Brian Wood

Channel Zero (5-issue mini). [From AiT/Planet Lar: Special interest groups have bullied the government into passing the Clean Act, effectively killing freedom of speech and silencing the country into submission. TV and God become one and the same as America wages its own Holy War against its citizens. Meet Jennie 2.5, media slut turned info-terrorist, out to save the country from itself, and restore free will and self-expression. Hailed internationally as ground-breaking work in the field of sequential art, CHANNEL ZERO challenges and tests the limits, combining current events and no-future shock into dark, paranoid, deep-ambient visual narrative.] ArtBomb review

Channel Zero: Jennie One (OGN; a Becky Cloonan). [From AiT/Planet Lar: What happened to Jennifer Havel that turned her into info-terrorist and media-slut Jennie 2.5, heroine of the internationally-acclaimed graphic novel CHANNEL ZERO? CZ: JENNIE ONE tells the story as she drops out of art school and builds her socio-political consciousness during one of the most turbulent and violent periods of American history... the passing of the Clean Act and the loss of free speech. Artist Becky Cloonan puts the perfect images to Brian Wood's story: a perfect complement to the original Channel Zero but with a style all its own. A must-have for even the most casual Channel Zero fan.] ArtBomb review Old Book of the Week 12/7/05: An earlier collaboration by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan, this origin story for the heroine of Channel Zero as an angry post-9/11 rant against a kind of thinking that has become distressingly popular in recent years, that in order to save America we must destroy it by stripping away the very freedoms that made it great. Jennie is an art school student who becomes radicalized by increasingly Draconian restrictions on artistic expression, and almost by accident becomes an underground "terrorist." I suspect if the New Right knew this book existed, they'd be agitating for Wood to be sent to Guantanamo. If Demo is the new Wood, Channel Zero is the old Wood, although I hope and expect that both Woods will continue to coexist.

Demo: The Collection (12-issue mini; w Brian Wood; a Becky Cloonan). [From AiT/Planet Lar: Twelve stories of conflicted young people grappling with love, loss, and the joy of finding your own way in life. The Eisner-nominated and critically-acclaimed series of self-contained short stories by writer Brian Wood and artist Becky Cloonan is finally collected together into this complete, bookshelf format volume.] Book of the Week 12/7/05: A very different series, this consists of twelve short stories related only loosely by theme, each involving somebody with some kind of extra ability, most of the comic book super-power type. But the stories are anything but super-hero stories, reading more like literary short fiction, keenly evocative of character and place with less emphasis on storyline and action. Demo is something different for Brian Wood (he is now doing a similar series in Local), and he knocks it out of the park. If you've ever wondered what the X-Men would be like if they were published in The New Yorker, this might be it.

Fight for Tomorrow (DC/Vertigo; 6-issue mini; w Brian Wood; a Denys Cowan & Kent Williams). [From DC: Collecting the miniseries by Brian Wood (DMZ) and artist Denys Cowan telling tale of a young Buddhist monk turned kung fu street brawler. Kidnapped as a boy, Cedric Zhang - raised to fight in competitions - formed a bond with Christy, a young nurse. When she disappears with no explanation, Cedric immerses himself in the violent NYC underworld in an effort to locate her, finding himself back in the s horrible world he spent his life trying to escape.] 1/16/08

Pounded (Oni Press; 3-issue mini; w Brian Wood; a Steve Rolston). [From Oni Press: In a city filled with trust-fund babies and armchair revolutionaries, Heavy Parker rules the punk scene as a benevolent dictator. He sings lead in a local hardcore band. He puts out zines, pseudo-revolutionary material, and flypost propaganda about town. It's good to be king. Or at least it is until Missy, Heavy's girlfriend, goes away for college. How can a guy like Heavy be expected to handle a long-distance romance? Short answer: He can't. Missy is out of sight and Heavy's mind is already drifting towards his next sexual conquest. A king can't be expected to live without a queen. But can he maintain his throne when Missy returns, reborn as a true NYC punk and pissed as all hell? Can Heavy survive a true group of hardcores invading his turf or will he just wind up POUNDED? This new trade paperback collects the critically acclaimed three-issue miniseries by Brian Wood (COUSCOUS EXPRESS, CHANNEL ZERO) and Steve Rolston (QUEEN & COUNTRY, MEK). Digest sized.] ArtBomb review

