Los Angeles Times piece on The Massive

Here’s a short interview re: The Massive.  I tried to be really candid with this one, and there’s interesting bits about research and writing and format, and also this:

HC:  There’s been so much post-apocalyptic fiction in recent years and wonder whether it’s because we are so anxious in an age when technology has advanced so far while ethics have not — intelligence run rampant, wisdom withering. Then part of me thinks that maybe it’s just a way for storytellers to find a wild frontier now that the western is gone…

BW: It’s certainly a rich genre for writers to tap into, and there is a real coolness factor to it. But for me what drives me to it is fear. Meaning, actual tangible, real-life fear, mostly as a dad of two little kids. I believe hard times are coming, and maybe I’ll grow old and die before it hits, but I bet my kids won’t, and it’s tough to think about the reality that they’ll probably not have enough free water to drink, or will suffer in some other way like that. Will they be able to spend time in the sun? For their entire lives they’ve lived in an America at war — ones of its own choosing. Will they never know a different America? Maybe I’m exorcising demons in writing about this. But maybe I just can’t stop thinking about it.

John Paul Leon’s CONAN cover, sketch to final

colors by Dave Stewart

Conan The Barbarian #1 Commentary, commentary

(I wrote this originally for the Dark Horse blog, meant to air before the comic was released, which is why it’s only a partial-issue commentary)

THE COMMENTARY TRACK: BRIAN WOOD’S “CONAN THE BARBARIAN” #1

This is primarily about the process of adapting, what to leave in, what to exclude, how to re-work things moving from one medium to another.  In the case of The Queen Of The Black Coast, what I have here is a short story, the original Robert E Howard story, that stands at 27 pages of almost entirely prose, very little dialog.  And comics, obviously, are nothing if not almost entirely dialog.  That was the first, and probably the biggest, challenge.  The first arc of this comic, 66 pages worth of comics, will be adapted from about 9 or 10 pages of the original.

Here’s an excerpt, more in the link:

The section of the original that matches up to this page here is utterly devoid of dialogue, so all of what you see here is gleaned from descriptions. Tito, the bearded fellow, is describing to Conan what Robert E. Howard wrote to his readers, like so:

“Nor did master Tito pull into the broad bay where the Styx river emptied its gigantic flood into the ocean, and the massive black castles of Khemi loomed over the blue waters. Ships did not put unasked into this port, where dusky sorcerers wove awful spells in the murk of sacrificial smoke mounting eternally from blood-stained altars where naked women screamed, and where Set, the Old Serpent, arch-demon of the Hyborians but god of the Stygians, was said to writhe his shining coils among his worshippers.”

You can see how I used it, and also how I didn’t. Early on I was faced with the decision on how to adapt this, and there is an argument to be made (I know because lots of fans made it to me) that the best way is to literally adapt, use no words that aren’t Howard’s, to cut and paste from the original. But the parameters of the job, common sense, and the need to actually put dialogue on these pages made this impossible. It was necessary to take the prose, and rework and reframe it into scenes and conversations. 

Channel Zero

Andy Khouri gives me the Channel Zero interview I’d been waiting for, and also gets more out of me re: my “bleeding” essay from last week.  I enjoyed the hell out of this.

Please read, and comment.

CA: One of the things that people took notice of when Channel Zero was originally released (and rereleased) was its strong zine vibe. Here was this professionally published comic with a sophisticated narrative that was seemingly created in a method us kids could comprehend. I think it’s safe to say CZ inspired a lot of people in that way, making “making comics” seem like something demystified and attainable. I recall a distinct sense of community around this book in the comics scene, don’t you? 

