Broken Frontier

The highly-acclaimed sci-fi adventure comic Runners, by Sean Wang, is now a fully -animated short! The 3-D computer-animated Runners  feature from The DAVE School, makers of the X-Men Minimates movie ”Darktide,” is now available online at www.daveschool.com/MoviePages/Runners/Runners_Playback.htm

Produced by The DAVE (Digital Animation and Visual Effects) School at Universal Studios Orlando, the 6-minute short adapts the first issue of the Runners: Bad Goods comic, in which reluctant smuggler Roka Nostaco and his ragtag alien crew must board a hostile vessel to do battle with a notorious band of pirates intent on stealing their cargo.

“Having the opportunity to work on an animated version of Sean's Runners series was a real treat,” comments William Vaughan, Dave School Instructor. “The entire crew was excited when we announced it was going to be our next film.”

“We're always looking for a unique project and when we picked up a copy of Runners: Bad Goods at Comic-Con last year we new it was a perfect fit,” explains Vaughan. “Wang's alien and ship design are simply amazing and we knew it would lend itself perfectly to animation.”

The project was done from start to finish by the December 2005 graduating class at the computer animation school. In less than 3 months, the students had to do everything from storyboarding the sequences to modeling the alien characters and ships to recording dialogue to animating all the action and special effects.

“I’m amazed with the caliber or work that the DAVE School has done with the animated short,” says Wang. “And seeing my characters and story interpreted by other people and brought to life in animation is extremely exciting for me. Now if only they had the time to animate the other 100 plus pages of the story!” Wang jokes.

The Runners: Bad Goods graphic novel, which collects the first 5-issue story arc, is also currently available at comic stores and Amazon.com. The series has garnered high praise from reviewers, including recently being named one of the Best Books of 2005 by both SilverBulletComicBooks.com and Buzzscope.com.

Additional information on Sean Wang and Runners can be found at www.seanwang.com.
Information on the DAVE School can be found at: www.daveschool.com.