THE BRIAN WOOD PROJECT (Part 10)

In case you missed it;

PART 1 – INTRODUCTION & OUTLINE OF WHAT’S TO COME
PART 2 – THE UNIFYING THEME OF IDENTITY
PART 3 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE EARLY YEARS (Part 1)
PART 4 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE EARLY YEARS (Part 2)
PART 5 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE MODERN PERIOD (Part 1)
PART 6 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE MODERN PERIOD (Part 2)
PART 7 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE POST-MODERN PERIOD
PART 8 – RESTATING THE PRIMARY THEME & CATALOGUING SECONDARY TRAITS
PART 9 – DEFENDING THE NEW POSITION: WHY BRIAN WOOD IS THE VOICE OF OUR GENERATION

THE INTERVIEW: 13 QUESTIONS W/ BRIAN WOOD

Brian Wood graciously agreed to an interview during the hectic days prior to his appearance at the New York Comic Con and in the immediate wake of DC Entertainment’s restructuring announcements. It made for a fun and unexpected way to epilogue THE BRIAN WOOD PROJECT. Enjoy!

I’ve read so many interviews with you that it’s a little daunting to come up with an original question. I know you didn’t get into comics until your college years at Parsons, right? So, when you were a kid what did you want to do when you grew up?

I think at varying points, a veterinarian, a pro-skateboarder and then a pro-snowboarder, typical youth stuff. But I always drew pictures, and it seemed a foregone conclusion that I would go to art school, even if it was deferred for several years. But aside from a general idea of what an artist might do for a living (if anything) I was pretty clueless.

When I turned 20 I got an advance on this pitiful inheritance I was due at 21, and used it to move to NYC. Somewhere around there I discovered HATE, the Peter Bagge comic, in association with the rise of grunge rock, which I was pretty into at the time (1991-ish). Comics were still not anything I thought I could do, at least not until I stumbled across VIOLENT CASES, that Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean comic. That book, specifically the artwork, seemed impossibly futuristic. I would look at a page and not have the slightest clue how a human being could produce images like that, but I knew I wanted to find out. This was the year I was applying to art schools and comics were becoming something I was paying attention to. Not until sophomore year, though, when I walked into St. Marks Comics in search of more McKean and found a whole row of Vertigo comics, did I basically decide this was something that was for me. Strictly speaking artwork, at this point. Writing came much, much later.

What’s your reaction to THE BRIAN WOOD PROJECT in general, and specifically on the premise of identity being the thematic link in your body of work?

It's flattering. I know you didn't write it for me, and I sorta hesitate to comment on it. I'm glad there are people like you out there who put this level of thought and consideration into comics. There are too many others who seem to enjoy being negative just to be negative.

I’ve tried to define and catalogue a number of your writing characteristics; are any of those traits conscious decisions, or are they just part of your inherent style?

It's not conscious. I realized the identity thing only a short time before you started to, but I didn't really examine it too deeply. I am not a self-analytical person, when it comes to my creative endeavors. I tend to prefer to go with my gut, for better or for worse. I look at other creators like Fraction or Warren Ellis, who will talk and write at length about their process, about panel counts and beats and formats, and that's just not something I ever really do. It's very much an internal process.

How do you feel about this crazy DEMO: VOLUME THREE prediction, that it could be the ninth work in your POST-MODERN period, landing some time around 2016?

It's not crazy... I mean, I dunno if there will ever be a DEMO 3. I think if/when I work with Becky again, we might be better served coming up with something new. But I will say that I have a half-dozen comics proposals sitting right here and they all belong, in a sense, to each other. I wrote them all thinking about my post-DMZ career, and they all reflect what I'm in to now. If even three of these six or seven get produced, in retrospect, they will absolutely be part of a conceptual whole, a period of my career. I hope I can see all of these projects to fruition.

I’ve seen you asked the standard question “what artists do you want to work with?” But, I’d like to flip it around. Having co-wrote with Warren Ellis, is there anyone you’d like to write with, or are you at a point where the idea of inviting someone in to co-write a project interests you at all?

David Lapham. I've been thinking about this! I don't think my temperament is one that lends itself so well to collaboration - see my "internal process" comment above. I don't "jam" or kick around ideas with the artists I work with. BUT, I think there can be an interesting way to make it work, for me. I love David's work, I'm jealous of it in so many ways, and I would love to be a part of his creative process, to witness it and share in it a little bit. I'm still not 100% sure how the nuts and bolts of that would work, but I hope to give it a shot.

If you’re not tired of talking about WildStorm yet, with DV8 being so well received, how did the recent news of the end of the imprint hit you? For what it’s worth, I saw a few comment threads repeatedly citing “Brian Wood’s DV8” as an example of there still being life left in these characters.

I was sad, still am, for a lot of reasons. It was bad, devastating news for the people who work at and for Wildstorm, and I also think that there is absolutely life in that collection of characters. As much as in anything else, and perhaps more so, since its so much younger than the DC and Marvel catalogs. I don't really know what else to say. Somewhere in the Wildstorm offices sits proposals I wrote for a great many books that will now never see the light of day. I'm bummed about that. Beyond that I really hope I can work with my editor Ben Abernathy again someday.

I know it hasn’t wrapped yet, so perhaps some of the intelligent design elements will out by the end, but did you intend DV8 to be deconstructionist in nature or is that just a happy story byproduct that I’m picking up on?

I really just love those characters, how fucked up they all are, the inconsistencies, the contradictions, and flaws built in to them. It sounds a little dorky, but I really just wanted to celebrate them, to show to as many people as I can reach what I saw in them. The deconstructionist bit may just be what happens when someone like me, who is a stranger/outsider to the superhero genre, writes one of those books. I dunno. I wrote a bit about that in the last Demo essay, about my relationship with that genre. Anyway, it wasn't intentional in the sense that it was a stated goal of the series.

You’ve long been an advocate of an arts-first, creator-owned approach, so on the rare occasion you do work on a company owned project, what’s the thought process that leads you there?

Only if it feels right, if it makes sense with my larger body of work. DV8 obviously does, as you would agree. I don't want to do company-owned work for the hell of it, just for some quick money or to mark time, at least if I can help it. It should be work that appeals to my readership, that doesn't take up too much time, that I can genuinely get behind and put myself into. I think you'll probably see more company work from me in the next few years than you saw in the last, as DV8 sorta broke the ice, but it really has to be in the minority. I don't want to be a creator who does four company books in order to keep one creator-owned one alive. It should be the other way around, ideally, right?

I know Kirkman caught a lot of flak for his manifesto video about creating original works… whatever you saw online in terms of negative reactions, Justin, you have no idea the intense level of anger within the creator community to it. I agree with Kirkman, though, and it’s not anything that I haven't seen others publicly say. Brian K Vaughn, I remember, wrote something online to a similar effect when Y ended.

I don't have anything against company work, or against anyone that does it. But I do put it in what I feel should be its proper place, and that will always come second to original work.

