You are purchasing the item pictured, framed.  Priority mail, tracking and $50 insurance is included with purchase.  Item will be bagged to protect from dust, packed in packing peanuts and boxed.  Just open box and hang it on the wall...makes a perfect gift!

In the early 1980s the comics industry was changing rapidly.  Improved methods for printing, binding and distributing comics were coming into vogue, empowering a generation of young auteurs like Frank Miller to create new and challenging works that redefined the possibilities of mainstream comics.  Mike W. Barr and Brian Bolland's Camelot 3000 was one of the first of the prestige limited series, printed on higher-quality paper and sold directly to customers through comics shops.  Miller's manga-inflected Ronin, released in the summer of 1983, upped the ante even further.

With no ads, square binding, and an enhanced color palette, the six-issue series - chronicling the exploits of a reincarnated samurai on the streets of a dystopic near-future New York City - paved the way for Watchmen, Batman: The Dark Knight and other "event comics" to come.  "Almost everything about the Ronin will be different from my previous work.  I'm exploring brand new ground...Because of the way it's being printed and the way it's being colored, I've developed a different way to render it, a different way to approach it.  This is getting the finest production that you can get.  Consequently, everything from the writing to the coloring to the art has to be changed radically to accommodate it.  It's as if I've been doing black-and-white TV movies and all of a sudden I'm doing full-color films.  It's that radical a difference, and for that reason it's a difference in style for me." - Frank Miller.

Ronin is a comic book limited series published between 1983 and 1984, by DC Comics. The series was written and drawn by Frank Miller with artwork painted by Lynn Varley. It takes place in a dystopic near-future New York in which a ronin is reincarnated. The six-issue work shows some of the strongest influences of manga and bande dessinée on Miller's style, both in the artwork and narrative style.  The ideas for Ronin came together while Miller was doing extensive research into Kung Fu movies, martial arts, samurai comic books, and samurai ethics for his work on Daredevil.  He remarked that "The aspect of the samurai that intrigues me most is the ronin, the masterless samurai, the fallen warrior. ... This entire project comes from my feelings that we, modern men, are ronin. We're kind of cut loose. I don't get the feeling from the people I know, the people I see on the street, that they have something greater than themselves to believe in. Patriotism, religion, whatever - they've all lost their meaning for us."  Ronin was in part inspired by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima's manga series Kozure Okami.  (Though Kozure Okami would receive an English localization several years later as Lone Wolf and Cub, at the time Miller could not read the text and had to rely on the artwork for his understanding of the story.

Frank Miller (born January 27, 1957) is an American writer, artist, and film director best known for his dark comic book stories and graphic novels such as Ronin, Daredevil: Born Again, The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, and 300. He also directed the film version of The Spirit, shared directing duties with Robert Rodriguez on Sin City and produced the film 300.  His first creator-owned title was DC Comics' six-issue miniseries Ronin (1983–1984). This series shows some of the strongest influences of manga and bande dessinée on Miller's style, both in the artwork and narrative style.  In 1985, DC Comics named Miller as one of the honorees in the company's 50th-anniversary publication Fifty Who Made DC Great.  In Sin City (2005), he plays the priest killed by Marv in the confessional.  In 1998 Darren Aronofsky inked a deal with New Line Cinema for a film adaptation of the graphic novel.  In 2007 Gianni Nunnari, producer of 300, announced he would be producing and Sylvain White, director of Stomp The Yard, directing the Ronin film adaptation.  Animation director Genndy Tartakovsky has noted that Ronin was one of the major influences on his animated TV series Samurai Jack, whose plot overview is similar.

Syfy Adapting Frank Miller’s DC Comics Series ‘Ronin,’ Oni Press’ ‘Letter 44’ (Exclusive)
The NBCUniversal-owned cable network will adapt Frank Miller's iconic limited comic as a mini, and the Oni Press title as a scripted drama series.

Syfy is joining the comic book craze.

The NBCUniversal-owned cable network is developing Frank Miller‘s DC Comic series Ronin and Oni Press’ political space drama Letter 44, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Following Darren Aronofsky‘s attempt to remake the samurai drama for the big screen, Syfy will produce DC’s six-issue comic series Ronin as a potential miniseries. From Warner Horizon Television and DC Entertainment, Ronin was written and drawn by Miller (Sin City, 300). The comics, which were published every six weeks between 1983-84, centers on a legendary warrior — the Ronin, a dishonored, masterless 13th century samurai — who is mystically given a second chance to avenge his master’s death. He finds himself suddenly reborn in a futuristic and corrupt 21st century New York where he must defeat ancient demon Agat, the reincarnation of his master’s killer.

Syfy’s takes place eight centuries after a Japanese Ronin samurai failed to protect his master from a demon. He awakens in a futuristic, nihilistic New York in the body of Billy, a medical experiment. Now Billy/Ronin is chasing the demon, which has reawakened. Both parties want control of a sword with magical properties and will stop at nothing to get it back.

A search is under way for a writer and the exact number of episodes in the Syfy miniseries has not yet been determined.

Meanwhile, the Ronin film adaptation has been lingering in development at New Line since 1998. Joby Harold and Chad St. John most recently signed on to pen the script with Gianni Nunnari on board to produce.

For Miller, this would mark the prolific and award-winning comics scribe’s first title to be adapted for TV. His works have been turned into several feature films, including Sin City and its sequel, Daredevil and 300.

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