Ronin Digital Express

That would imply you have the power to reanimate a couple of humankind’s greatest filmmakers, so, bring them back instead of chopping them into Director Purée.

But if you could mix their sensibilities, it would look a lot like Ronin Digital Express.

A spaghetti western spanning a futuristic dusty techno-vista, Ronin Digital Express is anchored by its reluctant Motokoin courier, the Green-Eyed Ronin—a man with a moral code as confident as the cut of his blade.

What kind of future? In a post-apocalyptic mess inspired by events we currently doom-scroll, our mysterious ronin wanders the apocalypse’s afterbirth.

Ronin Digital Express breaks several of the supposed limitations of comics.

They say you can’t do things cinema does so well, for example: You know that trick, the one where Clint Eastwood pauses, takes a drag of a cigarette, and exudes pure badassery? Comics doesn’t have the moving image or sound.

But, I’ll be damned if Ronin Digital Express doesn’t only deliver those kind of moments, but takes them in directions only comics can.

I’ve had the privilege of seeing Ronin Digital Express grow from its inception as a one-paragraph pitch, to scripts and eventual full comic episodes. Renton couldn’t get anyone with enough skill to draw it, so he took a few years to transform himself into an artist capable of rendering its incredibly epic world.

The depth of the universe of Ronin Digital Express is such that we can discuss some of the backstory, to tee up this reboot, and not spoil any of the adventure ahead. So, let’s ask Renton to guide us through this relaunch of Ronin Digital Express.

Milton Lawson: Tell me about the world of Ronin Digital Express. Is this our world? When and where?

Renton Hawkey: It is our world. But I’ve put my thumb on the scale in a few places to make it more suitable for the kind of story I want to tell.

Most of the story takes place on the continent of Sheji (that’s mainland China to us).

We’re at an indeterminate point in our future, after a series of World War 3 or 4-like events called “The Cataclysms” which ended the world as we know it. Then, a few hundred years of lawless, Mad Max-style anarchy followed.

Before most of the characters in Ronin Digital Express were born, humanity was on the brink of extinction. But it has begun to rebuild. Still, we’re nowhere near even a billion people left in the world. Maybe not even 100 million. In Sheji, we probably don’t have many more than 5 or 6 million.

We’re entering the story a generation after the turn, at a mid-reconstruction point. Tech is limited, but there’s a functional economy, basic law and order, municipalities, and so forth. Now, Sheji is ostensibly ruled by the Liang-Merabet Empire, but most governance is local and the Emperor won’t be much more than kind of a distant, ineffectual background figure in the plot.

All of this combines to give us the retro-futuristic Old West/Tattooine-ish setting.

It’s important to note, though, that Sheji isn’t China. It’s something brand new. A multi-cultural melting pot of Asian populations and displaced western refugees generations after whatever shakeups put them together.

We won’t go too deep into the history because a lot of the historical record has been destroyed. We’re in this new culture that is a melange of leftovers. Not everyone gets along, but it’s a fun kind of functional chaos.

ML: How much will we learn about the world and how it got to be this way? How much will Ronin Digital Express focus on the politics of this new world?

RH: About as much as I just said.

What is left of our world will be seen here and there. Old megacity ruins. Brutalist architecture suggesting authoritarian regimes. Devastated stretches of desert turned to glass. Craters that are visible from space. Land erosion from climate change.

But the “how we got here” and the politics of this world, it’s mostly in the background. That’s not the kind of story I want to tell. I want to create a rich world, the dynamics of which feel plausible on the ground. So, context is an important part of that. But it’s just flavor in the stew.

This isn’t Game of Thrones. We don’t care about political factions and royal families vying for control of Sheji. We’re following the blue-collar workers, the freelancers, the normies. People just doing their jobs and not thinking much about philosophy, society, or their civil rights. People with a more old-school sense of personal justice — a schoolyard sense of right and wrong. Superstitious people. The ones who get caught in the gears of history.

ML: Tell me about the cast?

RH: The protagonist is Juda, also known as the Green-Eyed Ronin.

He’s a ronin, which in the world of Ronin Digital Express carries a slightly different connotation than what we understand (they’re often thought of as outlaws). He makes money working as a bitcourier, a grunt gig where you explore old world ruins to try and find data caches you then transport to the nearest town where you can sell them.

It can be lucrative; some institutions trying to rebuild society want to acquire as much data as possible and will pay well for it. But it’s extremely dangerous. That’s why it’s mostly ronins or desperados doing it. The types who can’t get a job doing anything else.

