INTERVIEW CORNER #26: Brian Wood

2 Comments Written by Θωμάς Παπαδημητρόπουλος on December 21st, 2010 – 09:04

Το να μπορέσεις να ξεχωρίσεις με τη δουλειά σου είναι κάτι αρκετά
δύσκολο. Ιδιαίτερα όταν βρίσκεσαι σε έναν χώρο με συναδέλφους που έχουν επιτύχει την άνοδο στο superstar status. Σε αυτή την περίπτωση, οι επιλογές σου είναι λίγο-πολύ οριοθετημένες: πρέπει να δώσεις κάτι καινούργιο, κάτι που θα χαρακτηρίσει τη δουλειά σου και θα σε κάνει να ξεχωρίσεις.

Και δεν αρκεί να το κάνεις μια μόνο φορά. Πρέπει να συνεχίσεις, αλλάζοντας τη “συνταγή” σου, ώστε να προσφέρεις κάτι φρέσκο που θα φέρει την υπογραφή σου. Όπως ο καλεσμένος αυτής της εβδομάδας, Brian Wood. Ο Wood ξεκίνησε να γράφει comics το 1997 και το πρώτο αυτών ήταν το CHANNEL ZERO, μια περιπέτεια που εξελισσόταν σε ένα δυστοπικό μέλλον. Η action-oriented γραφή του ανέβηκε ένα σκαλί πιο πάνω, όταν συνεργάστηκε με τον Warren Ellis στο GENERATION X της Marvel.

Σε εκείνο το σημείο, κι αφού το GENERATION X κόπηκε, ο Wood έκανε μια μικρή στροφή στην καριέρα του, αφήνοντας πίσω τις κλασικές ιστορίες δράσης και επικεντρώνοντας σε πιο προσωπικές ιστορίες. Αποτέλεσμα αυτής της στροφής ήταν το DEMO, μια σειρά αυτοτελών ιστοριών. Το DEMO αναφερόταν και στις υπερδυνάμεις, αλλά αυτές αποτελούσαν περισσότερο το background. Η επιτυχία του, μάλιστα, είχε ως αποτέλεσμα την επιστροφή των δημιουργών σε αυτό χρόνια μετά, με την κυκλοφορία του Volume 2, στις αρχές του 2010.

Το DEMO, όμως, λίγα κοινά έχει με τις υπόλοιπες δουλειές του Wood. Ανάμεσα σε αυτές ξεχωρίζει, βέβαια, το DMZ, μια ακόμα φουτουριστική ιστορία, με τον εμφύλιο πόλεμο να μαστίζει τις ΗΠΑ. Το DMZ φτάνει σύντομα στο τέλος του (στο #72) και επαναφέρει κάποια από τα δυστοπικά οράματα του συγγραφέα του, αυτή τη φορά, όμως, με έναν πολύνεκρο πόλεμο στο κέντρο του.

Και στον αντίποδα βρίσκεται μια ακόμη ongoing series του Wood, το NORTHLANDERS, το οποίο ξεκίνησε ως μια ιστορία εγκλήματος την εποχή των Βίκινγκς και έχει εξελιχθεί σε κάτι πολύ περισσότερο. Παρά το γεγονός, όμως, ότι ο Wood έχει δύο ongoing και μια limited series στα χέρια του, δε μοιάζει ικανοποιημένος. Έχει κατά καιρούς αναλάβει μικρότερα projects, όπως τα LOCAL και FIGHT FOR TOMORROW, αλλά και τα πιο πρόσφατα THE NEW YORK FIVE (συνέχεια του δικού του THE NEW YORK FOUR για τη Minx) και DV8.

