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@brianwood:
What have you read and loved, comics-wise, in the last twelve months?
And a bonus one - do you have a favorite Cronenberg movie? -
@Rmai
LOL true writing Vs drawing it lol. But do you give the artist a simple sketch on how the characters are suppose to look?
I did with Matty Roth, but that was because I pitched that book initially as a mini-series that I would write and draw. Usually I'll write a description of the characters but let the artist have the fun in designing it.
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@ales kot
I like so many of them. eXistenZ is definitely in my top three. -
When pitching a story to a publisher, have you already written every issue or just general roughs that you later write out full in script form? One last thing, do you draw out the full issue or just sample pages to the publisher?
Thanks for your time, Brian Wood, and good luck with your projects. Look out for "M.Ismail" some day, trying to save Comics and Print Media with Masterful Art & Design, and well written literature. -
Mr. Wood helped get me laid once, by mailing me comics.
He's good people! -
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CommentAuthorProf Structure
- CommentTimeJan 5th 2010
@brianwood: "If you've been reading this forum for awhile you might have seen Warren and I talk a bit about the Battle of Maldon and my intentions to do a Northlanders story about it. I've now given that up, as I feel I don't have anything to put into it that I haven't done, more or less, already. So back to you, Warren."
Thats a shame! But have you thought about doing something on the Battle of Brunanburh, which featured Norse, Celts and Anglo-Saxons and supposedly shook down the kingdoms into the configuration they have today? (there was a thing in the Liverpool Daily Post that said they might finally have pinned down the battle site, nr Bromborough on the Wirrall (not far from where I used to live as a kid)). Its classic stuff - destiny shaping, brought England together, 5 kings and a bunch of Viking jarls dead at the end of it, the rest legging for their lives across the irish sea ...! -
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CommentAuthorRachæl Tyrell
- CommentTimeJan 5th 2010
Hi Brian!
I was wondering what your feelings are on how NYC has changed in the past 10 plus years. Now being older, and an established writer/designer and with a wife child, I suppose you may feel less attachment to the grit and grime that once permeated the LES and not mourn it's loss as much?
(I miss our old NYC) -
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@Rmai
When pitching a story to a publisher, have you already written every issue or just general roughs that you later write out full in script form? One last thing, do you draw out the full issue or just sample pages to the publisher?
It sorta depends on who the publisher is and at what point in my career I'm at. There's been a couple times I've written part or all of a script in advance if I feel I need to in order to prove what it is I'm trying to do, but generally its a detailed multi-page pitch document with synopsis of the entire story or several of the issues, if its a monthly. I think DC asked me to map out the first three years of DMZ in the pitch.
This isn't really my area, but I would imagine as an artist you would want to at least show a half-dozen pages of the story.
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@Rachael NOEL Tyrell
I was wondering what your feelings are on how NYC has changed in the past 10 plus years. Now being older, and an established writer/designer and with a wife child, I suppose you may feel less attachment to the grit and grime that once permeated the LES and not mourn it's loss as much?
I'd be shocked if I found myself in the city more than once a month, these days. I guess I'm a pretty deeply entrenched Brooklynite and can pretty much do whatever I need to do without crossing the river. Which is probably just as well since every time I do go into the city I'm confronted by some glass and steel building that wasn't there the last time.
The food is still pretty good, though.
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@Prof Structure
Thats a shame! But have you thought about doing something on the Battle of Brunanburh, which featured Norse, Celts and Anglo-Saxons and supposedly shook down the kingdoms into the configuration they have today? (there was a thing in the Liverpool Daily Post that said they might finally have pinned down the battle site, nr Bromborough on the Wirrall (not far from where I used to live as a kid)). Its classic stuff - destiny shaping, brought England together, 5 kings and a bunch of Viking jarls dead at the end of it, the rest legging for their lives across the irish sea ...!
Sounds like this is a story YOU want to write!
I have a good chunk of future Northlanders planned out and none of it is about actual battles. It's interesting, since I think my original plan for the series was to have these longer arcs broken up by almost-documentary-style stories about real battles. I guess my interests lie in taking a different angle on things.
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CommentAuthorProf Structure
- CommentTimeJan 5th 2010
@brianwood
Nah, I certainly have nothing like your talent in that regard!
But, fair 'nuff ... I love the way Northlanders is developing as it is; the current plague arc has a real horror story feel (did you by chance have any zombie thoughts in mind when you wrote the death ships episode?).
(But maybe someday someone will do for Brunanburh what Warren did for Crecy!) -
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@Prof Structure - I was certainly aware of the zombie-ishness, although it wasn't really realized until I wrote the cover notes for Massimo. I think I asked for skeletons in the ship, and he made them much more zombie-like, plus added those zombie fish, which was a great touch. Here's his sketch:
"The water is like the blood with the fish-zombies" is what Massimo wrote in his email with this sketch, which was probably the first time the word "zombie" was uttered in connection with this story. -
Some pages from Demo (Vol. 2) #1, which is slightly less than a month away from arriving in stores. I erased the lettering on the off-chance something is a spoiler and also because I expect DC will have a more official preview up shortly. And the red and green lines are from the lettering preview PDF, not in the actual comic.
