Tag Archives: dmz

Brian Wood written up in the Village Voice

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Illustration Alum Brian Wood (’97) was recently interviewed for an article in the Village Voice.  He talked about why San Francisco just isn’t as good as New York (to him), how his artwork has developed, and the critical and social reaction to his art.  Here’s an excerpt:

Comic-book fame is a funny thing: Even as Hollywood pushes the medium further into the mainstream, a sense of geek solidarity remains. Writers and artists feel compelled to stay in touch with their fans; the fans, in turn, continue to treat creators like best friends. “I’m hesitant to compare him to an emo band, but I feel like Brian has that sort of connection to the audience,” says James Lucas Jones, an editor at Oni Press who worked with Wood on Local. “People feel emotionally invested in him.”

Wood’s own fame was cemented in the late ’90s, after the publication of the William Gibson–esque Channel Zero. He now calls it something of “an art student’s rant”—a ” ‘zine where everybody talks about what pisses them off.” But Zero led to a writing stint at Marvel’s Generation X and paved the way for the series Couriers, Couscous Express, and Pounded, about a rock band in New York. Eventually, Wood transitioned from occasionally drawing into writing full-time, mostly because he “had so many ideas, and not enough time to put them to paper.”

Make sure you read the rest of the article here.  Brian also has a list of other articles about his work here on his official website.  You can pick up a copy of his latest book, The New York Four here.

Congrats on your continuing success, Brian!

Illustration Alum Brian Wood’s comic DMZ written up in Print Magazine

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brian wood’s DMZ covers

Illustration alum Brian Wood is garnering attention in a recent article in Print Magazine. Author and artist of DMZ, a comic book he creates with artist Riccardo Burchielli, Wood tackles the tricky issue of war in his work, creating a re-imagined America ripped apart by disunion. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

A rocket explodes in a neighborhood in the middle of a war zone, and a U.S. Army division arrives to survey the scene. The commander turns to the embedded photojournalist who’s been traveling with them and suggests a way to characterize the photographs he’s taking: “Insurgent cell defeated en route to engage American forces’ or something. Whatever. And crop out the small bodies.”

It could have happened last week in Baghdad or Fallujah. But this scene is set in downtown Manhattan, in the future—in the comic book DMZ for Vertigo/DC Comics. Writer Brian Wood and artist Riccardo Burchielli’s ongoing series, which imagines a devastating civil war in the United States, is one of a new class of mainstream comics: stories that are clearly responding to the war in Iraq without referring to it directly. Using settings and characters that are futuristic, surreal, or satiric, these new comics go where the network news fears to tread.

Make sure to read the rest of the article here. Visit DC Comics/Vertigo to pick up the most recent issue of DMZ (on sale today!).  Congrats to Brian on his thought-provoking work.  We’re proud to call him an alum!