Do you consciously create a “career plan?” What does the future hold for the industry in general, and where do you see yourself in another 13 years?

Christ, you wouldn't believe to what degree I consider and plan. Everything is mapped out, and as a result, everything I've wanted to do or wanted to happen has come to pass, from working with certain people, to what projects follow other projects, to my DC exclusive (something I set my sights on about three years before it actually came to pass). I credit this with, in part, my ability to build a career on creator-owned work. It took me a lot longer, but it was all completely on my own terms and exactly how I wanted it.

In another 13 years I'll be 50, and I literally can't fathom that, can't imagine what I'll be like at that age. Fifty! I hope I'll still be making books... all I've ever wanted to do was make books. It's easy to be tempted by videogame work, or to try and write for TV and film, and I've dabbled a bit. But I'm not one of, and don't want to be one of, those comic book creators openly lusting after big (or small) screen work. Books will always be my first priority. Anything else I do end up doing should be in service of that, done to support that.

You and I have talked before about how someone like Jason Aaron can just absolutely tear it up in every issue of SCALPED. What other writers or books are you impressed by at the moment?

I don't read a lot of comics. I'll follow writers or artists I know and like, like Jason, and Warren Ellis, David Lapham and so on. I get most of my kicks from manga these days, with Detroit Metal City currently at the top of the list. There is a fearlessness to most manga that I am very envious of, and very near the top of my personal short list of Things To Change About Comics is to create an environment where more people can have the freedom to be that fearless in the American industry, and be rewarded for it.

I’m from Silicon Valley, so various aspects of the tech culture still fascinate me. How has social networking and the web in general affected your career?

Its hard to answer only because I've not had a career at a time when the web WASN'T a big part of it. I got my Delphi forum around the same time Warren Ellis did, in 1997 or so. In terms of outreach, press, finding and then communicating with my collaborators, it's just a given. I don't know how I would do what I do without it. I wouldn't have found Becky, Riccardo, Kristian Donaldson, etc.

What’s next, Brian? I know you have some big announcements coming up in the near future, but is there anything you want to tease or hint at?

I don't know. I don't know how to tease it out. I think I can say that I have a book that is probably officially approved that is slated to replace DMZ… not in the sense of a sequel or anything like that, but literally… the next long form monthly book to fill the space in the schedule as DMZ comes to a close a year from now. But it’s not entirely dissimilar to DMZ. I think it does for environmentalism and disaster fiction what DMZ did for urban war and politics. There is another project that is so close to my heart that it can, at times, cause me physical pain because I want to write it SO BAD and I cannot get the relevant people to like my proposal! This is a project I will fund personally and self-publish if I have to. I don't even want to breathe a word of it aloud, though.

Last question, and you’ll have to play along, but let’s say you’re wrongly accused of a horrible crime and receive the death penalty. What’s your proverbial last meal consist of? Dazzle us with your insider foodie knowledge and favorite spots in New York. Don’t hold out on me man, I’ll hurt somebody for the right Greek food.

Isn't it the case that everyone's last meal is always a very simple one? Wouldn't the very best homemade mac and cheese always trump a tasting menu at Momofuku, in that situation? That said, if I had to order out for my final meal, it would be a toss-up between the warm lemongrass chicken salad at Rice and the schnitzel and potatoes at Cafe Steinhof. Simple stuff.

Creator & Critic Explore Creation & Critique (Part 2 of 4)

In case you missed it, check out Part 1 in this series discussing the relationship between creators and critics in the comic book industry.

Justin: Ah, I remember that western song; that was funny! I think Kevin's feedback paid off, I think your work certainly grew to show a realistic balance of personal experiences.

I think I'm my own toughest critic as well; for example, finding typos after something has been posted just *kills* me. "How did I miss that?! Grrr!"

I have received some feedback that's stuck with me. I've had sort of an online relationship with Brian Wood, and then I finally met him in person at this year's San Diego Con. He said something to the effect of "there's a lot of people doing what you do, but not very well, you're one of the most articulate, well written, etc." Coming from a professional writer, one who I respect and am a fan of, that carried a lot of weight. But it's funny, because Brian has pushed back on some of my criticisms from time to time. When his DC/Vertigo series Northlanders began, I gave him some grief about his period characters speaking in modern parlance and he called me on it. But it was never adversarial or lacked civility, it was just him taking me down his path of reasoning and explaining an artistic choice he'd made. I had a better appreciation of the work because of it.

Another that springs to mind is a time that Steven Grant at CBR once put out a call for anyone still just doing weekly reviews, he perceived that there were few in the field still doing this, so I submitted 13 Minutes as an example. Ultimately, he did this quick round table of like the top 10 sites still doing weekly reviews, and linked to them. He ended his summary of 13 Minutes by saying that I "wasn't afraid to be opinionated" and that hit me hard. It gave me some focus. Keep doing it. Keep telling the truth as I see it.

Lastly, Kurt Busiek stopped by to correct me on something. I was writing some random piece about his Green Lantern strip in Wednesday Comics and made a passing reference to his work on The Brave & The Bold. Well, I know very well that was Mark Waid, I just totally brain-farted, rushed the post without proofing, and he was like "well, thanks for the kudos on Green Lantern, but yeah, The Brave & The Bold was Mark, not me." Haha! It was a minor mistake in the grand scheme of things, but embarrassing since I pride myself on getting the details right. You just eat humble pie, be gracious, smile, nod, and move on.

Aside from just the obvious need for accuracy and fact-checking, all of those experiences really just taught me to be precise. Am I actually saying what I mean to say, in the clearest way possible? Sometimes I have a tendency to flood my sentences with vocab and the meaning gets watered down. Sometimes something like "there's a high level of detail in these pencils" becomes "the efficacy of the line work is dramatically rendered in such a way as to heighten our..." and that's just kind of nebulous. Remember Hemingway, I say to myself sometimes. Short. Crisp. Declarative.

What about you, as a creator, have you ever pushed back on a critic's assessment of your work?

Moving on to another topic, I'm interested in any ethical dilemmas you may have encountered. Have you ever experienced any sort of conflict of interest where a review or interaction with a critic is concerned?

Ryan: In answer to the pushing back on a critic’s assessment, I have done that from time to time. I recall a pretty flippant and ignorant comment posted to a positive review I got. The person who commented must have only read the word “autobiography” and made a judgment, because his two cents was something like, “Sounds like Harvey Pekar. Already been done.” I wrote my master’s thesis on autobiography in comics, buddy. Don’t mess! :) Ha-ha! So, I wrote back (very diplomatically) and explained that while, yes, Harvey Pekar’s name is pretty much synonymous with autobio comics, it doesn’t mean there have not been new advances in the autobiographical comics genre. I pointed out a few reasons why my books were different and probably wrapped it up with something conciliatory like thanking him for taking the time to comment. Anyhow, it’s not often that I’ll rebut, but I felt like it was a grassroots opportunity to educate.