Και σα να μην έφταναν όλα αυτά, ο ίδιος δηλώνει ότι έχει ακόμα ένα σωρό ιδέες, έτοιμες να μεταφερθούν στις σελίδες των comics, αμέσως μόλις βρει λίγο χρόνο! Και όλα αυτά από έναν άνθρωπο που, όταν ήταν μικρός δε διάβαζε comics. Διαβάστε, λοιπόν, παρακάτω, τη συνέντευξη του καλεσμένου μας για αυτή την εβδομάδα, του Brian Wood, για περισσότερες λεπτομέρειες:

You are mostly known for your creator owned comics, but you have also worked for titles like Marvel’s GENERATION X. What are, in your opinion, the pros and cons in each case?
That’s a huge question, with a lot of answers… some that really come down to personal preference. For me, not having grown up reading comics, I don’t have any sort of personal attachment to the Big Two superheroes. The idea of working on those iconic heroes is really the same as doing any other sort of assigned, for-hire writing. So I naturally gravitate more towards coming up with my own ideas.
There’s a hit you take by going that route, though. A professional, and sometimes a financial hit. To some, regardless of how many years and how many creator-owned series I write, I will still be considered to have not “broken out yet” because I never took a company-owned job. That’s a reality in this business.

I have heard your writing style being described as many things, like dystopian, rough or stylized to name few. Can you describe it yourself?
I can’t. DMZ is dystopian, sure. Rough could just mean I’m a bad writer. Stylized… who isn’t stylized? Looking at what I’ve written, it really runs the gamut from genre (NORTHLANDERS), to action, to war, to slice-of-life stuff like DEMO and LOCAL. It’s hard for me to pin it down to any one thing. I hope, though, that whatever it is, it all makes sense under the banner of “a Brian Wood book”.

When DEMO first came out, it signaled a new direction in your writing, since it wasn’t as action oriented as your previous comics. Was it difficult to adapt to this new direction, or it just came naturally, writing something different?
It was a big deal, I remember, to deliberately shift tracks like that. But the hard part was just deciding to do it, to put out a book like DEMO, not so much the actual writing, which came pretty easy. Or as easy as writing comics can be.

DEMO came back with Volume 2, almost six years after the end of the first run. Was it difficult to go back after all these years? Do you think you succeeded in making an equally good comic?
I drove myself crazy at the start of Vol. 2 by constantly comparing it to the first run of stories. That made it hard, because despite everything on the surface looking the same, both Becky and I are at such different places in our careers than we were in 2003, and have so many hundreds or thousands of pages under our belts. I think the new stories are good, yeah, but I can’t comment on if they are as good/better/worse than the earlier ones.

What are the challenges and the difficulties in writing a dystopian future story, like in DMZ and CHANNEL ZERO?
Deciding on what to make up and what to keep true to real life. That’s the crucial balance to strike – firing the imagination without losing what makes it relatable.

DMZ is going to end with issue #72. Can you tell us what to expect till then?
Not to sound cheeky, but a whole lot of war. The war will get worse before it gets better. Assuming it gets better.

You are now working on three more projects: NORTHLANDERS, DV8 and THE NEW YORK FIVE. Can you tell us more about them?
Sure. DV8 just concluded. That was a fun book, one I wrote purely for myself and it did better than I thought, especially with the more hardcore Wildstorm fans who remember the book from back in the 90′s. For me that’s win-win – writing a company-owned book purely for your own pleasure AND having it be a success. THE NEW YORK FIVE is a continuation of THE NEW YORK FOUR, the book Ryan Kelly and I did for DC’s Minx imprint back in 2008. NORTHLANDERS is my baby, my favorite book, the one where I feel I am doing my best work. It started off as a simple crime book set during the Viking Age, but I outgrew that description pretty quick and it’s something much bigger now. In my more boastful moods I would describe it as an alternate set of sagas set throughout the historical period.

Do you prefer working on a graphic novel or a mini or ongoing series?
I don’t feel that much of a difference as far as the stories or the writing goes. Each of those formats has unique pros and cons as far as the marketplace goes. Which is just as important as anything else. I think ideally I would want to serialize a story and collect it in something more like a graphic novel than a trade paperback.

You haven’t illustrated any of your comics for many years, except for some covers. Why is that? Do you miss it?
I’m slow, and my artwork is not commercial. Not commercial in the sense that comic book editors were not interested in giving me work. But I don’t miss it that much… if I do, I take on other sorts of work illustrating outside of the comics industry.

Do you have any other plans for the immediate future?
Christ, too many. One of the by-products of working on two long-running series is that I generate a lot of new ideas but lack the time and space to launch them. I have proposals for a good half-dozen new books sitting here ready to go. It’s killing me.