Public Domain: A Channel Zero Designbook. [From AiT/Planet Lar: PUBLIC DOMAIN collects close to five years of preliminary and post-CHANNEL ZERO design and artwork, including close to 60 pages of never-seen comics from creator Brian Wood's art school years. Also included are dozens of deleted scenes, rejected pages, posters, sketches, script excerpts, creator's notes and character designs from the original series, as well as the contents of the special CHANNEL ZERO issue "Dupe", which remains out of print and unavailable since early 1999. All told, PUBLIC DOMAIN is a complete and fascinating collection detailing the origin of the concepts and characters that appeared in CHANNEL ZERO, the method that Wood employed to produce the series, and a detailed behind-the-scenes look at the whole creative process. Beautifully designed and meticulously compiled and edited by the creator himself, PUBLIC DOMAIN is a must-have for all CHANNEL ZERO and Brian Wood fans, for budding artists and writers, and for students of the graphic narrative format.] ArtBomb review

Supermarket (4-issue mini; w Brian Wood; a Kristian Donaldson). [From IDW: In the future world of Supermarket, it's the literal truth. Legitimate and black-market economies rule the City, overseen by the vying factions of the Yakuza and Porno Swede crime families. Convenience store clerkette and 16-year-old suburban wise-ass Pella Suzuki suddenly finds herself in the middle of it all, heir to an empire she couldn't possibly inherit, but hitmen on both sides aren't taking any chances. Supermarket is anti-consumerism with a healthy dose of violence and humor. This collection of the sold-out miniseries was co-created and written by writer Brian Wood and features art and colors from Kristian Donaldson, along with some bonus pages from Donaldson, too.]

Tourist (OGN; a Toby Cypress). [From AiT/Planet Lar: When Moss arrives in a remote coastal village on the North Sea, he is welcomed as what he appears to be: a somewhat grubby American backpacker. He gets contract work on the offshore oil rig and courts Julie Tucker, a local café owner and single mother. Gradually the town begins to realize just who it is they're harboring: a Special Forces soldier gone AWOL-turned-smuggler, and, if that wasn't bad enough, he has a lot of really rough bastards riding into town after him. The safety of the town and the woman he loves vs. the successful conclusion of a very lucrative drug deal — which will Moss choose? ]

Couriers

Couscous Express (a Brett Weldele). [From AiT/Planet Lar: Scooter enthusiast and spoiled brat, Olive Yassin, delivers food for her parents' award-winning Middle Eastern restaurant, Couscous Express. She hates it. It's boring. She would much rather be hanging out with her courier-mercenary boyfriend, Moustafa. But when the local branch of the stylish and dangerous Turkish Scooter Mafia make a move against the restaurant, she knows she has to do something, anything, to protect her family. Couscous Express combines delicious food, automatic weapons fire, and scooter culture into a hectic, adrenaline-fueled story of love, family, war, and the best hummus recipe in New York City.] Old Book of the Week 2/25/04 ArtBomb review

The Couriers (a Rob G). [From AiT/Planet Lar: Starring characters from Brian Wood's COUSCOUS EXPRESS, the sleeper hit graphic novel of 2002, THE COURIERS is a fast-paced action-adventure comic set in New York City, featuring Moustafa and Special: mercenary couriers. They do the work the normal couriers are only barely aware of: intelligence, large cash transfers, protection, assassinations, blockade-running... you name it. But there is one job they always knew they would refuse, known as a "biologic." But when the package turns out to be a young deaf/mute girl from Nepal, with a gone-rogue Chinese Red Army Brigade hot on her heels, how can they NOT get involved? THE COURIERS is a pure action movie on paper.] ArtBomb review

The Couriers 02: Dirtbike Manifesto (a Rob G). [From AiT/Planet Lar: Sometimes Moustafa and Special, THE COURIERS, run guns. Yeah, it's not the most admirable job in the world to take on, but they got rent to pay and ammo to buy, and M has acquired a rather expensive new hobby: building the ultimate motocross dirtbike from scratch. But their latest gig goes bad... all kinds of wrong... and it ticks 'em off. They head to upstate New York to track the guns to the source to and get a little vengeance and get P-A-I-D in the process. Fucking rednecks, New England hicks, what're they gonna do? Ever been to these half-dead New York towns? The slow economy hits hard up there, and the streets are dead on a weekend, and half the shops are boarded up. Lots of pissed off people with too much time on their hands, and half of 'em own guns... don't need two young arrogant punks from The City to roll into town like they own the place...] Book of the Week 2/25/04