Anyhow, about the ethical dilemmas between myself and critics, I’m not sure what sort of ethical dilemmas I might have, if someone is willing to review my stuff. (Spoken like a self-promoting opportunist.) Can you give me an example of what you mean?

Justin: Well, I don't think you would ever do anything like this, but I once met a creator (who shall remain nameless) at an LCS signing. Essentially, he offered me a free copy of his book if I promised to give it a positive review. I explained that I didn't operate that way, that all I could guarantee was my honest reaction to the book, which may or may not be positive, but that I would promise to do a review, period. He seemed exasperated by this, as if I was the only one who'd ever rejected such an offer. I began to walk away; he called me back and we started haggling like it was a Persian Bazaar. What we ended up settling on was that if I liked it, I'd do a review, and if I didn't like it, I wouldn't post anything. In the end, the book was awful and I didn't post a review. I wanted to trash it, but figured I'd given my word and no exposure whatsoever was probably better punishment than even the bad press would have been. Again, I know a move like that isn't your style, but I'm wondering if you have encountered any type of conflict in the past?

That leads into my next question, which is how would you describe the relationship between creator and critic? Is it inherently adversarial or can it be symbiotic?

Ryan: Ha-ha! I was totally LOL-ing over that last story. What an awful and aggressive impression to leave with a reviewer. Do I have stories like that? God, no. At least I hope not! Maybe you’ll have to poll the reviewer community. Ha-ha. But, honestly, I think the most assertive I get with reviewers is giving them a free book and hoping for the best. So, I think I’m going to be a disappointment with regards to creator/reviewer drama-rama. Sorry.

On with the creator/reviewer relationship query. I’m starting to feel like these are loaded questions, Justin. Do you have more stories to get off your chest? :)

I’ve actually had pretty good relationships with reviewers. As I said before, even if it is not a glowing review, I respect them for giving me honest, critical feedback about my work. That’s what I want. That’s what makes us grow (as creators). If every reviewer pats the creators on their heads like mommy does, none of us will get any better. So, yes, even in situations where there is constructive critique of my work, I still view the feedback as valuable. This was the case with review site, Optical Sloth (as I mentioned above), and several others as well. So I’d cast my vote for the creator/reviewer relationship as being largely symbiotic. Or maybe I’ve fortuitously steered clear of enough snarky reviewers to be blissfully ignorant.

After you spin me your tale of adversarial creator/reviewer relationship woe, I’d like to hear about your criteria for a good comic. What special qualities, what sort of hutzpa, what characteristics do you look for in an “A+ reviewed” comic? Maybe this will act as an indirect constructive criticism to comic creators at large.

PLEASE JOIN US HERE IN ONE WEEK FOR PART 3 IN OUR SERIES!

THE BRIAN WOOD PROJECT (Part 4)

In case you missed it;

PART 1 – INTRODUCTION & OUTLINE OF WHAT’S TO COME
PART 2 – THE UNIFYING THEME OF IDENTITY
PART 3 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE EARLY YEARS (Part 1)

TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE EARLY YEARS (Part 2)

CHANNEL ZERO: JENNIE ONE (2003, AiT/Planet Lar): JENNIE ONE is a prequel to what we’ve already witnessed in the first volume of CHANNEL ZERO. It’s important to point out that when this book opens, although we recognize Jennie 2.5 as our protagonist, at this point in time she’s still simply Jennifer Havel. As Wood will do in latter volumes of THE COURIERS, he likes to tinker with a chopped up and out of sequence chronology; it’s done so here to rewind the narrative and show the origin story of a young art student who would become a revolutionary. Though Wood’s candid political reactions remain the primary conceptual underpinnings of the CHANNEL ZERO universe, we can see other familiar themes and characteristics at play.

The first volume of CHANNEL ZERO was full of speculation surrounding mayoral politics in New York too, but it’s important to differentiate the works in terms of the real world timeline they inhabit. CHANNEL ZERO was pre-9/11 and while it derided Rudy Giuliani’s right wing conservatism vis-à-vis “The Clean Act,” the conjecture it depicted was still open to some interpretation. JENNIE ONE, on the other hand, is marked by a post-9/11 presence and realigns the thrust of the ideological conflict to firmly critique George W. Bush’s anti-terrorism measures, with things like The Patriot Act, which seek to suppress civil liberties, ironically all in the name of protecting civil liberties. Simply suspecting someone of being in a terrorist cell gives the government license to do anything they want when the sentiment is backed by mass hysteria and not the law. Any sort of anti-government “chatter” can now be targeted, even if it is in the form of the provocative art that Jennifer engages in. Through no fault of her own, she’s been labeled subversive, and moves from being a promising art student to being perceived as a budding enemy of the state because the external standards of decency have changed.

As Brian Wood is showing us Jennie 2.5’s origin story as Jennifer Havel, it’s critical to our line of thought to explain that in this context a character’s “origin” is synonymous with their “identity.” It’s the changing political landscape and all that occurs in this world that informs and redefines Jennifer’s identity. As she says, “it changed the city, it changed the country,” and “it changed the world,” but most importantly it changed her. This brand of ultra-conservatism alienates casual dissenters and moderates, Jennifer and her otherwise ambivalent art crowd are forced into a more radicalized state of being, characterized as engaging in “dissident behavior,” which grows into full blown political activism. Jennifer the art student becomes Jennie 2.5, the pirate “info-terrorist” and “media slut.” The story quickly becomes one of discovering identity, the inherent human desire for personal expression, and finding a place in society, even if that place is counter to the majority opinion or governing parties. Jennifer’s old identity is stripped away, so she must now build her identity anew and find a relevant space for Jennie 2.5 to exist in.

While Wood obviously hones the microscope tightly around his female protagonist, it’s not hard for the audience to zoom back out to the larger political arena and assess some of the commentary. This yields a result which is still very much focused on identity, though not of Jennie 2.5, but of our country. Both in JENNIE ONE and out here in the real post-9/11 world, we find the United States at a precarious and turbulent time in history in the years just following 9/11. The very identity of the country is in flux with civil liberties being curtailed to some degree, perhaps most intensely typified in the wake of the Bush Doctrine, both domestically and abroad. With the mere insinuation of dissent or “we-know-it-when-we-see-it” radicalism, you can find government agents swooping down to protect civil liberties, not yours of course, everyone else’s. As tolerance fades and dissent moves slightly away from being patriotic and more toward being perceived as politically subversive, these extreme externalities often create the very thing they fear. If you suppress rights because you fear any whiff of extremism, that climate actually creates greater extremism guided simply by principle. If you’re threatening to take something away and make it illegal, then suddenly people feel like acting it out, whatever it is, just to prove a point. I’m the same way. If you tell me there is a new policy at work, then the first thing I want to do, on principle alone, is to question its merit and efficacy. I want to exercise my right to contradict the policy and find a loophole around it. Whereas if you never threatened my right to engage in that behavior, if you don’t push me to extremism, then I probably would’ve never challenged the ruling or wanted to carry out the action in question in the first place.

