Brian Wood – Comics + Graphic Novels

Click here for the full article, with answers from Jason Aaron, Brian Azzarello, G. Willow Wilson, Jock, Cliff Chiang, David Lapham, and Will Dennis.

WHAT WORK FROM 2008 ARE YOU THE MOST PROUD OF?

Brian Wood: LOCAL. The best thing I’ve done, and hopefully the first of many Ryan Kelly collabs. And the first NORTHLANDERS book, which not only got me out of my comfort zone but did the same for a lot of people who thought they knew what a comic book about Vikings was.

WHAT WORK ARE YOU THE MOST EXCITED ABOUT FOR 2009?

Brian Wood: A few upcoming NORTHLANDERS one-shots should be excellent, if only for the artists we have lined up coughRissocough. Seeing how the new DEMO books come out, and writing issue #50 of DMZ. 50! Reaching fifty issues of a series is sort of like when I hit 30 years of age. I never thought I’d make it that long.

WHAT’S YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION?

Brian Wood: I don’t make them. Each year, each week, each day I just try to make forward momentum, and improve in everything if only a little bit.

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LOCAL by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly – I could have put a bunch of stuff up here by Brian Wood but I chose Local just because of it’s amazingness and massiveness. Although I feel like I specifically relate to Brian’s stuff because we came from similar music scenes, I think anyone could relate to it. Some of the best writing out there.

Brea Grant, actor, here.

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Link to Blair Butler running down her Best Of 2008, giving both Local and Northlanders second-place spots in their respective categories.

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Found here.  I hope he does more of these.

Local #1: “Intense and beautiful, as any story set in Portland should be. One scene, four outcomes. I want this girl to win & I want you to read this!”

Local #6: “Why do I care this much for Megan? The emotional torment is real. I can feel her sincerity even as she does totally retarded things.”

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LOCAL- Washington, D.C., originally uploaded by funrama.

Another masterful drawing of Megan from our book LOCAL. © Ryan Kelly.

NPR’s Best Graphic Novels of 2008

This graphic novel in 12 short stories follows punky dreamer Megan McKeenan as she roams America. Each short represents a different year in a different city, as she takes odd jobs, gets into creepy relationships and lives the extended childhood of many 20-somethings. Though she often lies and gets into dodgy situations, Megan approaches people with the instinctive wisdom that only young wanderers have. Wood, author of the hugely popular comic DMZ, has created a contemporary ballad to the idea of the open road. It’s both frightening and freeing to see how identity can be as fluid as location. Megan moves from state to state, dealing with roommates and dead-end jobs and looking for an existence that befits her intelligence and desire for authenticity. She’s not a lost cause; she simply chooses, for personal reasons, to drift a while.

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More Megan Please, originally uploaded by funrama.

© Ryan Kelly

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Here’s the complete Local #3, available on MySpace.

Here’s the complete Local #6, with commentary text written by Ryan Kelly and myself.

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