RUNNERS is back!!
It’s been a long hiatus since Vol 2 wrapped, but after a number of years focusing on freelance work, I am now back to work on the series with a plan to keep at it without significant breaks until it’s done. Vol 3 has been completely written for a while now, but before I could jump into it, a good chunk of time had to be spent behind the scenes getting everything ramped back up again. I have been penciling new pages though, but I still need to ink and color them, as I want the full first chapter done as a buffer before I start posting here on RunnersUniverse.
In the meantime, I wanted to get the cover for Volume 3, Chapter 1 up! This was a lot of fun to do as I wanted to showcase a number of the new characters being introduced in this story arc. I think they’re going to be a lot of fun to draw!
Anyway, work continues on Vol 3 pages, so look for those to start posting here on RunnersUniverse in the near future. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this first official image of the new series!
Discussion (38) ¬
*Checks back every day for years…*
NEW PAGE!
*Almost passes out…*
Ha ha! It’s all about building suspense slowly, slowly, slowly. Then, WHAM! I like to think of Runners as the jump scare of comics. 🙂
Yay! Very excited!
Ditto!!
Woooo! Very excited for Vol 3. I’ve been following Runners since the early days and chatting with you at Boston cons, so I’m stoked for the story to continue.
LOVE the new cover, your alien designs are great (as always). However, I am a bit concerned that Bennesaud isn’t there. Bocce’s not there either, but he’s Human, so I understand that.
No need to worry, Charley! Bennesaud and Bocce will be back. Given the number of new characters being introduced in this story arc, I wanted to highlight them on the cover, which meant leaving some of the key characters out, so as to not make the image too crowded. But the two of them will be there. Until I kill both off on page 2. Ha ha!
Is it me or does this look like this will be a Sky centric arc
Hmm. Well, part of it is to have a female character somewhat prominent on the cover to grab the eye. But yes! Sky does feature prominently and you start to get a little more info on her. But then I do enjoy spreading the love around, so most of the other characters get a fair bit of story as well!
cool but what is the update schedule now and will there be a cast page for the bios of the characters?
Regarding schedule, I have now pretty much finished penciling the entire (extra long) 34-page first chapter. Inking should go quicker and I will be working with a colorist, so I hope that goes smoothly and will result in much faster page completion. Pages should start posting first quarter of next year. A cast page is a great idea. That might be nice to have here on the website. I’ll definitely make a note of that. It’s not a super-high priority given all the other work on my plate, but I do think it’d be great to have. Thanks for the suggestion!
Your welcome if you are interested a backup serial could be a good idea expanding your universe in either self contained stories or having them connect to the main story in some ways
I actually have been thinking about doing one-shot stories as Free Comic Book Day issues that could expand on certain characters within the universe. I already have one plotted out that I would love to do. The main problem is finding the time to do it when I really need all my time devoted to the main story. Ack! Hopefully I can find a way to pull it off, because it would be a lot of fun.
a 5 or 10 page back up would kill two birds with one stone
My quarterly checks on the site have paid off, new Runners stories are coming! I am pretty excited to follow the progress, might be time to order the graphic novel collections to go with the floppies I have. Great news and a nice way to start the year.
It’s been a while, but Vol 3 is progressing! The extra long Chapter 1 (34 pages) is fully penciled and I’m about a third done with the inks. Can’t wait to get them colored and posted! And you can always order the books (signed or unsigned) from my Store here on the site. Might be a good idea since the new color version of Vol 1 is a BIG upgrade from the original b&w single issues.
Also, both volumes are now listed in the Jan 2020 Previews catalog, so comic stores can order them for you! Just give them the following codes:
JAN201968 (Vol 1)
JAN201969 (Vol 2)
Just finished to binge reading everything! Nice story, nice characters, nice developing! I can’t wait to read more! Great Job Sean, really great job!
Thanks so much, Sauro! I appreciate you giving the series a try and I’m really glad you enjoyed it Look for Vol 3 to start posting in the next couple months. In the meantime, feel free to help spread the word and let others know about the series. People can read it here and on Webtoons Canvas for free. It’s also available at comiXology and in print at comic stores.
Sean, I already spread the word through all my friends, although we are italian and not so good at reading in english, but your comic worth a try 😉 !
Awesome! Thanks!!
Quick question, since this post HAS gotten comments but none of my other posts in recent months have. How are you interacting with this site? Do you get any kind of notification when I do new posts? Or do you just swing by on occasion to manually check for updates? Not sure if people just don’t comment here on regular posts, if they don’t know when new posts go up, or if they reserve their comments for just story-related pages. Trying to figure out if update posts are worth doing here if no one is seeing them.
I don’t receive any notification for new posts neither for new comments on post where I commented.
I usually come here to sse for new pages regularly, by myself.
Thanks for the info. Still trying to figure out the best way to get my posts out there but also make sure others know if people reply to their comments.
Ever heard about tapas.com ?
Yes! I looked into them and compared them with Webtoon, but Webtoon seemed to have the larger audience, so I focused on them. Do you think Tapas is worth doing and adds much of an audience? I know everything helps but everything also takes time, so I don’t want to spend too much time on other things if it means I can’t focus on the new book.
Webtoon can monetize only when you reach a concrete audience (thousands) and only if the staff will like your product. Tapas starts to monetize from the very beginning and I think that is more usable than WT. I publicized my little webcomic on both, and my best result were from Tapas.
Interesting. I wasn’t even aware of a method of monetization on Tapas. I know Webtoon allows creators to directly link their Patreon accounts, which I thought would be great. It hasn’t really resulted in new backers there as of yet, but the option is still nice. Will have to look into Tapas! Thanks for the info!
You’re welcome!
Any news on when this chapter will start?
Ack! I wanted it to have started by now. The entire first chapter (34 pages) is done on my end but it’s taking a little longer than expected to get the pages from my colorist. He’s doing awesome work and I’m super excited with the results, but the turnaround time is a bit longer than I’d like. But these are crazy Covid times, so I don’t know if that’s impacting his work flow. I’m hoping we can settle on a regular, quick turnaround going forward, which I know will be KEY to doing this webcomic long-term. In the meantime, I just started penciling Chapter 2! So progress continues.
Good! I’m excited to read it! You know? I started to wrote a SF webcomic years ago, then loosing a bit of passion in it. Then I discovered Runners Universe and I found the passion again. I restarted working on it!
Awesome! As someone who’s been inspired by a lot of other works, it’s always cool to hear that my own work has inspired others to create stories and artwork too!
Are you all right?
Ha ha. I’m good. Just super busy!! Vol 3 and various things (like making updates to the website and looking into getting stickers made as Patreon rewards and general merchandise) are taking a lot of time. And I do have to take on occasional freelance work since the series doesn’t really bring in much. But progress definitely continues!
OK, with all this Covid around, you never know … Good to hear that you’re safe and sound!
so when will vol 3 be release and will vol 3 be more noir than vol 3?
I know I keep saying “soon!” but Vol 3 really should be very soon at this point. It’s been frustrating how much time some other things take (some on my end, some not), but I hope that the bulk of that is in the past. As for “noir,” I’m not sure I’d call it that. I think it’ll be pretty action-adventure-y, like the rest of the series to date. And there will be a number of new characters introduced, which I find really exciting.