JENNIE ONE is also noteworthy because it marks the first full length work in collaboration with the inimitable Becky Cloonan. Judging by the introduction, it appears they were forged in fire together as “art terrorists.” Here she attempts to ape Wood’s own style from the first volume of CHANNEL ZERO to some degree, but I detect some shots that feel influenced by Paul Pope’s brushed ink style. With the clarity of hindsight, it’s also easy to think that some of the shots of Jennifer’s apartment have a line weight in the background details that is reminiscent of Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon, who Cloonan would later go on to win an Eisner Award with for the anthology 5. As it stands, Cloonan becomes a strong presence in the stable of artists who help define Wood’s own identity as a creator. The duo goes on to produce multiple projects together, helping solidify the inclusion of talented artists as another secondary characteristic in Wood’s body of work.

In the end, JENNIE ONE proves to be a cautionary tale with a robust sense of political discourse that perhaps eclipses the identity thread at times, yet it’s still very present in the formation of Jennie 2.5 (nee Jennifer Havel) and her burgeoning sense of self. It’s about art as a form of communication and expressing dissent as a timeless act that is essential to a purportedly free society. It continues the tradition of strong artistic collaborators and uses New York City as a familiar and beloved backdrop, with casual references to “The Mott Street Riots,” The Bowery, The GWB, and a “Queens bound J-train.” It highlights the social tensions of a new generation birthed on September 11, 2001 – it too a date which will live in infamy. It employs a well written female character who comes of age while fleshing out her own identity by defining her role in society right before our eyes. JENNIE ONE certainly has a more immediate sense of danger being on the doorstep than I felt from the original volume of CHANNEL ZERO. Aside from supporting the identity thread, the most powerful take away for me from JENNIE ONE is that Wood opens the story with the plain text “New York City. Now.” It’s a solemn reminder that this dystopian state can exist at any time if we’re not careful.

POUNDED (2003, Oni Press): On the surface, POUNDED looks like a stereotypical Oni Press book. It’s a little offbeat, with a punk rock influence laid slickly on top of what would otherwise be a straightforward slice-of-life story. Enter Brian Wood with additional layers of meaning and an off type narrative structure.

Heavy Parker thinks he’s on top of the punk scene, operating under the illusion of control, advocating hard music, DIY ‘zine production, sex with whomever he wants, and generally flaunting it in the face of the stagnated middle and upper class sets. But, we learn quickly that Heavy’s persona is all a front; his identity is a façade. In reality, he’s not very talented; he’s actually a spoiled rich kid with a dope apartment, all signs of the very trappings that he seems to be railing against. With his self-loathing buried deep, his sexual conquests seeking to add value to his fake life, the notion of character identity is front and center.

POUNDED involves a basic life choice that grows to be a pivotal identity dilemma for the protagonist. Heavy is presented with a series of events that redefine his social composition and fragile faux identity. When Heavy’s girlfriend Missy shows up after her brief exile at college, she’s now the one who appears to be largely in control, having fleshed out a true punk identity for herself. To some extent, Heavy’s identity quest becomes one of role reversal with Missy. Heavy becomes the one pushed out of the social scene, Missy rises to dominance, and it subverts their positions as characters, along with their traditional gender roles. This process makes Missy a really strong and well-written female. She almost steals the show with how well written she is. Through Heavy’s fall from his self-aggrandized heights, his quest to redefine his identity would seem to offer some measure of redemptive transformation, but Wood avoids the obvious. He subverts this predictable trope in romance books, and has his protagonist not learn much of anything.

In the end, we can see that Wood does indeed use the primary theme of identity, along with a couple of secondary writing traits. Though we see the story set in Vancouver (because artist Steve Rolston wanted to draw his hometown), this could easily have taken place in New York where the punk scene really flourished. So, identity is still the headlining band, with genre subversion and well written females being the opening acts. On top of it, it’s almost as if POUNDED was an effort to exorcise these youthful punk traits from the creator and the project had acted as a cathartic cipher for his own creative identity to evolve. In a 2005 chat with Brian Cronin at CBR, Wood commented that he had no real desire to revisit POUNDED and had moved on: “My old stuff was all ‘zine-style punk rock stuff, almost exclusively... but now I have a lot of different methods in my toolbox.”

FIGHT FOR TOMORROW (2003, DC/Vertigo): FIGHT FOR TOMORROW’s lead character, Cedric, says that growing up in the fight camps under the brutal supervision of his captors “taught me how to be a man” and “taught me how to fight.” Yet he hates them for making him who he is as a person; he hates them for imposing that identity upon him without his consent. And so, FIGHT FOR TOMORROW is immediately the story of Cedric attempting some redemption for his actions, and of trying to find his lost love Christy. In a larger context it becomes his quest to define himself, to take on an identity through choice, not by default due to his oppressive surroundings.

One secondary story trait involves the fairly strong presence of New York; there are mentions of The Bowery section of the city, a lot of influence of the local Triads, and it almost seems to be some twisted cousin to the environment that Wilson inhabits in DMZ. There’s a bit of generational tension with “Little Brother” hanging out with the wrong crowd, and Cedric tries to prevent him from assuming an identity that mirrors Cedric’s own. The underground fight rings are a subversive sub-culture themselves, and it’s also interesting to me that sometimes collaborator Nathan Fox did the cover to issue four.

In FIGHT FOR TOMORROW, identity is a commodity and was literally for sale in order to survive. Cedric sells his life story rights to escape the fight camps, seeking to replace it with something more meaningful. Part of Cedric’s identity seems to be missing without Christy, and when he finally finds her, he must learn to let go of his past persona in order to be someone new, letting her go in the process. Cedric must fight this system of oppression so that he can create a healthy new identity and a bright new future. He must FIGHT FOR TOMORROW.

VAMPIRELLA/WITCHBLADE #1: BROOKLYN BOUNCE (2003, Harris Comics): I admit that I didn’t buy this when it came out in 2003 and wasn’t even aware of its existence until I consulted a Brian Wood bibliography in preparation for this project. I’ll also admit that I expected it to be absolutely awful based solely on the reputation of the characters involved. It was surprisingly ok-ish, and it was curious to see how Wood would handle the project, since he so rarely takes on company owned characters, let alone ones with such a cheesy reputation. Purely visually, Steve Pugh’s pencils improved in the three years or so between this and his GENERATION X work. And hey, the copy I was lucky enough to find in a $1 bin (shout out to Jamie at SoCal Comics) had a swanky Mark Texeira cover.