The Couriers 03: The Ballad of Johnny Funwrecker (a Rob G). [From AiT/Planet Lar: Book Three in the COURIERS saga hits the rewind button on the lives of everybody's two favorite urban mercenary couriers and goes back, way back, to 1993. Moustafa's a dirtbag grunge kid selling weed by the cube at Astor Place and Special's a riot grrrl with a mean streak, looking to carve a place for herself in the criminal underworld. How do these two unlikely partners meet up and become the tight-knit team they are now? Meet Johnny Funwrecker, the hilarious larger-than-life Chinatown mob boss and role model for little street rat hooligans all over. Wood doesn't scrimp on the action and humor in this origin story, and artist Rob G kicks out his own hometown anthem, drawing New York City the way only a true local can.]

DMZ

1 On the Ground (DC/Vertigo; 1-5; w Brian Wood; a Riccardo Burchielli). [From DC Comics: From indie comics icon Brian Wood and up-and-coming Italian artist Riccardo Burchielli comes the first volume of DMZ, collecting the first 5 issues of the series about the ultimate embedded war journalist trapped in a most unlikely war zone: the streets of New York City. In the near future, America's worst nightmare has come true. With military adventurism overseas bogging down the Army and National Guard, the U.S. government mistakenly neglects the very real threat of anti-establishment militias scattered across the 50 states. Like a sleeping giant, Middle America rises up and violently pushes its way to the shining seas, coming to a standstill at the line in the sand -- Manhattan or, as the world now knows it, the DMZ. Matty Roth, a naïve young man and aspiring photojournalist, lands a dream gig following a veteran war journalist into the heart of the DMZ. Things soon go terribly wrong, and Matty finds himself lost and alone in a world he's only seen on television. There, he is faced with a choice: try to find a way off the island, or make his career with an assignment most journalists would kill for. But can he survive in a war zone long enough to report the truth?] Book of the Week 6/7/06: I admit it, I'm a Brian Wood whore. But since he insists on continuing to turn out an endless succession of top-notch material, I can wear the badge proudly. This one is about a vague future in which a war has divided the US, and Manhattan has become a no-man's land. Our hero, Matty Roth, is a photographer who gets sent in with a news crew, and quickly finds himself alone in a very alien society. Both the underground society of Manhattan and Matty's attempts to survive there and fit in are fascinating. This has the potential to be Vertigo's next magnificent long-term story, in the wake of Sandman, Preacher, Lucifer, Fables, Y: The Last Man, and 100 Bullets. It has already shown itself to be worthy of that august company. Vertigo continues, year in year out, to quietly put out some of the best books in the business.

2 Body of a Journalist (DC/Vertigo; 6-12; w Brian Wood; a Riccardo Burchielli, Kristian Donaldson, Brian Wood). [From DC Comics: Critics from across the country are calling Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli's DMZ "one of the best comics being published today." (Ain't It Cool News) With its visionary yet realistic depiction of an America divided again by civil war, DMZ has become an essential mirror of our times. Roth’s star power lands the break of a lifetime: an interview with the infamous leaders of the Free Armies.]

3 Public Works (DC/Vertigo; 13-17; w Brian Wood; a Riccardo Burchielli). [From DC Comics: “If residents of Manhattan often feel at odds with the rest of the country, the comic book series DMZ magnifies that anxiety with its radical premise.” — THE NEW YORK TIMES Don’t miss the latest volume collecting the red-hot Vertigo series from Brian Wood! Matty severs his ties to The Liberty News and becomes a free agent. He soon finds himself in over his head as he goes undercover and infiltrates a terrorist cell determined to disrupt any and all construction sites trying to rebuild the city.]

4 Friendly Fire (DC/Vertigo; 18-22; w Brian Wood; a Riccardo Burchielli, Vikto Kalvachev, Nathan Fox). [From DC Comics: Matty Roth reluctantly lands an interview for Liberty News with an enlisted U.S. solider who's found guilty of a massacre within the DMZ. What follows is a look at how the DMZ came to be, from the perspective of a kid who came from the Midwest and walked right into a nightmare.] 3/12/08