NEWS: What's going on here?

Tower of Death campaign launch date, A Fistful of Yen sneak peek, and other minutiae.

Apr 19, 2023

Hey, my fellow men-slash-women-slash-nobinaries-slash-anythingelseI’mmissing-with-no-name!

I’ve been totally heads down on projects, hence the silence on most/all channels. It’s been pretty much wake up at 5AM, draw until day job time, quit, draw until bedtime, all month.

I’m working on Fistful of Yen right now and the sad truth is that I’ve been a bit hopelessly stuck for a week or two. The kind of stuck where you’re just watching yourself make the wrong choices over and over but don’t know what the right ones are.

So I’m going to take a beat.

But first, a little inventory of what I’ve been up to for the month to keep everyone honest.

Project updates

The Kickstarter campaign for Tower of Death ~~should~~ will launch on May 1. This is the only Ronin Digital Express you’re going to get all year, so if you want to check out this brand new story set in that world, please consider following the campaign page if you haven’t already. We have a good number of followers for a first-timer campaign already, but we can always use more.
As I mentioned, I am stuck on Fistful of Yen and am going to take a breather. I have tight-pencilled and lettered roughly half of the first issue, and am aiming to wrap it up at the end of May. Still aiming to start publishing this bad boy in the fall. You can subscribe for free here, and check out a preview below:

In case you don’r recognize him, the mustache is Cheyenne from Once Upon a Time in the West. The comic pretends that all spaghetti westerns and samurai films exist in a shared universe, so I grab whatever I want from wherever I want. It’s one of the fun little quirks of the project.

And here’s the intro for the Toshiro Mifune character:

What else is going on?

Since I’m doing fewer updates for the time being, I’ll try to cram in a few high points to keep you posted and spark some discussion down below.

Here’s some stuff to get the wheel turning:

I started watching this movie Kwaidan last night. It’s a Japanese horror anthology released in the 60s and directed by Masaki Kobayashi. It was one of those “eh, I’ll take a chance on it” films, and it really paid off. Exceptional cinematography, very moody, and definitely has some of that old ghost story eerieness to it. It’s on HBO Max.
I will continue to stump for Kali, a Dark Horse book that almost completely slipped my radar, because I didn’t see anybody talking about it. I don’t know what the print run was, but it’s apparently hard to get, so I’m hopeful it was big and popular and this is just another “whatever people are whinging about on Twitter doesn’t reflect real life” thing and people do still buy comics. Try to get your hands on it. I’ve read it back-to-front probably 14 times.
I joined Substack Notes, which is probably the best Twitter Clone so far, though it’s not all the way there yet. I’m not sure how discovery works and such, but, I’m pretty much all-in on Substack anyway, so, why not? I’m including Substack’s boilerplate below so you can check it out. I’m not sure you have to do anything new, but I’ll be playing with it more in the coming weeks. Twitter was disillusioning for me long before the new boss took over, so I’m looking for alternatives to enjoy (before the masochists arrive and ruin things). Still on the ‘ol bird, but probably will pivot to making it an announcements channel after Tower of Death.

Big reminder folks that if you like this post, hit the ❤️ up there to let me know, or leave me a 💬 down below, I’d love to hear from you.

That’s all for now.

Be good, and if you’re curious about Notes, please see the company template below:

Substack Notes

I just published my first note on Substack Notes, and would love for you to join me there!

Notes is a new space on Substack for us to share links, short posts, quotes, photos, and more. I plan to use it for things that don’t fit in the newsletter, like work-in-progress or quick questions.

Go to Notes

How to join

Head to substack.com/notes or find the “Notes” tab in the Substack app. As a subscriber to rent*space, you’ll automatically see my notes. Feel free to like, reply, or share them around!

You can also share notes of your own. I hope this becomes a space where every reader of rent*space can share thoughts, ideas, and interesting quotes from the things we're reading on Substack and beyond.

If you encounter any issues, you can always refer to the Notes FAQ for assistance. Looking forward to seeing you there!