On the narrative side, if you squint really hard you can start to make casual connections between this and the rest of Brian Wood’s body of work. The book does star two relatively well written female characters. And umm, it is called “Brooklyn Bounce,” so it’s about New York to some degree. Wood laces the dialogue with some NYC references to commuting across the bridge to Bay Ridge, for example. The link to our primary theme of identity is not extremely overt, but I think you can make the case for a light connection. This is a fairly standard team-up book, in that the headlining characters meet and initially mistake each other for the enemy, fight briefly as is the tradition, and then join forces to take on the true foe. The book is told from the POV of Sara Pezzini, aka: Witchblade, and to some degree she questions her role and who she wants to be in this adventure. Is teaming up with Vampirella the right thing to do? Does her alliance with Vampirella generally support “the good guys” or “the bad guys?” She openly wonders whether or not she should arrest Vampirella in her police officer persona, or let her go as she does, because knowing there is someone else out there like her makes her feel less alone in her Witchblade guise.

So, we arguably have a thin use of the primary identity theme, and then paper thin use of the two secondary traits of New York and well written females. I don’t personally think it’s that big of a deal if the VAMPIRELLA/WITCHBLADE: BROOKLYN BOUNCE one-shot doesn’t fit the typical Brian Wood schema strongly since it’s so divergent from the typical body of work. If something like DMZ or LOCAL dropped out of alignment, then that would be a strong counterexample. If this is a deal-breaker for you that this one little anomaly tends to stray a bit, that’s just something you’ll have to reconcile on your own. Let’s move on, shall we?

DEMO: VOLUME ONE (2003, AiT/Planet Lar & DC/Vertigo): I think the basic pitch for the original DEMO series was essentially residual energy from Wood’s brief stint at Marvel Comics writing GENERATION X. If you look closely, it’s basically him wanting to tell more realistic and reimaged X-Men stories, without the X-Men, without any superheroic trappings, and without actually uttering the word “mutant.”

DEMO: VOLUME ONE is a garage band mix-tape of isolated stories about teens manifesting weird powers and abilities, then having to contend with whatever emotional or physical fallout ensues. They’re self-contained and none have any bearing on the next, other than the common unifying theme of the identity crisis surrounding the characters portrayed. Physical manifestation of these latent adolescent abilities really acted as a tangible representation of the social anxiety and awkward malleable sense of identity that every teen experiences to some degree.

Wood is aided by recurring collaborator Becky Cloonan, her own malleable art identity at play; always in black and white, but every issue exhibits such a diverse range of experimental artistry. It’s easy to get lost in the intense stories and track Cloonan’s tonally shifting art style, so that you almost miss Wood’s deliberate subversion of the genre. He is modernizing and sublimating a humongous property, the UNCANNY X-MEN(!), one that’s been widely accepted in the mainstream world, and he’s successfully upending it right there in broad daylight in a way that nobody previous had attempted for the 40 years since its inception. I’m resisting rambling on more about DEMO: VOLUME ONE because its virtues have been extolled and its sense of experimentation and revitalization of the genre have been generally praised around the interwebs for years now. It is certainly one of the crisp highlights in a terrific career.

In some ways, this was a quiet coup d’état; in others, it was a bold proclamation to the world – a writer named Brian Wood had arrived.

Creator & Critic Explore Creation & Critique (Part 3 of 4)

In case you missed it, check out Part 1 and Part 2 in this series discussing the relationship between creators and critics in the comic book industry.

Justin: Ha! No, that one wasn't loaded. I really don't have any more drama to unload. I think I've been fortunate as well, that most of my experiences have been positive, or at least civil. I don't think the relationship is inherently adversarial, but it can certainly degenerate to that depending on the approach of the critic and/or stance of the creator. If the critic has a well reasoned observation and the creator is truly open to the feedback and not defensive, in other words - if everyone is an adult - then it won't collapse into something negative. I think the best examples are symbiotic. If someone like Antony Johnston (writer of Wasteland) tweets about my review of his book, well, I give his work exposure and buzz, he gives me more readers, and that just escalates back and forth. It's win-win, for us, for our readers, and hopefully for the industry in general. I love that feeling; that everyone is just rowing the boat in the same direction, advocating the industry holistically from a place of passion and appreciation.

What makes an A+ comic, you ask? Not to get all Jesse Helms (eww!), but uhh, I know it when I see it? I'm kidding, but only to emphasize that reviews really are inherently opinionated. I try to achieve a mix of my own subjective style preferences and more commonly accepted objective commentary on the craft. On the art side of things, stylistically I tend to like artists who either have a clean, realistic, almost sterile style (John Cassaday, Dave Gibbons, Terry Moore, Jamie McKelvie to name a few) or those with a very visceral, representational, more gritty style (artists like Danijel Zezelj, R.M. Guera, Ashley Wood, or Paul Pope to drop a few names). On the objective craft side, consistency is a big concern of mine. Do your characters look the same from panel to panel? I want to get the feeling that you've done character studies. I want to see consistent use of lighting, perspective, and proportion in the work. I think, rarely, you get an artist who masters the cold craft, and then begins to push the envelope and experiment with style and attain a transcendent quality. I'd cite the work of J.H. Williams III and his recent Detective Comics run starring Batwoman as an example of this convergence. That's certainly A+ work.

As for writing, of course I look for it to be technically competent. Nothing drives me more batshit crazy than typos, malapropisms, incorrect tenses, poor use of apostrophes, commas, etc. I call myself a writer, so I appreciate a clever turn of phrase, compelling or creative use of the language, and memorable characters who are identifiable by their manners of speaking. I need dialogue to sound realistic; I'll read that stuff out loud to myself to see if it passes the real world test. In terms of plotting or story, I'm looking for something unique, and it's important to note that it's all in the telling. "Undercover FBI Agent on an Indian Reservation" sounds like it's been done. "Vikings" sounds *really* boring. But if you look at the way in which Jason Aaron executes Scalped or Brian Wood lays down Northlanders, those books transcend their basic elevator pitches. They tell entertaining and engaging stories, but more importantly they cause introspection. You can apply those themes and choices to your own life and find meaning. And shouldn't all great, A+ grade, art aspire to that personal impact with the audience, causing us to learn about ourselves in the process?

Short version? Bottom line? An A+ grade book simply makes me forget that I'm reviewing. I unconsciously put the pen down. I set the notebook aside. I push the laptop back. Suddenly, without even realizing it, I've reached the end of the book and have forgotten the reviewer's notes because I've been so thoroughly convinced of this reality, so engrossed by the tale, so captivated by the execution, that I've been pulled into the world, not pushed out by an off-putting style or breakdowns in the craft. That's my ultimate litmus test.

This might be a nice segue to one of my last two questions. I've thought about this one a lot. As a creator, do you feel reviewers should meet some set of qualifications? If you could invent them what would they be?

Ryan: This sounds sort of like asking for qualifications to become a parent; we all know there should be, but we also know there (probably) never will be. BUT, if I had to lay down a wish list of reviewer characteristics, it would likely read something like this:

Dear Santa,

I would like a comics reviewer that is able to walk that delicate balance between writing intelligently and writing accessibly. By that I mean, I want this reviewer to use creative descriptors, to use words that I might have to paste into dictionary.com, to write in such a way that pushes my intellect, but at the same time it doesn’t feel overburdened, academic, or uppity.