BW: One mistake that is often made is for this book, and for me, to be labeled as a product of the [Warren Ellis Forum, a heavily trafficked comics advocacy/criticism/meme discussion board that ran from 1998 to late 2002] when the reality is that Warren and I connected, I believe, before the WEF started. I forget exactly when, but it was early enough that I was able to get a pull-quote from him to run on the cover of Channel Zero #2, which was released around April of 1998 [by Image Comics]. I started my own Delphi forum right around the time the WEF was born. But I was very active on the WEF, and most people who read CZ were, like you, reading the 2000 [trade paperback] edition from AIT.

And CZ had that strong zine vibe because that’s exactly how I created it. I didn’t own a computer. I used ink, paper, glue sticks, and a lot of blackmarket Kinko’s copy cards (I had friends on the inside). I eventually bought my own desktop photocopier, which changed my world. But by that point I had a lot of experience in making photocopied minicomics… we all did, that was what you did… and there was no other way I could have approached the making of Channel Zero at the time. Looking back, I’m struck at how easy it was: you make your marks on paper, paste it up, run off copies, and staple it. The end product is rough, sure, but there is no way that is harder than doing it all digitally. You just need the tools, and space. I guess you need a lot of space for that. It’s messy.

Not to sound old and overly nostalgic, but that was just a magical time for me, where I felt more creativity and freedom in a single day than I do in a week or a month now.

Work Update 12/19/10

I’m sitting here, working on a very short, company-owned project that is one of the biggest names out there, something with huge, global awareness, and its more fun than I would have thought.

2010 sucked for me.  Hardly anyone on the outside could tell that, but aside from obvious things like the birth of my son Ian, there’s been too much stress, fear, and disappointments on the creative side.  But I did get a lot done.  Here’s what I wrote in 2010 (not what was necessarily published during that time):

DMZ 50-64

Northlanders 26-37, 40

The New York Five 1-4

DV8 6-8

Demo 5-6

Thirty-six scripts, roughly 800 pages of comics.

Despite that, or rather not counting that, it was rough.  A lot of pitches were written and rejected, always for reasons beyond my control.  I’m determined to take better control over this in 2011.  One of the side effects of being exclusive while working on long-running monthly books is the lack of time or room to launch new projects.  I have proposals for a half-dozen monthly series, and several mini-series that I’ve been sitting on for years, and I feel I need to get some of these moving while they’re still relevant.

It’s hard to make any kind of comment on the state of the comics industry without it sounding cliche or bitter.  I’m not the sort of writer who seeks shelter in the Big Two properties, although who knows, maybe I should?  For 14 years I’ve strived to carve out a place for myself where I can have an actual career, a lucrative one, writing creator-owned books, but can that last forever?  At what point can I say: there, look, I did it.

What I do know is everyone is taking a hit, in one way or another.

Writing comics is a dream job, but its also work, and my 3 scripts a month during 2010 often made comics feel like a grind, and in the new year I want to do something about that.  I love working hard, but I hate the grind, and before this past year the last time I felt the grind was when I was sitting in a cubicle at Rockstar Games.  For me, the joy is in creating something new, and 2011 needs to see a lot of new stuff from me.

I have 42 pages of script to write before the end of this year, then its off to spend New Year’s Eve in a quiet place in Upstate New York.  Thanks, everyone, for buying and reading.  My ability to do what I have done in my career is solely down to the strength and power of my readership, and that’s you guys.  

b

Northlanders Book 4 / Process Essay

Northlanders: The Plague Widow hits comic shops this week, and Amazon and bookstores next week.  You can find it at your local shop or here.

I wrote an essay for the Vertigo blog here, a mini commentary track about inspiration, architecture, approach, my overall mission statement for the book, and other stuff.

The End Of Demo

The final issue of the recent Demo series hits stores this week.  What follows is my backmatter essay from that issue (Becky’s is here) in which I talk about Demo, what it is and how it came to be, and why I make the kind of comics I make.  Enjoy.

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It’s all over, all over again, so soon?

Every time I think about Demo I’m reminded of how I got into comics in the first place. Parts of this story a lot of you have heard before, because the question is a very common one asked in interviews. But I’m going to try and go a little deeper, since it helps explain Demo.

