles, the story already in his head was much bigger: a time-traveling villain, an army of clockwork samurai, and nearly every character Usagi had met in thirty years of comics. It was a miniseries idea, not a one-shot.
Long story short, certain...factors caused Stan to have to improvise and come up with a forty-page story instead of a miniseries. Stan wrote a tight, fun story about a giant catfish, and the bigger idea went into the drawer.
We see this a lot. Good ideas don't always arrive at the right moment, and the worst thing you can do is force one with bad timing. You shelve it, you protect it, and you wait.
The door opens again
In 2019, Usagi moved to IDW, and the Turtles were right there in the same building. The conversation about Stan's shelved story came back almost naturally. This time the people, the timing, and the room to tell it were all in place.
While at IDW, we were building something bigger. We had gone through the challenges of publishing and felt ready to start our own company—a home designed around Stan's work, where new creators could grow the Usagi universe alongside him. In September 2022 that became official when we announced Dogu Publishing as an imprint with Dark Horse.
That left us with an interesting choice. We were about to close our chapter at IDW, and we had the story Stan had wanted to tell for five years ready to go.
Leaving the right way
We decided to finish what we started. WhereWhen stayed at IDW, published in partnership with Paramount Consumer Products, and it became the first book ever to carry the Dogu Publishing name. It came out before Ice and Snow launched the imprint at Dark Horse.
For us, that mattered. The Turtles and Usagi have shared forty years of history across multiple publishers, studios, and toy lines, and those relationships don't end when a contract does. Closing out our time at IDW with the biggest crossover the two properties had ever had was the right way to honor that.
Giving Stan room
Once the story had space, Stan used all of it. Instead of a quick team-up, he placed WhereWhen inside Usagi's actual history, just before the war in Senso, so it's part of the saga rather than a detour from it. The Turtles finally met Usagi's whole world: Gen, Tomoe, Jotaro, Kitsune, Chizu, and more.
That's one of the things we care about most. Our job isn't to squeeze Stan's ideas into whatever format is convenient. It's to make the space for them to be what they're supposed to be. Sometimes that means waiting five years.
What it became
WhereWhen did more than launch Dogu. It showed what a single story can grow into when the partners around it are thinking long-term.
The book created another conversation with NECA, and in February 2026 that turned into a line of TMNT Ultimate figures based on Stan's art, made in collaboration with Dogu Publishing. All four Turtles and Usagi were sculpted in Stan's style and are now on shelves at Target. A story that started as an idea too big for forty pages is now something fans can hold.
That's the model we bring to every partnership. A comic is a beginning. When we work with someone, we're already thinking about where the story can go next: into collections, licensing, product, and new audiences who may never have picked up a comic before.
And it isn't over
If you're going to be at New York Comic Con this October, keep an eye on what we have planned. There's more coming from this corner of the Usagi universe, and we think longtime fans of both the rabbit and the Turtles are going to like what they see.
Stay tuned!