I’ll hope this reviewer will also be open-minded with regards to his taste in comics and constructive in his/her criticism. First off, I do not care to limit my genres when choosing comics, and neither should my reviewer. I think a comic should succeed or fail based on the quality of the writing and artwork (in that order), not based on whether it falls in the category of Superheroes, Manga, Alternative Comics, or any other, and my reviewer will feel the same way. In addition to that, when this reviewer dubs a book to be good or bad, he/she will cite examples to back up these claims.

If I’ve been an especially good boy this year, perhaps this reviewer could also include a quick, one-glance approach to reviews, such as a thumbs-up/down rating, an out-of-five-stars rating, or even a letter grade scale. Because, quite honestly, Santa, as an artist I’m pretty visually-geared, and really don’t feel like wading through a bunch of text every day.

Finally, I’d like this idealized reviewer of mine to have an incredibly kick-anus work ethic. I want to visit a website that has frequently updated content and introduces me to material I might otherwise have overlooked during hibernation in my artist-cave.

Thanks, Santa!
Ryan Claytor

Sooo? Is that too much to ask? Maybe a tad on the needy side, but a guy can dream. Actually, at the risk of sounding like a total creeper, I think you totally fit the bill, Justin. Keep up the fantabulous site, my man. Anyhow, speaking of not always wanting to wade through a mountain of text, maybe you can fire that last question my way. :)

Justin: Ryan... I love that description. And it's not just because of your compliment, which BTW, is very humbling and appreciated because I really aspire to be all of that. You just very eloquently captured the "space" I like as a fan myself, and where I want to be as a reviewer, so thank you. As a total aside, it's why I miss Comic Foundry Magazine. For me, it captured that space in between the lowtarded-brow humor of Wizard Magazine and the sometimes haughty erudition of The Comics Journal. Sigh.

As for reviewer qualifications, I ran through some options. Should a reviewer have some type of formal writing training? Should they have read a depth and breadth of comics? While I think you should know how to construct a basic sentence, some of the best writers have no formal training. While reading lots of comics can make you knowledgeable - about comics, if that's all you consume of pop culture, literature, or art, you won't be as well rounded or be able to offer any fresh perspective.

One suggestion that will probably not be very popular would be for reviewers to be required to create a mini-comic, or even just complete an actual script. Perhaps if they walk that mile, experiencing the blood, sweat, and tears involved in the creative endeavor, it would help temper their criticism. It might also yield a better understanding of the actual process. For example, sometimes I see everything non-writing getting lumped together, the “art” gets criticized, but what the reviewer is picking up on is actually an issue with inking or coloring. It's all idealized speculation, like the parent qualifications, but wouldn't it be interesting to have a professional reviewer certification from some third party entity? The homogenization would risk suppressing all of the vibrant styles and backgrounds, and it would have to be subscriptive, you could never enforce it, but I'm fascinated by stuff like this. "Justin Giampaoli - Board Certified, National Academy of Comic Arts Critique." Oh right, just call us "NACAC." Haha!

I also think sometimes critics need to recognize the fact they're discussing a person’s livelihood. If you’re a pro artist or writer and that's your sole source of income, my comments may have some (even extremely slight) bearing on that. These people have families. Not to keep invoking Brian Wood, but our daughters are the same age; that actually pops into my head from time to time. How would I feel if some random person I didn’t know started a blog and started commenting on the way I was handling my profession, for my employer, with my work product, in a very public forum? Not to get all Peter Parker or sound egotistical, but “with great power…”

Alright Mr. Claytor, my final question is simply, what is the role of a critic? You've described the style and approach you'd prefer them to take, but what is their basic function? Why do we need them? ...do we need them? (Yikes!) I have a couple of definitions I've found that we can chew on, but let me get your un-influenced thoughts first.

PLEASE JOIN US HERE IN ONE WEEK FOR PART 4 IN OUR SERIES!

THE BRIAN WOOD PROJECT (Part 5)

In case you missed it;

PART 1 – INTRODUCTION & OUTLINE OF WHAT’S TO COME
PART 2 – THE UNIFYING THEME OF IDENTITY
PART 3 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE EARLY YEARS (Part 1)
PART 4 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE EARLY YEARS (Part 2)

TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE MODERN PERIOD (Part 1)

If DEMO: VOLUME ONE capped THE EARLY YEARS of Brian Wood’s comic book career, then I suppose I’ll call this next era “THE MODERN PERIOD.” Wood churns out multiple series during this time frame with a gleeful sense of productivity, pitching and launching new series as he seems to be stretching his own artistic muscles and experimenting with different genres. It’s interesting to note that THE EARLY YEARS ran from 1997 to 2003, a total of six years, and included nine works. THE MODERN PERIOD as I’m about to define it, runs from 2004 to 2010, also six years long, and oddly enough, also contains nine works. THE MODERN PERIOD, as you’ll see, is marked by character focused dramas and coming-of-age style bildungsroman stories. Perhaps this is a newfound emotional maturity that’s been aided by natural maturation and the additional life experiences of the writer at this point. Regardless of causality, it’s a clear distinction for this period of work.

THE COURIERS 02: DIRTBIKE MANIFESTO (2004, AiT/Planet Lar): DIRTBIKE MANIFESTO opens with a forced perspective shot that physically pulls you into Midtown Manhattan and Brian Wood’s New York City. In many ways, this edition of THE COURIERS is a transitional work that begins to place the theme of identity front and center, while shifting the other typical Brian Wood storytelling characteristics into their secondary roles.

Identity does play largely into DIRTBIKE MANIFESTO, but it does so in a more abstract sense. The theme isn’t centered on one character’s quest per se, but on the entire subculture that these types of street soldiers occupy in the larger saga. In this near future, the identity dilemma is that this world can actually exist, that these 22 year old messenger mercenaries and their youth culture have assumed a more violent reality. Their identity as mercenaries defines their code of ethics to some degree, as they pledge revenge for a fallen comrade. It’s important to note that this culture exists in complete disenfranchisement; it’s the functional establishment of an independent subculture of non-traditional organized crime. Not only does Brian Wood examine their identity as a slice of their generation, but he also subverts many elements.

It’s fun to see how the very idea of “hip” is subverted; Moustafa wears t-shirts with Menudo and The Dixie Chicks emblazoned on them, and drinks something that looks like Schlitz beer. If you asked a kid on the street today if any of those things were cool, they’d probably laugh at you, but these future characters are able to internalize a contemporary art process by re-appropriating found common objects, and subvert even the subtle decorative elements around them. As fashionistas will tell you, once you have mastered the rules of style, then you can selectively break them, and that creates your own personal sense of style. Simply put, Brian Wood’s characters have style.