Like almost everyone else I know and work with in comics, I never read them as a kid, not to any degree beyond seeing a Richie Rich comic in the waiting room at my childhood dentist. When I discovered comics, or rather when I discovered that comics could be for me, I was 25 and pursuing an art school degree. And that’s what ended up defining what comics were (and, sort of, still are) to me: it’s all about the medium.

I got into comics because of the form, not any particular story or a character or a title, not one universe or another, not the history of comics or of the people that made them. And it was the cold appraisal of the medium as a student trying to pick it apart, not that of a reader just looking for enjoyment. Even though, over a long time, I came to learn the history, to appreciate the creators and their seminal works over the decades, it’s always been about the medium for me more than anything else.

Couple that with my instructors at college repeatedly driving home the point that there is nothing more important than creating new work and protecting what you create, there was just no way in hell I was ever going to end up seeking out a career working on company-owned books. It was just not the cards I was dealt, it’s not how I “learned” comics. I don’t say that haughtily–there are times I wish it were otherwise, since I don’t have a lot of common ground with my peers when it comes to comics. It’s alienating more often than I usually care to admit. It also meant that the growth of my career had an incredibly slow and frustrating start– from 1997 through to 2005 I was essentially making comics for free and trying to find a toehold.

Anyway, I feel that this is why Demo is what Demo is. It’s a very format-oriented take by a superhero-illiterate writer on what is an established sub-genre in mainstream comics: the “teen with powers.” Skip ahead a bit in the backmatter of this issue and look at the original Demo pitch from back in 2002. Format is literally inseparable from what the story is. Good? Bad? Like I said, it is what it is.

I love Demo for what it is, and for what it’s not. At times like this, looking back at a bunch of work just completed, it’s really easy to feel pride at doing something that is unique and personal and so wholly Becky-and-me that it couldn’t have been assigned to a different creative team like work-for-hire. I always think, and I’m sure I’m not alone, that the creator-owned books that work the best are the ones that are so owned and embodied by their creators that separating the two is inconceivable. Think of Casanova without Matt Fraction, Phonogram without Kieron and Jamie, or of Preacher without Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon.

So just like in 2004, Becky and I take a breather from a run of Demo. Many thanks to the Vertigo crew this time around, starting off first in a roundabout way to Will Dennis and Shelly Bond who were fans of the first series enough to offer both Becky and myself work on other things, and then later on thanks to Will, Karen Berger, Jack Mahan, and Mark Doyle for working to breathe a second life into the series. It’s something of a cliched statement to say that they went above and beyond, but it’s also totally true, and the fact that this new run of Demo stays so true to what Demo is and was is 100% due to their faith and diligence. Jared K Fletcher, Ryan Yount, and Amelia Grohman are also to be thanked on the production side, as well as all you readers, tweeters, and retailers.

I start to run out of nice things to say about working with Becky, which is crazy because is there anyone as nice in comics as Becky is? I’ve known her for a decade, very nearly, and working with her is effortless and completely rewarding. I continue to be humbled at the faith and hard work she puts into my stories. The perfect collaborator.

Until next time?

Bri

Playlist:“One Hundred Years From Now” –Gram Parsons

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Northlanders As Metal

(or Norse Mythological Fundamentalism & The Notion Of A “Container Series”)

Heavy metal and Vikings go hand in hand. I didn’t need Becky Cloonan and Espen Jorgensen to tell me that. I’m pretty sure I was first schooled to this fact walking across “stoner bridge,” a little walkway that crossed a pitiful stream and opened up onto the back of my high school’s parking lot in northern Vermont. Crossing it meant running a gauntlet of rednecks, headbangers, weed smoke, and heavy metal t-shirts. From Led Zeppelin to Bathory, the imagery was dominant.

And while I am no fan of Viking Metal, I can appreciate the imagery.