Juda will be a one-man show for a little while, but he’ll slowly pick up a supporting cast. Like The Outlaw Josey Wales, where Clint Eastwood plays his typical tough guy lone gunman, but, he slowly picks up a found family of a kind over time. That’s the approach here as well.

One of his first allies is Mercury Soto, a data miner (basically the person who parses the data that someone like Juda finds; the low-level tech nerd). She’s very bright and enthusiastic, and absolutely enamored with ronins and ronin culture. She sees the echo of old samurai nobility in them, and is basically Juda’s biggest fan. But he’s trying to travel light, so, he’ll be pretty resistant to her tagging along.

He’ll come into a lot of conflict with various factions, but, the main villains he’s worried about are The Tengu. If you think of Kill Bill, these are the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad of Ronin Digital Express — the seven best ronins in Sheji; the top 1% most dangerous people in this world.

Juda used to be a Tengu, until he abruptly left several years before the beginning of the story. Leaving the Tengu is like leaving the mob. As a custom, they hunt you down and kill you. It’s the rules. So Juda will have to stay ahead of the Tengu and over time, face them one by one.

Remember that these are people who were, for all intents and purposes, his family. So, some of these fights are going to be emotionally tough. And others, he’s gonna be thrilled at the chance to put an elbow in their eye socket. Seeing these characters show up and learning about his specific relationship with each of them will be a big throughline for the plot.

ML: Let’s talk about the plot. What’s Juda trying to accomplish? Who is trying to stop him?

RH: Juda carries a katana sword that is well over 1,000 years old. You’ll find out why pretty soon — basically, it’s a sword that belonged to his original master, and Juda has sworn an oath to return it to him.

This is Juda’s first oath ever taken, and he loved his master, so this supersedes whatever pledges he took as a Tengu, and he’s honor-bound to see this quest through, even if it costs him his life.

Like I mentioned before, the Tengu are also honor-bound to pursue Juda and bring him back “body, beads, and sword” (i.e., kill him). But the guy in charge of the Tengu, Bigman Massimoto, has split loyalties that muddle the motives here.

Imagine Massimoto as the Kingpin of Ronin Digital Express. Cunning, ambitious, ruthless. Crazy smart. Charming. Evil. Before him, the Tengu were a kind of rural legend. A pretty traditional honor culture-type group. Massimoto is responsible for modernizing them and making them a real force of terror.

He wants it all. And so, he’s thrown in with a benefactor called Futurus, which is this shadowy organization that uses technology way beyond anything else in Sheji.

Futurus are sort of the “White Walkers” of Ronin Digital Express. We won’t get to know much about them for a while — they’re an enigmatic and faraway threat looming over the story. Their motives are unknown.

But they’ve invested in the Tengu, and Massimoto is beholden to them in ways that will complicate the plot.

ML: So Juda has to watch out for the Tengu, this shadowy organization Futurus, and what else?

RH: He’s always crossing someone. There are local gangsters called Chao Phos, some of whom he’s on friendly-ish terms with. Others, not so much (he ran into a couple in older entries of Ronin Digital Express).

There’s also SINC, which is more or less “the cops” of Ronin Digital Express. They’re a paramilitary organization hired by the Liang-Merabet empire to keep the peace in Sheji. They’re neither good guys nor bad guys, they’re just there doing their jobs and will occasionally bump up against Juda.

There’s the 108 Kobun, a Yakuza-like organization that Juda was recruited into the Tengu from as a teenager. There’s a huge desert area (basically the Gobi, but way bigger) called “the 404” where there are all sorts of raider and marauder types who haven’t rejoined society yet. They’re still walking the Fury Road, so to speak.

It’s gonna be a good time with plenty of wild characters to introduce and explore.

ML: For longtime readers, what’s different about this new incarnation of Ronin Digital Express? What can we expect?

RH: The 100+ pages I’ve already done of Ronin Digital Express and the one-shot Tower of Death have a very loose continuity; a Kung Fu-type serialized story.

While nothing we’re doing moving forward necessarily contradicts whatever “canon” is there, I consider this iteration of Ronin Digital Express to be a reboot. A fresh start. This won’t be episodic. It will be an epic that tells one long story, like Lone Wolf and Cub, Vagabond, or Berserk.

So this is a great place for new readers to start. This is the main course. Long-time readers or anyone curious enough to go check out those older episodes will see little easter eggs here and there, but none of that is needed moving forward.