Moustafa and Special’s quest promptly takes them upstate (though it’s still New York) and their presence functions as a lightning rod for social tension. The residents of Hicksville couldn’t wear their identity any more prominently than their town’s name suggests, and it’s not hard to see them as precursors to the Militia Movement that spawned the Free States of America (FSA) in DMZ. With their big trucks and “Osama Bin Laden: Wanted Dead” stickers adorning them, the rednecks refer to Moustafa as “swarthy city folk.” Their perception of him is that of a terrorist, though they seem to do just as much terrorizing and extortion. I couldn’t help but think of The Ground Zero Cultural Center/Pastor Terry Jones quandary here; classic “we-them” paranoia in full force, one group’s conservative civil liberties attempting to tromp all over another group’s emerging civil liberties, all in a misguided attempt to… protect civil liberties.

The book quickly transitions from a male centered story to a female focused tale. Special is the one with all of the weapons knowledge and skill, as demonstrated by the cut away rifle diagram and bullet cam, courtesy of artist Rob G. She is the more able of the duo. She is the worldly one. She takes center stage as an action star, supplanting the traditionally male dominated role. Special is the one in control at the motel confrontation and never cedes the power to Moustafa again.

With heaping doses of the subversive, cultural clashes center stage, and a strongly written female rising to prominence, THE COURIERS: DIRTBIKE MANIFESTO is ultimately Brian Wood playfully examining the identity of America’s evolving cultural and generational composition, and the resulting tension it creates.

THE COURIERS 03: THE BALLAD OF JOHNNY FUNWRECKER (2005, AiT/Planet Lar): THE BALLAD OF JOHNNY FUNWRECKER completes the transition begun by DIRTBIKE MANIFESTO, away from the focus on high concept subversive hooks and makes the character first approach the primary concern. In this tale, Brian Wood hits rewind and addresses the origins of Moustafa and Special as our beloved mercenary courier duo. For our purposes here, “origin” is just another word for “identity.” By showing us how they met and how they rose to power, the origin story functions as a series of historical events that tracks their identity quest and ultimately informs their present identity.

Before I dive in, I’ll say that Johnny Funwrecker is an endlessly entertaining character. He’s like a demented, more comical version of something that would come later, like a protoplasmic version of Wilson in DMZ. It’s lines like “I give you lots of money and yummy food, you guard and shoot for me?” that really sing, with their broken English and no nonsense pragmatism. The Fox 5 news chopper buzzing the New York skyline also feels like some odd corollary to the oppressive vibe we experience in DMZ. It all plays like a precursor to the political clashes and formation of fiefdoms that DMZ exploits more thoroughly. Reading this a careful second time, I appreciated the way that Brian Wood doesn’t insult his audience. The law enforcement and New York acronyms like “OCD” and “LES” aren’t defined for us; they must simply be parsed in context. Wood’s secret identity as a closet foodie and his affection for the diverse cuisine of NYC is still in effect as well. At times, Special seems to be most concerned with the best babaganoush in town or the precise locations of the best street vendors, not the bullets whizzing by her head.

We learn that Moustafa began life as a grungy weed hustler and Special was a young adrenaline junkie bodyguard/driver who didn’t lose her cool when the shit hit. The subversion still comes in the small details, with Moustafa’s D.A.R.E. shirt, or his Mudhoney poster, or Special’s Travis Bickle shirt, but it really hits its stride with how Special is managed as a character. Even though she “scored through the roof” on culturally biased tests, her ultimate role as a leader rejects traditional gender identity. She’s concerned with the advancement of women in traditional organized crime and turns the typical ascension process on its head. Special is quite a strong female, and it’s worth pointing out that she’s not just some femme fatale window dressing love interest, but her very presence sublimates the archetypal male dominated crime stories we’ve been conditioned to. She is the protagonist. She is considered the more “senior” of the partners. She trains Moustafa and indoctrinates him into the Courier Clans. She’s in control. She’s the one who knows hand to hand fighting tactics. She’s the weapons expert. She knows the city. This is a carefully constructed character that reverses gender roles and continues the tradition of subverting common tropes in Wood’s body of work. Her character becomes more important than the plot or the hook, the character-driven vs. plot-driven paradigm has shifted fully.

We’ll see generational tension continue to grow as an undercurrent in Brian Wood’s output, but there’s a fantastic early example found in this volume of THE COURIERS. It occurs when Moustafa and Special visit his home and encounter Moustafa’s mom. The entire interaction occurs in just a single page and it’s one of the most concise and effective displays in the entire scope of Brian Wood’s work. His mom quickly dismisses Special in a biting ethnocentric display. It drives the generational tension and a cultural rift that fuels a large portion of the narrative and Moustafa’s entire character arc.

THE BALLAD OF JOHNNY FUNWRECKER is ostensibly about the demise of the prior generation’s crime boss, as he’s supplanted by a younger, more subversive, female protagonist. At its heart, it’s the story of how this pair of unlikely partners rose to prominence and the events and life choices that forged their identities.

And at long last, Wood solves perhaps the greatest mystery in THE COURIERS; we finally learn how Special got her facial scar.

LOCAL (2005, Oni Press): LOCAL takes a few twists, unexpected turns, and enjoyable digressions along the way, but at the end of the day, this is absolutely Megan McKeenan’s story about personal identity. She travels, she gets in over her head, she makes mistakes, she engages in a wide spectrum of social relationships – from healthy to downright dangerous, she learns, she grows, and by the time we return to her years later in issue 12, she finally has a sense of who she is as a person. Megan has learned to love herself and to be thankful for all of the different decisions along the way that formed her identity.

LOCAL seemed to start with the DEMO formula, with a series of loosely affiliated one-shots that would explore people and their different locales instead of people and their powers, but began to take on a life of its own. Megan began to recur, and then she took center stage, her own strong female personality imposing its will on the author. I remember arguing in single issue reviews that Megan was following the old writing adage of “characters writing themselves” and was pushing back on Wood, defending her rights as a sovereign creation. She wasn’t content to exist in a book that was also meant to be about other characters and their cities. She wanted the story to be about her, because she needed her fictional self to be further defined. She wanted her identity revealed. Megan’s dynamic is an amazing testament to the power of story and the power of creation. This interactive existential play rivals the type of myth manipulation, literary infusion, and fourth wall flirtation that Neil Gaiman became so well known for in SANDMAN.

The most obvious secondary characteristic is that it also features a well written female lead, but identity is the belle of the ball. It’s pure Brian Wood in that when you strip away the eye-catching window dressing of the hook and abandon the fun digression (like my favorite issue featuring the band Theories & Defenses), identity is easily seen as the strongest theme. There’s even one entire issue dedicated to Nanci Bai attempting to co-opt Megan’s identity from the souvenirs of her life, and the philosophical implications of that.

At the highest level of interpretation, LOCAL is about the way that every choice in life, every decision diamond on a flowchart, every divergent Robert Frost path less travelled or road not taken, leads you to the moment you’re at now. The only way to derive value from existence is to be fully present in each of those moments, and acknowledge that the journey is what defines you. The destination spots are merely brief pauses in which to take stock of the impact of the journey on our identities.