I’ve started to refer to Northlanders as a “container series”. With each new story arc, I’m able to reinvent the book to whatever degree I like, and I’ve found that the core concept of the book is flexible enough to contain a really wide variety of genres and story types.

Sven The Returned was as straightforward as these things go, the most traditional Viking story I was likely to write. From that point on, coinciding with my ongoing research blitz, I’ve made a big point in seeing how far I can stretch the concept. With the upcoming story arc called Metal, I’m taking what I’m able to take from the musical genre and apply it to comics. This is not a story about music, but a story that taps into the same dark mythology and nihilistic worldview that inspires the genre. This is radically different from anything that’s come before in the last 30 months of this series.

“Norse Mythological Fundamentalism” is a phrase from my story outline. Also in there are references to films like Badlands and Natural Born Killers. What if Charles Starkweather was Northlanders’ Erik, an ugly, failed blacksmith who decides that the growing influence of this cult religion “Christianity” is in danger of erasing his cultural identity? And what if Juliette Lewis’ Mallory Knox character was Ingrid, a young woman pressed into service as a nun, suffering daily insults and abuse for being an albino and a pagan?

What if Erik eats a ton of shrooms, wanders the forests for a few days, and is now convinced that Mother Nature herself is instructing him to purge this new religion from the land? And what if Mother Nature is actually not a very nice sort of god at all, but is instead really creepy and violent? What if Erik murders a bunch of priests and nuns in order to free Ingrid, tears his town down around him, and thinks to himself, “why stop there?”

Metal flies in the face of a few rules I had laid out for myself when I started Northlanders. But that’s cool, because the fact that I feel comfortable in breaking them is a testament to the elasticity of the series’ concept. Back in 2006, thinking that there is no way that overt mythology has a place in this book, was fine for the early stories where myth was treated as nothing more than casual superstition, if it was even present at all. But starting with The Shield Maidens and now continuing with Metal, I’ve figured out ways to include it while still making sure that Northlanders is Northlanders. And not, I dunno, Thor.

Now, on to RICCARDO BURCHIELLI. Resident of Florence, Italy, bass player in a metal band, and trusted DMZ collaborator of nearly five years. Drawing even one issue of DMZ is no mean feat – ask any of the guest artists we’ve had. It’s incredibly hard work, drawing a wartorn New York City for a thousand pages and counting, but he’s a dedicated and loyal collaborator. I’ve been encouraging him to take a break from DMZ for the sake of his mental health for a while now, and it took a guest stint on Northlanders to finally get him to agree. “Write me something violent, Brian,” he said. “Something with a lot of swords and blood.” And no buildings or helicopters, of course.
This is the preeminent example of tailoring a script to an artist’s desires and skillset, and I know Riccardo is dying to let loose on something different.

The five-issue METAL, at its core, is a timeless story: two young lovers on the run, shunned by their respective societies. Where it goes from there is the stuff of nightmares, to be honest. Set at the dawn of the Viking Age, the era of Beowulf and Germanic paganism, before exploration and trade brought light to the dark forests of Scandinavia. Misanthropy abounds, as does nihilism and fatalism, obsession and racial devotion. Dark times, dark themes. And two blighted teenagers try to carve out a space where they can just be themselves without the rest of the world giving them a hard time.

Can’t you totally see that airbrushed on the side of a van in a high school parking lot?

I wish. Try NORTHLANDERS #30, due July 21st. Your comic shop can save you a copy with this order code: MAY10 0279

-b

writing NORTHLANDERS #8

Been doing some last minute tweaks and rewrites to the final scene of Northlanders #8, the end of the Sven story, successfully getting over my initial hesitations on what emotional beats to hit (or rather, how hard to hit them). I’m also listening to Whiskeytown’s STRANGERS ALMANAC outtakes on headphones as I do this, so in a couple months you’ll see what a Viking epic that ends with an alt-country soundtrack reads like.

(Hervor’s Death by Peter Nicoli Arbo)

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