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Ronin Digital Express publishes intermittently as Renton Hawkey’s schedule allows.

We encourage you to share this post with anyone you know who loves comics.

You can subscribe to Ronin Digital Express below.

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If you have questions or feedback, email rentonhawkey@gmail.com. Your letter may be printed in a future Letters column.

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1:1 Wave Man (pages 10-28)

Renton Hawkey (*rent) — Thu, 15 May 2025 10:00:20 GMT

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1:0 Prologue (pages 1-9)

Renton Hawkey (*rent) — Thu, 01 May 2025 10:00:26 GMT

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Ronin Digital Express heads to Kickstarter with a new adventure

Renton Hawkey (*rent) — Mon, 13 Feb 2023 18:27:08 GMT

NOTE: This is a cross-post from rent*space for those of you not subscribed to my regular newsletter. Didn’t want you to miss out ;)

Hey fellas!

Writing to you today to announce the pre-launch of my very first Kickstarter campaign:

“Tower of Death” is a brand-new 20-page Ronin Digital Express adventure.

It’ll be a manga-sized volume, in black and white, with the above color cover and a few pages of color backmatter.

The reward tiers aren’t yet finalized, but they’ll roughly break down as follows:

A digital copy with some kind of digital-only bonus
A physical copy
A few stickers and a bookmark
A few bonus prints
An NSFW print of Kitsune, the character on the cover
Limited custom sketch tiers where backers will have some input on what they get

I have to do a few more things before we can launch, like pull together actual numbers for printing everything up. But I’m aiming for May.

I’m also going to reach out to some podcasts to line up some interviews. If you have a podcast or a publication and you like the look of this, let’s connect.

Now, the good stuff. A preview:

The stickers and the bookmark:

The NSFW Kitsune print:

(You didn’t think I was actually gonna let you see it, did you?)

Anyhow. I’ll have some more to say about the project and some more previews in the coming months.

Until then, if you want to subscribe to the pre-launch page, you can do so below:

Pre-launch Kickstarter page

You can also follow the new Ronin Digital Express pages on Twitter and Instagram for updates.

I’m really excited for this one. It’s gonna be a great product.

If you choose to back it, I’m grateful and I won’t let you down.

That’s all for now.

APPENDIX: How RDE almost ended

Renton Hawkey (*rent) — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 14:00:51 GMT

How do you end a comic?

Ronin Digital Express was always intended to be episodic — serialized one-offs with minimalistic scripts, and a scant few overarching threads to tie it all together. I wanted it to be a sort of Corto Maltese or Torpedo of the webcomic scene.

Originally, I’d an outline that would produce 8-10 episodes at a time (per year, roughly). I’d keep producing these “seasons” for as long as I could stand it.

Each season would end with a more traditional “bang.” That is, a big, climactic action setpiece to put a big ‘ol exclamation point on the end of a series of episodes. There’d have been hints peppered throughout the season that lead into the final act, but the arc would be loose enough that the finale could also stand on its own.

So what did that look like for the batch of episodes we have so far?

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.

V.1: Volonte (originally, “Sentenza”), the Big Bad

You might recall the Lee Van Cleef-esque villain of episode 3, “Ronghua,” a former SINC Regulator (basically, a retired, or fired, cop in RDE) named Volonte.

In early drafts, there was no Volonte. In his place was this guy (from an early “test” page of RDE):

The same general plot of “Ronghua” followed, with this character having met his untimely demise.

But by the time of “Sho,” two other SINC Regulators would have caught up to the Green-Eyed Ronin and arrested him for killing this character.

The finale would have been a two-part episode featuring Volonte (initially named “Sentenza”) and a female Regulator named Corto escorting the Green-Eyed Ronin to whatever the RDE version of jail is.

Corto was written as a rookie (and a big talker) in this episode who taunts the Green-Eyed Ronin as they drive. She also had an established relationship with Sentenza, sort of a mentor / mentee with a sprinkle of father / daughter.

The twist here would see Sentenza betraying Corto to collect a bounty on the Green-Eyed Ronin offered by Bigman Massimoto (an unseen, background threat mentioned a few times in other episodes).

The episode ends with the Green-Eyed Ronin using his magnet glove to call his sword back to him, cutting his bonds, and facing Sentenza in a good old-fashioned standoff.

The sequence would connect all the way back to episode 1, with Sentenza repeating a line offered by that episode’s antagonist:

Point being, here’s the ultimate test! Can the Green-Eyed Ronin outdraw the fastest gun in Sheji?

