Nov 9, 2008
ON DMZ & OBAMA’s WIN:
“Real-life politics has played a huge role in my work, from the Rudy Giuliani ‘Quality Of Life’ regime in the ’90s to the W. Bush legacy of war, torture, illegal politics, occupation and terrorism. But this morning it was impossible to get up after a long night watching election news and put myself into the necessary pessimist headspace to work on the latest ‘DMZ’ script. It’s been a long eight years in this country, where things unimaginable only a few years before that have been committed in our name, flying in the face of our own Constitution, domestic and international law, not to mention common sense and decency. It’s impossible not to get excited even at the idea or possibility of a change, and the fact that Obama was elected so quickly and with such surety is amazing, just absolutely world-changing. As cliché as it sounds, nothing will be the same from this point on.
“So while my writing on ‘DMZ’ has trained me to look at politics in the most cynical way possible, for today at least I just pushed the keyboard back and enjoyed thinking of the best-case scenario instead.”
— Comics writer Brian Wood, who created the Vertigo title “DMZ” about a modern day American civil war, found it hard to muster the requisite cynicism to script the gritty series the morning after the Obama victory (MTV)
[...] I am assuming that last line is hyperbolic, but its an interesting thing they are suggesting – that the election of Obama signifies such a potential for Things To Be Different Now that examination of the last 8 years is played out or irrelevant? I had some of these same thoughts a few weeks ago, right after the election, wondering how DMZ was going to be perceived… and more specifically, how I was going to write it from now on. [...]