Brian Wood – Comics + Graphic Novels

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Ryan Kelly’s arc ends with issue #16, and you have some great artists coming in on issues #17 and 18. What can you tell CBR readers about those two issues?

These are two single-issue stories, two one-shots. The first is an ambitiously titled story called “The Viking Art of Single Combat,” and it’s just as ambitious in deed as in word. Using a 22-page swordfight as context, I run down the theories and tactics used during that time in history. I imagine a cross between the visuals of Vagabond and the language of something like Warren Ellis’s “Crecy,” but probably more detailed than that. Certainly wider in scope. Something for the History Channel set. Vasilis Lolos is drawing that one. He’s drawn “Pirates Of Coney Island,” “The Last Call,” “Pixu,” and “5,” for which he won an Eisner.

The next is “The Shield Maidens,” which takes the folktale of the Valkyries, the women warriors, and grounds it firmly into reality — takes the mythology right out of it. As you can imagine, it deals with the women of a village and what they do when all the men have been killed in a siege. We’ll have Danijel Zezelj drawing this.

Any chance of characters from earlier arcs making a return appearance? Sven, perhaps?

Sven will return, under the title “Sven The Immortal,” and of course Davide Gianfelice will draw it. I hope it’ll be soon, within the next six months, but it all depends on the schedules. Right now I have issues #19 and #20 of the series planned for Sven.

What do you have planned for “Northlanders” later this year?

After these short stories, I am working on an outline for the next longer arc, which will be at least six issues and possibly eight. I had started gathering information and writing notes for what I thought could be a prose novel about the Black Death, but for a variety of reasons I am starting to think this idea would be better served as an arc in “Northlanders.” It couldn’t be about the Black Death, since that happened way later, but I found some records of minor outbreaks and sicknesses I could use as a starting point. Like I said already, this would be set in what is Russia today. I believe Leandro Fernandez is going to draw it.

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DMZ 4
21/01/2009
DC Comics
Un quatrième album pour la série de Brian Wood, un brillant auteur, illustrateur et designer graphique qui a longtemps travaillé dans l’industrie du jeu vidéo (GTA, Max Payne…). À ses côtés, le très prometteur Riccardo Burchielli (John Doe). Le jeune journaliste Matty Roth, correspondant à New York, zone démilitarisée en proie au chaos dans la guerre civile qui ravage l’Amérique, procède à contre cœur à l’interview d’un soldat responsable d’un massacre à l’intérieur de la ville. Il apprend aussi comment New York est devenue ce qu’elle est, à travers le regard d’un enfant qui a quitté le Midwest pour se retrouver en plein cauchemar. Une série qui envisage le futur pour mieux s’interroger sur le présent.
Format : 170 x 260, 128 pages couleur.

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DMZ #41
Written by Brian Wood
Art by Nikki Cook
Cover by John Paul Leon
Having rejected the relative safety and stability of Parco Delgado’s government enclave (as well as a relationship with Matty Roth), Zee ventures out into the wilds of the DMZ. What is she seeking? Peace of mind? A greater truth? Or does she see Parco for what he truly is and would rather be alone and drifting than a part of it?
On sale April 15

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