Interview: Jon Tsuei’s Creative Influences for RUNLOVEKILL

The writer of Comic Book Tattoo, Jon Tsuei has teamed up with fan favorite artist Eric Canete, to produce the sci-fi epic RUNLOVEKILL for Image Comics. With only one issues on the stands right now, not much us known about Rain and her escape from a dystopian fortress city. What is known is that this story takes a unique non-linear approach to story-telling, and issue 2 has promised dinosaurs! Comicosity got a chance to ask Jon about the creation of this project, the decisive choice of representation in the book and other media’s influence.

Jessica Boyd: You’ve said before that RUNLOVEKILL is a story that you two have been developing over a long period of time. What was the beginning or spark of that journey that lead to the books development?

Jon Tsuei: Well, Eric and I met maybe ten years ago now at a little convention in San Francisco called APE (Alternative Press Expo). At that point in my life I knew I wanted to write, but I was completely clueless as to how the comic book industry worked. Eric, being a very generous person, asked to read a sample of my writing and I gave him a short story I had written. Some time passed and Eric reached out to me and told me that he liked my story and that he’d be down to draw a story that I wrote. So I started working on a short, 48 page one shot that eventually grew and became what it is today.

RUNLOVEKILL_02-1[1]JB: For comics fans who may not be familiar with your previous work, the storyline can be a bit of an unusual bite to chew. Between the nonlinear progression and jumping feet first into cultural norms of this dystopian environment, what do you tell readers who may get overwhelmed by it all?
 
JT: I would say be patient, haha. I realize that the style of story telling in RUNLOVEKILL isn’t conventional for modern day comic books. We don’t give the reader everything they need to know about Rain or her world in the first issue. We’re taking a risk by dropping clues in a silent ten page intro and having the details of her past, personality and challenges be a slow reveal. My hope is that we give people enough to stick around from issue to issue.

JB: Several fans have commented on this book feeling akin to Aeon Flux when reading RUNLOVEKILL. How has the previous work, either of you have done, influenced your story telling techniques in this comic?

JT: I guess some of that is there aesthetically. Eric did work on Aeon Flux and Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury with Peter Chung. At first glance, it’s easy to equate Eric’s style with Peter’s, but I think our story goes much further than artistic stylings. Before Eric and I started pouring our time into RUNLOVEKILL we hung out a lot, watched movies and broke them down together. Trying to figure out what aspects of a story worked or didn’t. I think a lot of the similarities in our story telling approach comes from the time we spent analyzing stories in film, tv and comics together. So when it comes to the art, you’ll see cinematic approaches to it, which obviously comes from Eric’s time in animation. I can’t really pinpoint where our non linear story telling came from, I think that was a more organic result of the work we put into the story.

JB: What messages or lessons are you trying to provide audiences with through RUNLOVEKILL?

JT: I think first and foremost I just want to tell a good story. I’m not trying to drive home a lesson or message to the reader, I’m only hoping they can see a bit of themselves in Rain just like I do. We tried to create a story that was relatable on a human level, even though it’s wrapped up in a fancy sci-fi package. We’ve all had to make difficult decisions in our lives and I think everyone has run away from making the hard choices at some point. Rain’s story is about what happens when you can’t run anymore.

runlovekill1JB: Do you have any defaults that you rely on when the lead character of a story is being designed, market demands, or is it just an organic feeling that you run with while creating?

JT: Yes and no, haha. Rain being a woman wasn’t a calculated decision, she just sort of popped out of my head as a woman. Rain being a person of color was a bit more decisive because we discussed it, but we didn’t sit down and consider the lack of people of color in the market. I think we just sort of agreed it made a lot of sense for Rain to be a person of color. Eric is Filipino American, I’m Chinese American, our colorist Leonardo Olea and our cover artist Manu Fernandez are Mexican. You have an entire team made up of people of color, so why not have a main character who is as well? But really, the conversation was a pretty short one. It went something like this:

“Hey, what ethnicity is Rain?”

“Huh, good question. Is she Asian?”

“She seems Asian to me.”

“Okay.”

JB: Between the two of you where is the line between the writing and the art? How much do you influence one another on this project?

JT: The line is really blurred! There’s no script for RUNLOVEKILL anymore. The only script that exists is for the original 48 page story. So as we began to get into creating the comic in it’s current form, we sat down and outlined the story and hammered out all the beats. Eric uses that when he draws, but it also leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Once the pages come back, I go in with dialogue and we make sure we’re touching on all the important beats before we finalize anything. Eric likes to call it “controlled chaos” and he’s not wrong about it. It’s not the most efficient way to work, but it works for us.

JB: Is there anything else you’d like to share with Comicosity readers?

JT: I’d first like to thank anyone who went out and purchased issue 1. RUNLOVEKILL really is a labor of love and something that our whole team has put a lot of time into. We appreciate all the support and kind words the readers have shared with us. The comic book community has been very supportive and that’s a great feeling, so thank you all for that. There’s still a lot more of Rain Oshiro on the way! So stick around for more running, loving and killing! Oh and we give you dinosaurs in issue 2!

Issue 2 of RUNLOVEKILL hit stores on May 13, 2015; Diamond Code: MAR150589

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