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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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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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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Northlanders #11 Review
The Vikings struggle to contain the citizens of Ireland.
by Daniel Crown

Brian Wood’s approach to is an incredibly risky one. By constantly jumping perspectives and eras, the author runs the risk of losing some of his base readership at the first sign of trouble, as there are no residual endearments to carry his audience through any potential rough patches. Luckily enough, he’s yet to take any serious missteps, and “The Cross + The Hammer” seems geared to become his most entertaining arc to date.

Switching gears to the end of a Viking dominated Ireland, Woods latest introductory installment, ostensibly, serves as a long chase scene. Yet somehow, the author manages to instill a fascinating existential dilemma in between all the hectic violence. The relationship between Magnus and his daughter holds an immense amount of potential as Wood sets up a dynamic straight out of “Lone Wolf and Cub.”

Despite its heavy tilt towards action, “The Cross + The Hammer” feels much smaller in scale than “Sven the Returned”, in that it drops Shakespearean dramatics in favor of an analytical look at ancestry and family obligation. Brigid’s reluctant involvement in her father’s campaign is at the same time inspiring and disturbing. In the span of a few pages, Wood sets the stage for an investigation into the extent of loyalty, as well as the moving contradictions that family allegiances can pit against one’s personal view of morality.

Speaking of diversity, I’m mildly surprised by how well Ryan Kelly drew this story. Not that I doubted his talent in anyway, it’s just that the only exposure I’d had to the artist was his work on Local, which is comparatively grounded in nature. This is a far cry from introspective Indie comics, and Kelly makes the transition seamlessly.

Though in retrospect, his adeptness for this sort of story should have been obvious. Considering the inner-debates swelling within the character of Brigid, Kelly may have been the perfect choice for this arc, in that his experience with more understated stories has given him the tools to convey emotions without descriptive dialogue. Brigid’s reluctance is painted all over her face, becoming apparent long before Wood expounds on the subject.

For those of you who haven’t picked up Northlanders to this point, now would be a perfect time to start. This arc is already showing signs of the sort of sensibilities that make Wood’s stories so relatable, even when epic in nature, providing even more proof that the author is one of the best character writers in the industry.

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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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“The Cross + The Hammer” part 1 of 6, art by Ryan Kelly, Massimo Carnevale, and Dave McCaig.

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