Seven Seas has posted an interview with Bill Straus, the writer of the upcoming manga Freerunners. It’s basically a PR piece but that doesn’t mean it can’t be interesting. Freerunning, we are told, “focuses more on artistic movement rather than just moving from one place to another in the most efficient manner.” Strauss didn’t come to this as a freerunner himself:
I actually learned about it through my literary manager. I was inspired initially because it was a J-O-B, truth be told. But then when I looked at what it was and where it was coming from psychologically and culturally, it really felt like a fun world to be exploring. I think the artistry of it and the philosophy behind it is what makes it so much more than X Games type stuff. And I was intrigued at the challenge of turning these crazy Frenchmen into New Yorkers.
Strauss talks a bit about his collaboration with artist Jennyson Rosero, the technical challenges of writing a manga in which people are in motion all the time, and why Freerunners is more than a sports manga:
I don’t think it’s really a sports manga. Because we stretch some supernatural type elements, I think it deviates. It’s also much more about relationships and the philosophical principles inherent in Free Running.
Pink Diary is great..