Broken Frontier

A Wave Blue World founder Tyler Chin-Tanner takes you behind the scenes of the latest installment of the company’s debut series, Adrenaline.

The solicitation for Adrenaline #3 reads:

The race is on! New thrill seekers join Alex and Saida in their reality TV contest. It's red team vs. blue team blazing through the streets of San Francisco. The first one to the finish wins the round and the clue that will lead them one step closer to the 4 million dollar grand prize!

This is Tyler Chin-Tanner, founder of the new publishing company A Wave Blue World and creator of the new series ADRENALINE. Welcome to the Inside Look at ADRENALINE #3 on sale as of this week. If you can’t find a copy at your favorite retailer, they are available at www.awaveblueworld.com along with the free web comics of the first two issues.

A very basic synopsis is that billionaire playboy Alex Lowder devises his own Reality TV show called ADRENALINE. He recruits/forces Dr. Saida Nri to lead a team against him in a race of extreme challenges across the globe. Six other contestants join them in this race. It seems like a bit of a stretch, but it’s amazing what people will do for fame and money.

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Since issue #2 ended with Alex declaring that the race had begun, I didn’t want to open #3 with the obvious scene of the two teams racing. Instead I felt there would be more of an impact if the reader were placed in a stationary scene to heighten the impact of the teams rushing through. Beginning at the airport affords a perfect opportunity to include some commentary on the ridiculous ordeal that airport security has become.

While ADRENALINE is by no means an autobiographical story, I have based a lot of it on my own experiences. My wife Wendy is always saying that even though everyone sees her as the agitator, I’m actually the one that causes the problems in places like airports. I have this tendency to get very sarcastic in those situations. It’s not exactly reassuring to me that security is incapable of making the distinction between a bottle of water and flammable liquids.

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So the two teams barrel their way out of the airport to find a pair of very fast cars waiting for them. At first I was thinking about using two modern tuner cars. But it didn’t feel right. This isn’t a story about underworld street racing. Alex would have rented two high-class cars for his TV show. What could be more classic than a Ferrari Testarossa and Porsche Carrera?

Another important aspect of this page is Ben’s use of the word “radical.” I’ve always thought this word was due for a revival so while constructing Ben’s personality and speech idiosyncrasies, I leapt at the chance to forward my cause.

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Having graduated from the Kubert School, one of my biggest influences is Joe Kubert, both in his teaching and in his own work. I’ve spent a lot of time studying his early Enemy Ace stories. Joe drew these amazing aerial views of the von Hammer’s triplane flying with the earth below. Then there’d be a close-up of the pilot’s head inset in a circular panel. This page is my tribute to that work. Don’t believe me: check out the Enemy Ace Archives.

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One theme that I knew I needed to touch upon in this storyline is how different people react to stressful situations. We discovered in the first issue that Saida likes to take over and have everybody do what she says. Alison tends to shy away from the pressure, and Jon just believes he’s better trained that anybody else in any situation. As the series continues, we’ll see these personalities interact and develop in different ways.

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Schock and Damian are a lot of fun to write. They’re Alex’s bodyguards, and like a child dictating that his babysitters should officiate his made-up game, Alex just expects them to make sure the TV show goes off without a hitch. They’re by no means equipped to handle such a responsibility, so they end up fumbling through their production jobs in the manner of a couple of bodyguards.

In this scene, Schock shoots at a cop car to keep the teams from getting arrested. This was my joke on the whole debate over whether or not video games desensitize people to violence. I don’t have a strong view either way, but I know there is at least one game out there where part of the object is to shoot at cops.

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The climatic action at the end of this issue features a final sprint to the finish up Mt. Tam. Alison goes head to head with Magda. This gave me a chance to develop Alison’s character. We know from the second issue that her career as a triathlete failed because she was unable to get up after her bike crashed. Here she is knocked off her bike and finds herself in a similar situation, hence the flashback panel.

There will be a lot of ups and downs, successes and failures in this story. I wanted to end this issue on a high note for one of the characters. Alison overcomes her past failures and wins this race. Was it because Saida believed in her, or has she developed into a stronger person?

Now that Alison has won the first round for the blue team, they have a head start going into the next challenge of the Gulf Coast of Mexico. But how long will they be able to hang on to their lead? Tensions boil to the surface as the two teams dive through underwater caves. Alex and Saida reach new depths as they’re forced to make snap decisions while the lives of their teammates hang in the balance. All in ADRENALINE #4; on sale April 25!