I feel like the final reveal was probably obvious from the very beginning. I tried to throw in some alternate possibilities, like maybe they were moving regular slaves (as opposed to clones) or maybe Sky didn’t come out of the container at all (since there was a second ruptured container with no one apparently inside it). But I don’t think any of those alternate possibilities were ever really convincing. Oh well.

One thing I really wanted to do was to have the audience root for the crew to successfully complete their mission. I think as an audience, you’re conditioned to want that to happen, and when the characters achieve their goal, it makes for a satisfying ending. But I wanted to also turn that expectation and its result on its ear, and actually make it so that in completing their mission, the Brimia crew actually sets some things in motion that will be very, very bad for the universe as a whole. So we root for them to succeed, not realizing that in doing so, they’re doing much more damage than if they had failed. Fun!

As a side note, as I mention in the FAQ, I came up with this entire story waaayy back in 1994-95. Sci-fi at the time was in a bit of a lull, so clone stories had kinda fallen off the radar. Shortly after I finished the script, the Star Wars movie resurgence began with the release of the Special Editions in 1997 and then the new prequel trilogy shortly after that. You can imagine how dismayed I was to find out the new trilogy was going to deal fairly heavily with the Clone Wars. Ugh. Anyway, in the end, I think what I have planned is radically different from what they did with clones, so it’s no biggie. The bigger reality check is just how long it’s been since I started working on this series. Ack!

Anyway, thanks for checking out Runners: Bad Goods! I hope you enjoyed reading this first adventure as much as I enjoyed working on it. And be sure to check out the next story, Runners: The Big Snow Job! In addition to being FULL COLOR, it also really starts to set the tone for the series as Roka and company get deeper into the complex criminal underbelly of the Runners universe…

And as always, please continue to help me spread the word about the series and this free webcomic site. Producing the comic itself is so much work that I find I can’t put as much time into marketing and promotion as I’d like to (and need to) in order to really build the audience. So I’m hoping word of mouth from readers like you will help the series expand to greater numbers of readers and make Runners a success.

See you all in arc 2!