And the answer is, uh, NO.

Then, we’re on to part 2, in which Corto wakes up, sees the Green-Eyed Ronin dead, realizes she’s been betrayed by Sentenza, and confronts him for something emotional.

This ends with the Green-Eyed Ronin revealing he was wearing his armor from “Gaijin” under his poncho, allowing him to survive Sentenza’s gunshot (a la A Fistful of Dollars). He cuts off Sentenza’s fingers, and Corto delivers the coup de gras, killing her mentor (with his acceptance and blessing).

Finally, she lets the Green-Eyed Ronin go, but asks for his real name. We cut before he gets the chance to answer.

There were a lot of problems with this ending. Why wouldn’t they have searched the Green-Eyed Ronin and discovered the armor when they arrested him? Why do we care about Sentenza and Corto and their relationship? Why does Corto let the Green-Eyed Ronin go at the end?

Ultimately I decided it was unsatisfying and ridiculous, but I did like the idea of SINC officers looking for the Green-Eyed Ronin all along, so…

V.2: Corto and the assault on Ronin Digital HQ

In the next version, we start with a couple of heavily-armed APCs firing on Ronin Digital HQ (from “Gaijin” [Part III]) while the Green-Eyed Ronin and Satoshi (the chimera cat from the same episode) duck for cover inside.

This version also has Corto again, albeit less the rookie and much more the grizzled, battle-tested detective:

I never finished the script for this one. The most I got was a first draft monologue introducing us to Corto and her worldview, set against scenes from previous episodes, showing that SINC has been on the Green-Eyed Ronin’s tail every step of the way:

We eventually would catch up to the present, with Odin Watanabe (the bald Japanese guy who runs Ronin Digital) firing a rocket-propelled grenade at the APCs, destroying them.

Corto would confront the Green-Eyed Ronin in the ruins, and after a short fight, this Vargas guy she’s partnered with would betray her (just like in V.1, only he’s an iredeemable character just interested in money and doesn’t have any sort of personal relationship with her).

The resolution is largely the same as V.1, with Corto letting the Green-Eyed Ronin go. This time it makes more sense because after her long lecture about the law and justice, to see herself betrayed by SINC gets her thinking maybe she was wrong about all that.

In a post-episode stinger, Watanabe and Satoshi reveal the “Ronin Digital Express,” a mobile headquarters that hadn’t been seen yet at that stage (readers will remember it from Legendary Ronin Warui Hito, which wasn't originally part of the season 1 outline).

This version was almost, almost, almost the actual version you got. I had the characters designed:

You get a real sense here of how different this Corto is from the rookie in V.1, and how far I wanted to get away from that.

You’ll also notice that Vargas is largely recycled from the original test page villain above.

What’s more, both Corto and Vargas are actually in the final comic, in “Mon Chou” [Part II].

You can see them investigating the aftermath of the Green-Eyed Ronin’s fight with the SINC impostors, mirroring an excerpt from the script with Corto’s monologue above.

So why didn’t I go this route?

While I think it would have worked, and I did want to bring Odin and Satoshi back into the comic sooner than later, I felt that it was a bit of a tonal break from what had come before it.

At the time I was scripting this, I was also drawing “Legendary Ronin Warui Hito,” which I intended to launch on Kickstarter or sell digitally on Gumroad as a one-shot taking place in between this season and the hypothetical season 2.

I got really absorbed into Legendary Ronin Warui Hito, and it was shaping up to be my favorite chapter of RDE I’d worked on so far.

So, I made the decision to publish it as a special 4-part presentation instead, and to come up with a different ending altogether.

V.3: The poignant option

“Huang Jui” was one of the first scripts I’d written for Ronin Digital Express. It was almost the first episode, in fact.

It’s a good little story, and I was keeping it in my back pocket just in case I needed a chapter that could serve as a quieter, more ambiguous ending to the webcomic. I wanted an easy out in case I decided to go on an extended hiatus, reboot the entire thing down the line some other way, or quit altogether.

So, without a clear ending to the first arc, and no definitive plans for the future of RDE, I decided to use it as the final chapter.

Of course, now that I’ve taken my break, I’ve decided that there’s much more to do in Sheji, and will be back to it soon enough. There are still too many interesting questions about the Green-Eyed Ronin that need to be answered.

But “Huang Jui” serves as a proper, poignant conclusion to this version of Ronin Digital Express, and it’s one that I’m happy with.

But you tell me. What did you think of the original plans for Ronin Digital Express? Did I make the right call with what I ultimately published? Let me know below!

