INTERVIEW: Sean Wang discusses “Runners” and “The Tick.”

REPUBLIBOT 3.0:
With us today is Sean Wang, artist, writer, freelance illustrator, and the creator of “Runners,” a really interesting new Science Fiction comic.  Sean, thanks for being with us today.
 
SEAN WANG:
Thank you, Republibot! Glad to be here. And greetings, sci-fi fans!!

REPUBLIBOT: 
We’re really happy to have you! You’ve been in the professional comics industry for quite a while now, and I’d like to talk about some of your own personal history in the field, but first I have to say that you’ve got an instantly recognizable style that I’ve loved pretty much since the moment I first saw it. There’s a kind of economy to it, it’s all very layered and complex, but its never over-ornamented or cluttered. It’s like you’ve got an instinct for just the right balance between lines and the information they convey. What kind of influences helped you develop it? How much of it is just innately you, and how much of it is stuff you’ve picked up from other illustrators and artists?
 
WANG:
As you know, I got my start in comics working on THE TICK comics back in the late 1990’s. I had a somewhat clean and cartoony look at that point, but it definitely took me a while to get there. Oddly enough, like every other aspiring artist in the mid-90’s, I started out as a Jim Lee/Todd McFarlane clone. But eventually, I realized that I just wasn’t very good at all that hatching and cross-hatching! I started gravitating to more clean-line art styles, which I think suits my storytelling better anyway. And while I wanted to simplify the linework itself, I never wanted to sacrifice detail, which I still like to get into with starship details, alien cityscapes, and other backgrounds in my sci-fi series RUNNERS.
As for artists I like, there’s Adam Hughes, Mike Mignola, Ryan Ottley (Invincible), Jeff Smith (Bone), David Petersen (MouseGuard), Eric Powell (The Goon), Philippe Buchet (Wake), and artists like Frank Cho, Scottie Young, Steve McNiven, Amanda Conner, Humberto Ramos, Masamune Shirow, and a smattering of European and manga artists as well.

REPUBLIBOT: 
So you’re working on “Runners,” now, which is your own original creation, a Science Fiction comic series. Forgive my ignorance, but I only discovered it a little while ago, and I naturally thought it was new. You’ve actually been working on this for quite some time, though, right? Tell us a little bit about how it all developed.
 
WANG:
I came up with the concept way back in 1994-95. At the time, there weren’t any cool space adventure comics out there that I wanted to read, so I decided to do my own. I was living in Boston at the time, so I approached the local publisher New England Comics with the fully-scripted first series, RUNNERS: BAD GOODS. They weren’t looking to start any new titles, but they really liked my writing and my artwork, so they offered me work on their line of TICK comics.
I worked on THE TICK for a few years, most notable on the 6-issue TICK AND ARTHUR series, in which the Tick and Arthur join a team of equally-dysfunctional superheroes. But by 2000, I was really itching to get RUNNERS going, so I stopped doing regular work on THE TICK, although I’ve continued to do covers for them over the years.
RUNNERS made it’s debut as a short