Hey folks.
We’re there. The big one.
Ronin Digital Express will resume publishing next week, on Tuesday, January 18.
Before you rush back to Webtoon to refresh yourself on the handful of episodes already published, let me save you some time. I already removed all of them.
Next week, I’ll kick things off by republishing all of the Webtoon episodes on the Ronin Digital Express Substack page at once.
If it’s been several months since the last time you read Ronin Digital Express, I would definitely recommend taking this refresher course. Not just so you can pick up on some of the plot threads that will pay off in the coming months, but also, because each episode is getting a brand new paint job, and will be a totally new experience.
See, after realizing I’m better at art now than when I started this over a year ago, I decided to make a handful of small adjustments to the earlier chapters, mostly to bring them in line with my skillset now, but also to give a bit more aesthetic harmony to the project as a whole.
Here’s an example from the first chapter of what a re-furbed page will look like:
Notice the neon, the overall lighting, simplification of shapes and shadows, as well as the rounded border edges.
Since I’m making you re-read the earlier chapters on Substack, I wanted to make sure it would be a substantively different experience. Not only is the art updated, but the format is completely different — the earlier episodes have been converted from vertical to traditional format.
Not everyone knows this, but I actually drew all of Ronin Digital Express in the traditional format as a hedge in case I decided to print them one day. The thinking went, it’d be easier to convert from traditional to vertical right now (or at least, I’d be more willing) than to do it the other way around later if I decided to print the run.
Here’s an example of some of that missing art from the Webtoon version that you’ll see in its original form on Substack:
There will be a handful of novel re-arrangements as well:
Some of the pages, like this one, ended up as happy accidents in Webtoon, and though there were indeed a handful of sequences I preferred in the vertical format, I think overall the traditional layouts are superior.
The plan is this
Like I said, next Tuesday, I’m going to make all of the episodes you’ve seen thus far on Webtoon live on Substack at the same time.
It’s about 27 pages, and if you’ve been out of touch with Ronin Digital Express for several months, I’d recommend re-reading those chapters. They contain some important story beats you’ll want fresh, and you’ll get to experience them with upgraded art and in a new layout, so I think it will be worth your while.
After that, I’ll start publishing a handful of pages each Tuesday, as well as special inter-chapter bonuses. I have about 80 pages banked up.
If you want to follow this project, make sure you subscribe to the Ronin Digital Express Substack page (yes, it’s separate from the newsletter).
Reminder that likes, comments, and shares help me grow the project, so if you like Ronin Digital Express, please keep that in mind as new pages come out.
Talk soon, be good.