Battlemouth

Brian Wood is one of my top 5 favorite writers. Just about all casual comic book fans will know Mr. Wood from his increasingly successful “DMZ” series (issue #41 released April 15) as well as the fantastic “Northlanders” series. The fact that these two books are so completely different (as far as setting and story go) is a testament to Brian’s ability to write “outside of the box”. As an aspiring writer, I have to say that I am learning through my own trial and error process just how difficult that can be. Brian Wood has been involved in the industry for just over a decade, and in that time written much more than just the aforementioned books. Starting at the beginning in 1997 with “Channel Zero” (first published by Image) a mini series he actually created as part of a graduation project for Parsons School of Design. After the successful selling out of “Channel Zero” Brian moved on to do some design work for several different company’s until 2003 when his brilliance was recognized by another of my favorite writers. Mr. Warren “bat-shit-crazy-genius-comic-god” Ellis had been given the creative reigns for Marvel’s “Generation-X” and invited Brian to team up for some fun.

Then King Quesada came in and put a stop to the Xmen tom-foolery, but it was too late for Brian. He had already been sucked back into the comic book universe.Wood returned to creator-owned comics between 2001 and 2003, producing several graphic novels and miniseries, including “Couscous Express”, “The Couriers”, and “Jennie One” for AIT, “Pounded” for Oni Press, and “Fight for Tomorrow” for DC’s imprint Vertigo. In addition to Brian Wood being a fantastic writer it is little known that he has a pretty large history of art and design. Just more reason to accept his greatness. Employed as AIT’s art director for roughly six months, Brian created not only their current logo and branding, but covers for many of the books they published during this time. Sir Ellis was not done with Brian either, taking advantage of his talents yet again, Brian was commissioned to create 14 covers for the critically-acclaimed, Wildstorm series Global Frequency.

In 2003 Brian teamed up with another of my favorites in the comic book world, artist Becky Cloonan, to create what would become his first Eisner Nominated series “Demo” (see Phil’s review following the interview!). Of course we can’t forget to mention the 2005 issue 1 release of “DMZ”, a book that should be on every pull list. I had the privilege of meeting “DMZ” artist Riccardo Burchielli whom I would LOVE to interview as he is a hell of a nice guy and an AMAZING artist but I’m not sure he speaks the language well enough to get any of my stupidity. Since then Brian has created many more critically acclaimed series. “Local” (Oni Press), with artwork by “Northlanders” and “American Virigins” Ryan Kelly (another favorite of mine), follows a similar format to “Demo” with the exception of a central character, Megan McKeenan.

In 2006 Image published “The Tourist” and IDW released “Supermarket”. And of course the most recent project by Mr. Wood, as mentioned a couple times above, is “Northlanders”. “Northlanders” is, in a very small nutshell, about vikings. Filled with historical information, Brian has clearly done his research on the topic. The reach and depth of each arc throughout the “Northlanders” stories helps to paint a picture of humanity in a sometimes inhumane place. In that regard the book ties Brian Woods other works together into what I would consider to be one hell of a bibliography.

Brian’s work has this way of really sticking in my head. I don’t really know how to explain it except to say that I eagerly await the next issue of whatever it is that I am currently reading of his, more so than any other book I read. I enjoy a large variety of comic books and writers, but there is just something to his writing that makes it impossible for me to put down. When I read Brian Wood’s books ( DMZ and Northlanders currently like I said above…awesome…go get them… now) it’s kind of like drinking a can of beer, you get to the end and are immediately pissed that it’s over, even though 8 oz is totally an acceptable amount of liquid for a container, it is NEVER enough to really satisfy (No I am not comparing Brian Wood to canned Beer itself…it’s a metaphor…google it).

The following is a brief recollection of my connection to Brian Wood.