APPENDIX: 'Ronghua Girl' Pinup

Renton Hawkey (*rent) — Tue, 04 Oct 2022 14:00:52 GMT

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.

You never really know what’s going to stick with people.

Over the past year, I’ve gotten more comments and questions about one Ronin Digital Express character more than any other.

The protagonist, the Green-Eyed Ronin?

No.

Satoshi, the chimera cat from “Gaijin”?

No.

The badass unnamed ninja character from the end of “Mon Chou”?

No.

All anyone wants to know about is this minor background character from “Ronghua”:

Her, on the left. We’ll call her “Ronghua Girl.”

She pops up again to save the Green-Eyed Ronin’s life, and then…

… nothing!

And that seems to be a problem for some readers. I’ve gotten a handful of DMs or emails asking who she is, what’s her story, and whether she’ll show up again.

Well, unfortunately, I have no plans to include her in the future.

She’s just one of those “designed in-panel” characters that accidentally leaves an impression.

Sorry to break that news, but, because Ronghua Girl ended up being so popular, I decided to draw a pin-up of her as a bonus to subscribers:

Hope you are happy to see her again, and if you want to see even more of her, I’ll be publishing an NSFW version of the pinup for paid subscribers later this month at the rent*space newsletter.

If interested, you can learn more about that publication and subscribe here:

Subscribe to rent*space

What other characters stood out to you as you read Ronin Digital Express? Let me know below!

APPENDIX: Episode 4, 'Gaijin' [the Webtoon cut]

Renton Hawkey (*rent) — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 14:00:38 GMT

Episode 4, ‘Gaijin,’ marked the return of Ronin Digital Express after both a hiatus and an exodus from its original home on Webtoon to Substack, where you read it now.

I’ve mentioned it in interviews here and there, but one of the main reasons for the move to Substack was time savings.

I draw Ronin Digital Express on a traditional comic page, and would spend several working days converting panels to the vertical Webtoon format.

Not only was there a significant loss of working time with this approach, there was also quality loss, awkward cropping, and all sorts of duct tape required to make the project work in the vertical line format.

I’m sure there are some folks who can do the both / and approach, but I don’t think I’m one of them, so I threw in the towel at Webtoon.

However, I did have ‘Gaijin’ completely converted to the vertical format and ready to publish when I made my decision to move to Substack.

So that’s what I’m showing you today: the entire episode, but in the vertical format, for the first time ever.

You can find the original episode (starting with Part I) here if you want to compare.

There are a couple of panels that I think work better in the vertical format, but overall I’m happy with the traditional episodes as the “canon” version, as it were.

But hey, what about you? Let me know in the comments. Otherwise, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy this bonus.

APPENDIX: Classic Pinup Gallery

Renton Hawkey (*rent) — Thu, 28 Jul 2022 14:57:21 GMT

Hey folks,

Thanks for being patient with me as I circle the wagons on the future of Ronin Digital Express.

I’m working on a different project now that’s stealing most of my attention (make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter to follow that, and everything else).

But, I’m going to publish some Ronin Digital Express backmatter / appendix material here over the next year or so until I have announcements about future chapters of Ronin Digital Express.

I hope you’ll stay tuned for it. Ronin Digital Express is an important part of my work and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

I’m exploring different formats and outlining arcs right now, and unfortunately, that sort of thing just takes time.

Until then, I hope you enjoy these extras, starting with some developmental / pinup art I’ve created over the years as Ronin Digital Express was coming to life.

Early sketch of the protagonist

Early promo pinup

Early promo IG card

Early promo IG card. Always kind of liked this one.

My favorite of the promo images, featuring one of several characters from earlier drafts I didn’t get to include.

This was almost the cover for the series. I still like it, but passed because it felt a little too good-mannered.

Originally a rent*space subscriber exclusive

Series thumbnail. Thinking about making this a sticker. You want?

A “house ad” pulled from 01: ‘Nashi’ to promote the move to Substack. I wanted to give an early look at the updated art.

I was thinking about doing a spin-off about this character Tango, a rival/lover of the Green-Eyed Ronin. I decided I’d bit off more than I could chew and was getting distracted from the main series, but I do like the character, so we may yet see her eventually. Also, yep I see “Webtooon” now.

Another Tango

Another Tango (I really like drawing Tango)

A Christmas card I made featuring GER and one of his primary influences, Toshiro Mifune. I thought about doing one every year, but I keep forgetting.