Brian Wood

This Weekend Is My Birthday

In the past I would try and rally a bunch of people to meet at some bar and I’d drink free beers all night.  This year, on my 40th, I’m doing this.

If you could have ever seen yourself buying me a pint on my birthday, please think about taking that $5 or $10 and helping to build a well for people who, in horrifying numbers, die from the lack of clean water?  

You would have my sincerest thanks, and I’d enjoy this gift way more than a beer.

VOLUME 08: “HEART AND MINDS” INTERVIEW

livefromthedmz:

“Hearts and Minds” collects issues 42 through 49, with art contributions by main series artist Riccardo Burchielli and frequent Brian Wood collaborator Ryan Kelly. The short parable entitled “No Future” runs from issue 42 to 44 and is brought to life by Kelly. While it’s a specific look at just one man’s personal account of the war, it enriches all of the incidents occurring around it in the larger tapestry. It’s a sharp reminder that war isn’t an abstract concept to be examined clinically from a distance, but it destroys actual lives, and derails the futures of the individuals it touches. It’s a disturbing portrayal of the cycle of pain, predatory indoctrination, and the hypocrisy of war. In issues 45 to 49, Burchielli partners again with Wood, returning to Parco and Matty and their attempts to stabilize their relationship with local DMZ factions and ensure the security of their provisional government. Not only does the DMZ become a nuclear armed state, but in an emotional moment, Matty issues a sloppy order that irrevocably alters the dynamic of his role, and the fallout will be dealt with in more ways than one.

Brian, is Matthew Roth actually the main character of the series or is it the DMZ itself?

Read More

The Future?

I do believe that 2012 will see a direct-to-digital comics series written by me and a trusted collaborator. 

Food and Comics and Comics and Food

You may not have spied this post from Ryan Kelly, but in it he mentions a web comic he is starting called Cocotte.  Which implies food.  And I know for a long time now Ryan’s wanted to do a culinary comic series.  Me too.  But I am not writing Cocotte.

I wish him luck and good fortune.  My own culinary series, called STARVE, is something of a casualty.  Created for Vertigo almost two years ago, it hit too many of the same notes as that Anthony Bourdain book they got going on, and so it was ultimately not approved.  Another publisher, an indie one, also passed for similar reasons.  I guess there is a real glut of food comics coming.  STARVE now sits in limbo.  It may, probably, be heavily modified to be about water scarcity and the politics of food and serve as a sequel to THE MASSIVE.  If THE MASSIVE is a success, that is.

I mourn STARVE.  It was awesome.  It was funny, and really OCD with detail of food prep.  I did a lot of research, like Northlanders-level research.  But that’s the way it goes sometimes and repurposing is all you can do.

Although these days I think about writing STARVE as it was intended, but as a tv pilot.  My agent thinks its an insane concept for a story, though.  Maybe she’s right.

Random end of the year thoughts.  Go read Ryan’s post, its full of info.

Preview of THE MASSIVE (DHP #8)

I love linking to the French site Buzz Comics for these (more in link).  And as DMZ comes to an end, its stylistic successor ramps up.  Art by Kristian Donaldson, colors by Dave Stewart, letters by DMZ alum Jared Fletcher.