I joined the latest Internet social black hole, twitter, last year in August upon learning that there are several badass comic book industry folks hanging about. Brian Wood was one of the first people I chose to “follow” (@brianwood). After trying several times to get someone awesome (@templesmith, @brianwood, @beckycloonan, @skottieyoung, @warrenellis, etc) to answer me I was starting to get frusterated. At that point I may or may not (depends on who you ask) have tweeted something about a certain person possibly “being a dick’ due to that persons “military background”. Now first of all let me explain the second part of that. For some reason my good friend Phil and I heard from someone (no clue who) that Brian Wood did a few years in the Marines. Neither of us really know where or why or when we heard this, but for some reason it was just an accepted that it had happened. Of course it was at this point that Brian Wood decided to respond to me with something to the effect of “I was never in the military, and I saw the comment about me being a dick….”, and basically after that I felt like a giant douche and immediately regretted my moment of heated tweeting. I tried (in 140 characters or less) to explain that I was just a fan who had his girlish feelings hurt by one of my hero’s when they didn’t respond blah blah blah. I felt like a complete idiot. A few months after that came the New York Comic Con. I sucked it up and walked over to the massive, ominous DC/ Vertigo area to sheepishly get my things signed and catch a glimpse of the man (there were lots of “the man”s there but for this instance let “the man” mean Brian Wood). After waiting in line for what seemed like hours my turn came I stepped before Mr. Wood…and promptly blurted out “I’M THE GUY ON TWITTER WHO CALLED YOU A DICK”….yes I know, someone should have slapped me. I tried to get Brian to let me take him out for 10 or 12 beers, but for some reason I don’t think he was too keen. Anyways we had a chat and everything ended up working out just fine.

To this day all involved still have no idea where we heard Brian was in the marines from, and I still feel like an idiot. In the end I guess I can say that at least Mr. Wood responds to my tweets on occasion now, and day by day that helps me feel a little less ridiculous.

The following is the result of one of those answered tweets.
Here for your reading pleasure, is 7 QUESTIONS WITH BRIAN WOOD.

1. Who is Brian Wood?

Who the hell knows? Brian Wood is a very common name. According to a bunch of emails I get everyday in error, I’m some fashion designer. There is a pro-Palestinian activist with my name, which has earned me a lot of angry emails from Israeli comics fans who confuse us. And then there is a Brian Wood college professor, and when co-eds email me by mistake to beg for extensions on their term papers, I wonder what kind of game this guy is running.

2. Which of your characters do you identify with most?

Ugh, I don’t know. Well, actually I do know, but its not the answer anyone wants to hear. Probably Riley from The New York Four. The whole college-in-NYC thing. And bits and pieces of Megan from Local. Characters like Matty Roth? Couldn’t be more different from me.

3. Now that we have established your non-existent military background….where do you get the inspiration for the happenings in DMZ? Specifically it seemed that issues 23-28 (comprising The Hidden War) were a little more personal, I am curious to know where those characters came from?

Just out of my head, no big secret there. Well, a lot of them already existed. The street artist showed up in #12, Amina in the third arc, Kelly and Wilson from the second. The DJ was also from #12, although I blended two characters to make him. Soames, from #4. I guess they all existed. But in general terms I just think up characters who could be living in the city now, and then figure out how a local war could change them. And that just comes from reading a lot of books on the subject. A LOT of books. All my research is books, hundreds of books. You should see my Northlanders library.

4. When you aren’t writing to meet deadlines, what does your average work free afternoon consist of?

Well, I should never take an afternoon off. But when I do, heh, its either hanging out with my kid at Target or the playground, or being lazy and reading a book in bed. The usual gritty, hard-hitting shit you’d expect from the creator of DMZ.

5. What are some movies/music that really inspire you write?

I will give you one really cool example and one terribly lame example so everyone knows I don’t take myself too seriously – The Yakuza Papers, an incredibly bleak piece of Japanese crime cinema is what inititally inspired Northlanders, itself an incredibly bleak piece of Norse crime fiction. But what music do I sometimes listen to when writing that book? The soundtrack to Braveheart.

I grew up with celtic folk music in the house, it truly is the music of my childhood, and I have a healthly collection of the good stuff, but there is something about that film score that makes good background music. Very easy to ignore when I need to, but then the Irish pipes come up and it hits an emotional nerve and, well, it helps.

6. I had the privilege of attending the New York Comic Convention this year, and a friend from the city introduced me to…The Creperie….How often do you eat every meal of the day at the Creperie over on Ludlow? Do you think the Northlanders would have enjoyed the Creperie?

What the hell? We have crepe restaurants now? What is this, San Francisco?

7. All of the characters in DEMO seems to be dealing with decisions that all of us deal with. (A common theme in all of your books) The only catch, we find out is they have special abilities. What special ability would you like to have?

The one everyone wants, the ability of Knowing What I Know Now, and Going Back And Doing It Over Again.

But I’ll still probably pick up that Braveheart CD.

b

(ps- I totally listened to that Braveheart CD when I wrote this…good call Brian, good call.)