Art by Becky Cloonan, naturally.
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Thanks for those lovely previews.
When you work, do you have a particular pattern of work - by which I mean do you specify a set period of time where you're "at your desk" - and also, do you set yourself a specific *amount* of work to get done, or just go 'till there's nothing left?
Thirdly, how are you with deadlines, I can never really 'get into' something until I can start to see the deadline looming (what a soccer coach over here refers to "Squeaky-bum time"), or are you one of the lucky folk who seem to be able to project manage themselves a little better (I am a bugger for setting up a timetable of my work, and then just jettisoning it and going with the flow). -
@sneak046
When you work, do you have a particular pattern of work - by which I mean do you specify a set period of time where you're "at your desk" - and also, do you set yourself a specific *amount* of work to get done, or just go 'till there's nothing left?
Thirdly, how are you with deadlines, I can never really 'get into' something until I can start to see the deadline looming (what a soccer coach over here refers to "Squeaky-bum time"), or are you one of the lucky folk who seem to be able to project manage themselves a little better (I am a bugger for setting up a timetable of my work, and then just jettisoning it and going with the flow).
I start work each day at about 745am, which is when my wife and kid leave for work and school, and I break at noon to go and pick the kid up from school. Depending on what day it is, I'll either start work again at 2pm or 3pm, and then break again at 5pm to cook dinner. Then most nights I work from 7-11pm. I also work for a period of time on each weekend day, about 6 hours per day.
I don't set a minimum amount of work. I know writers that do and it seemed like a good idea for me, but I found it really restrictive. I often have days where I am working but not writing script pages, and then I'll have days where I go all out and write 17 pages before bed. I found it was better to just accept that my days need to vary like that and not impose a quota. It stressed me out. So basically I get as much done as I can, or if a deadline is approaching, as much done as I need to.
Since I write five books now, there is always a deadline looming. And also since I am at the front of the production line, I think I'm pretty vigilant in getting stuff in on time since so many other people's income, the artist, colorist, and letterer, is riding on it. I slip up from time to time, and I'll have super productive periods and really difficult ones. I had a glorious moment earlier in 2009 where I was writing 2 scripts a week consistently for many months and got wayyyyy ahead of schedule, only for a triple-whammy of convention season, a death in the family, and my daughter starting school for the first time ate up that lead time.
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- CommentAuthorsacredchao
- CommentTimeJan 5th 2010
DMZ has some pretty obvious politics to it, I'd say - lot of critiquing of the military in general, some FOX bashing, etc. When you initially started writing, did you plan for it to be that political, or did it just happen?
I'll leave that vague and you can do with it what you will. -
@sacredchao
DMZ has some pretty obvious politics to it, I'd say - lot of critiquing of the military in general, some FOX bashing, etc. When you initially started writing, did you plan for it to be that political, or did it just happen?
It's very obviously political, sure, that's what the book's about, that's how it was conceived. But the goal from the start was to write it from a neutral point of view, or rather to not show any one side as being any more correct than another. That's gotten a lot easier as time has passed, but even early on I think we did pretty good. It was fun to see it all unfold, people readers who know me were expecting something overtly preachy like Channel Zero, or they assumed that the military was going to be the bad guys where the Free States must be good, the flipside of that. It was fun to turn all that on its head.
I wrote the pitch for that book in early 2004, right around the time that the war in Iraq started to change from something people assumed would be over shortly to the first talk about a quagmire. It's amazing to me to think about how much has changed. I tell this story a lot, but: at one point in the long approval process my editor and I were worried that we wouldn't get the book out before the war ended.
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Hi Brian,
thanks for sharing the DEMO pages. I'm pretty excited about it, Becky is one of my heroes.
I really liked Supermarket and dug the Northlanders issue with Vasilis. I want to catch up on the whole series soon. And also can't wait to see DV8 as well (f*cking LOVE that cover!!).
The covers for the comics you are involved in are always so damn grabbing, when you see it from across the room you just know in your head "this is a cool kids comic." Something for that artsy/angry kid who sits in the back of class.
But yeah, comic cover design is pretty damn important to me as an artist and reader of comics. Sometimes in the shop I won't even care what a comic is about and I'll buy it because the cover did a great job at attracting my eye while every other thing has two guys fighting on the cover for no reason. a good recent example would be how the covers for Invincible Iron Man look right now. I just think more comics should look like that on the outside. like "eyeball magnets." -
@Brian - This is very, very good. Don't bother with the film version of Complicity though.
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@chris g - that's my favorite DV8 cover as well. I have to say, Fiona Staples has been a real sport with these, since I think I've been over-directing her a bit with the covers. I've just had these images in my head for so many years. How many of these covers have we shown, by the way? Just the first three? Here's another one:
And thanks for the comments about the covers. It's also something I try and put as much thought into as possible. There's a reason those Demo covers look the way they do - you can spot one of those fifty feet away, and if you squint at a rack of books, chances are good it'll be the most readable.
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