Urban ronins
An edition about new projects and new formats, and katanas and guns
HELLO AND WELCOME TO A NEW EDITION OF MY NEWSLETTER!
And welcome to the first newsletter of 2026!
Although we started the year terribly, realizing once again that our fate is in the hands of unscrupulous criminals, at least we still have the refuge of fiction to say what we want... at least until some giant corporation tells us that we can’t create because they own all fiction now, or that from now on our creative work will be done exclusively by a shitty AI app. But that’s a hill I’m willing to die on.
I am starting this year with the goal of writing newsletters more frequently because I actually enjoy doing it. I’d rather spend more time writing here than on some social media platforms, which has given real scumbags a voice and made our lives much worse than they were before they existed.
Speaking specifically about my work, in 2025, the graphic novel Kid Maroon (Vault) and the paperback of the issues I did for the Galaxy of Madness series (Mad Cave) were published in the USA, as well as the 25th anniversary omnibus edition of my series Los Reyes Elfos in Spain and the French edition of my Fahrenheit 451 adaptation. 2026 will begin with the publication of the manga Requiem Chevalier Vampire vol.1 in France I wrote for Glénat, and, as complete author, my martial arts graphic novel Cassandra for publisher Yermo in Spain, finished a year ago and delayed due to the bankruptcy of ECC. I also hope that throughout the year a Spanish edition for Kid Maroon could become a reality.
As happened in the second half of 2025, it seems now that my assignments are less focused on drawing comics and more on writing scripts for other artists, plus a TV development project (co-writing a pilot episode) and some illustration/cover work. However, I had this bullet in the chamber in my attempt to explore new paths as a complete comics author. The title is…
SILENZIO
This is a very special project to me, and I wanted to do it in a very specific way in terms of storytelling, structure and genre. Unfortunately, things aren’t so easy for projects that aren’t franchises or created by celebrities. It’s a constant battle in which either the publishers themselves are overwhelmed with proposals and pitches, or those who are interested can’t offer you a basic decent compensation or a fair deal in termes of potential adaptations of the IP (and no, Image isn’t always the panacea for creator-owned projects, although I wish it were).
In that distant newsletter, I mentioned my idea of creating a kind of 10-12 pages full color downloadable comic book that would work individually, and the inspiration came from both 80s TV shows and 90s animation hits such as Samurai Jack, Batman TAS and Cowboy Bebop, where you have self-contained stories that you can get hooked on at any time, but which together form a larger tapestry.
This story is also my personal interpretation of the Lone Wolf and Cub trope, and I already dropped a preview in an Inktober a couple of years ago.
Initially I worked on the idea of serializing it on Patreon (I even opened the account), but recently they changed the conditions for new customers and the percentages and fees were unfavorable and the new interface was awful. Enshittification strikes again.
So I finally decided to serialize it here for paid subscribers on my newsletter, since I already have the channel established. I was initially reluctant to create this paid version, but I plan to offer to the supporters additional material in addition to this exclusive monthly comic, like an exclusive editions of the newsletter and behind-the-scenes art and WIP videos before anyone else.
I really want to be able to offer something special, the kind of iconic characters that I feel I could be drawing my whole life. I’ll let you know all the details very very soon!
THINGS I SAW
We continue with samurai, but this time from the period and place to which they belong.
I loved the Last Samurai Standing series, starring Junichi Okada (whom I remember from the action-comedy film The Fable), who is also the choreographer of the sword duels. I’m sure the show was pitched to Netflix with the premise of “Battle Royale (or Squid Game) but in samurai Japan.” Actually the story goes much further than that and reveals itself to be a political thriller in which the role of the samurais, stripped of their former privileges, is irrelevant and uncomfortable for a Japan that wants to open up to the industrial Western World.
Although the show is obviously imbued with the romanticism of the samurai myth (they were actually quite ruthless and less honorable and more pragmatic than fiction portrays them), I have always been captivated by stories of bygone worlds giving way to new ones. This is the case with the wonderful Sergio Leone’s Once upon a time in the West, where the cowboys and outlaws are those samurai, in a world where the railroad has made stagecoaches and horses obsolete, just as firearms have turned handling a katana into a sport for the rich.
My only complaint is that the six episodes leave you wanting more and leave the door wide open for a second season, which I don’t know when it will arrive.
And that’s all! Please stay tuned to this newsletter for more details about Silenzio and more stuff!
See you very soon!
Victor
Copyright © 2026 Victor Santos. All rights reserved.
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Love the Lone Wolf and Cub homage cover where you managed IMO to draw a hand that’s simultaneously an homage to both JRJR and FM!
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