Stan Sakai's beloved samurai rabbit, Usagi Yojimbo, will receive a new series at a new publisher along with full-color collections of past stories this summer.

IDW Publishing has announced a new series written and drawn by Sakai will debut sometime this June and colored by Tom Luth. Additionally, the publisher is planning to collect previous Usagi Yojimbo stories in complete color collections sometime later this year. The cover for first issue of the new series, drawn and colored by Sakai, is below along with an interior page written and drawn by Sakai and colored by Luth:

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Telling the story of its titular rabbit samurai in an anthropomorphic vision of 17th century Japan, the Eisner Award-winning series has explored many aspects of feudal Japanese culture. The three-part first story at IDW will focus on bunraku, the art of traditional Japanese puppetry as the noble Yojimbo continues his travels across Japan.

Created in 1984 by Sakai, the longrunning series had been published by Dark Horse Comics since 1995 with artwork often in black and white. The series has developed a strong, cult following and won five Eisner Awards across over 20 nominations.

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(via The New York Times)