Buongiorno, my fellow roninistas —
Bringing you a few more teasers from the upcoming Fistful of Yen, a Yojimbo/Fistful of Dollars crossover graphic novel I’m working on just for fun in all of my abundant spare time.
Here are two character posters, one featuring the Clint Eastwood Man with No Name:
And Toshiro Mifune’s Sanjuro (or, the Ronin with No Name):
If you’re a fan of the films, you’ll probably notice that the ronin is aged up a bit. This is intentional since the comic will take place in the 1870s or so (after the Dollars Trilogy and the Sanjuro duology).
The timing of the Dollars Trilogy is… dubious, at best. The third movie definitely takes place during the American Civil War, but the first might be as late as the 1890s, somehow.
Yojimbo takes place in 1860, so to bring both characters together without Mifune pushing 70, we’re performing some good ‘ol fashioned comic book voodoo and nudging the murky Dollars timeline backwards some, so that we can have a roughly 40-something-year-old Eastwood and a roughly 50-something-year-old Mifune.
I’m assuming Mifune’s ronin will have changed some in the intervening years, so I looked to the Mifune character’s design in the film Redbeard to guide my hand. Another subtle Kurosawa nod.
Anyway, if you haven’t yet subscribed to Fistful of Yen, you can do so below. God willing, we’ll be publishing in the fall.
Other cool stuff.
The last post absolutely blew up on reddit and Twitter.
I do pretty well karma-wise on reddit, but generally, it doesn’t drive a lot of subscribers. Twitter can be kind of so-so.
This time, I had my first-ever tweet break 1,000 likes (it was even shared by dudes like Dan Panosian and Declan Shalvey). I saw well over 100 new followers and subscribers to Fistful as well as my newsletter and Ronin Digital Express.
To that, I just have to say, wow, thank you. Especially if you’re new here. I hope you’ll stick around; there’s a lot more in the pipeline if you like what you’ve seen so far.
Everyone seems real excited about Fistful of Yen and my other projects, and ah, you know, that feels good.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll have a sneak peek at the first couple of pages for you soon.
Until then, be good.
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.