DMZ (2005, DC/Vertigo): As it nears its final year of publication, DMZ should go down as one of the best examples of early 21st century fiction, period. When you survey the creative landscape, it’s interesting to note that precious few comics have openly addressed residing in a post-9/11 world with any real sense of gravitas. Yeah, sorry, Spider-Man and Doctor Doom weeping at the WTC site doesn’t count. The other that sticks in my mind the strongest is Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris’ EX MACHINA, which closed the very first issue with a shocking hook about a superhero preventing just one of the World Trade Center towers from falling. As good as EX MACHINA is (a blend of Aaron Sorkin’s brilliant THE WEST WING and an Alan Moore style deconstruction of the superhero paradigm), it is still very much rooted in fantasy. It’s got superheroic trappings running all over it and resides in an alternate reality where only one of the WTC towers fell, which immediately pushes itself out of our reality. DMZ fully acknowledges the events of 9/11 and then ventures forward into a not-too-distant future where the US overextends itself abroad, social unrest peaks, and a loose conglomeration of (mostly) “Red States” (for want of an easy identifier) attempts to secede from the Union as The Free States of America (FSA) and a Civil War ensues.

While it is perhaps the ultimate in Brian Wood high concepts for my money, he makes a smart choice to root the story in a character first approach. Functionally, this is very pragmatic since it provides the audience a relatable POV character, in an otherwise un-relatable setting, but it also allows Wood to once again adopt identity as a central theme. The story is ostensibly about The Civil War, but it is primarily the story of Matthew Roth, who is literally dropped into the DMZ of Manhattan, which separates the FSA territory from the remnants of the USA. Over the course of several years, Matty grows from being a green wannabe journalist into being a main player in the DMZ. It is the story of Matty’s quest to define himself, what he stands for as a man, and what his values are, all heightened by attempting to survive in a place where conflicting and shifting values are the norm. It should be no surprise by now that the notion of identity is a central philosophical tenet in DMZ.

In terms of secondary traits shared by other Brian Wood works, the 800 pound gorilla in the room is New York City. If you stretch the definition a bit, DMZ’s most important character is the city itself. I’ll forego a painful Batman/Gotham City analogy and simply say that DMZ is like Brian Wood’s big long love letter to the city. The city that is resilient. The city that will never die. The city who’s citizens’ spirits are indestructible. The city that will survive even when a war is being waged on its front doorstep. The city that will live on when forces threaten to destroy its rich culture and very way of life. You could probably take this a step further and say that not only does DMZ feature the theme of identity, not only does it exhibit the secondary trait of including New York, but there’s a third layer that blends the two; embedded commentary at play about Brian Wood’s own thoughts and identity as a New Yorker.

Note: Since we’re at the approximate half way point, I wanted to take a moment and remind everyone that THE BRIAN WOOD PROJECT is a 9 part series. We’ve just completed part 5, and part 6 will be posted on Friday 9/24. I’m posting on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from Monday 9/13 until Friday 10/1. See you in two days…

THE BRIAN WOOD PROJECT (Part 8)

In case you missed it;

PART 1 – INTRODUCTION & OUTLINE OF WHAT’S TO COME
PART 2 – THE UNIFYING THEME OF IDENTITY
PART 3 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE EARLY YEARS (Part 1)
PART 4 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE EARLY YEARS (Part 2)
PART 5 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE MODERN PERIOD (Part 1)
PART 6 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE MODERN PERIOD (Part 2)
PART 7 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE POST-MODERN PERIOD

RESTATING THE PRIMARY THEME & CATALOGUING SECONDARY TRAITS

If you’ll indulge me while I restate the obvious, it seems fairly well established that identity is the unifying theme of Brian Wood’s entire body of work. I’m a visual learner, so I thought it would be fun to try and put this into an outline format, list all of the secondary traits we’ve been able to identify, and then try to see how (or if) the evolution of the periods I’ve created line up.

1) IDENTITY = Primary Unifying Theme (Required Element)

2) SECONDARY CHARACTERISTICS = Supporting Themes or Traits (Optional Elements)

• THE ARTISTS! I’m a writer so I naturally gravitated toward writing about the writing, but I don’t want to give the artists short shrift in an intensely visual medium. One of the most obvious characteristics that I’ve barely touched on has been Brian Wood’s consistent collaboration with a roster of amazing artists. This isn’t a story theme obviously, but it’s an intrinsic part of the holistic Brian Wood experience. For the most part, these artists are up-and-coming talents, dealing with creating an identity even for themselves, a professional one. With relatively rare exceptions like Croatian phenom Danijel Zezelj or the occasional pin-up from a veteran like Dave Gibbons, who have both been working successfully for some time, Brian Wood’s artistic collaborators are not extremely well known or considered “hot”’ by whatever inane standard Wizard Magazine would judge by. Let me just list off a few to demonstrate: Becky Cloonan, Nathan Fox, Riccardo Burchielli, Ryan Kelly, Vasilis Lolos, Brett Weldele, Davide Gianfelice, Kristian Donaldson, Steve Rolston, and Rebekah Isaacs. Many of these artists have become recurring collaborators as well; people like Ryan Kelly and Becky Cloonan have collaborated on multiple projects over the years, positioning their artistic quality as yet another recurring trait amid the body of Brian Wood’s work.
  
  
• WELL WRITTEN WOMEN. I hesitate to use the standard verbiage “strong female lead,” which is deceptively limiting to what’s actually occurring. Simply put, not all of the females are classically “strong,” and not all of them are necessarily the leads in the stories they reside in, but they are all written extremely well regardless of their adjectives. It’s also important to note that this isn’t a mutually exclusive category. All of his characters are well written, but not all of his characters are women. As one counterpoint, Matthew Roth is written incredibly persuasively, running the gamut from pathos to logos, if you want to invoke classic Greek communication modes. My point here is that whether it’s Jennifer Havel, Special, Pella Suzuki, Megan McKeenan, Riley Wilder, or Gem Antonelli, what you can be assured of is that when a woman does appear as a character in a Brian Wood joint, she will be extremely well written and avoid many of the clichés associated with “gender as identity” as seen in typical and more mainstream comic book fare.
  
  
• NEW YORK CITY. It’s not coincidence that New York pops up in multiple Brian Wood books. When it does, there is at a minimum a feeling of insider knowledge of the city, and at the most intense, a palpable love for New York. Brian Wood isn’t just infatuated with it in a wide-eyed childlike sense, but proud of its citizens, culture, cuisine, resiliency, and the identity of a shining beacon that it represents to the rest of the world. In so many ways, New York is The United States. For many immigrants, New York was The American Dream. He’s proud to be a New Yorker. When you peel away the human character arcs and the contemporary political discourse, DMZ is a big love letter to the city, which rises to prominence as the book’s principal character. THE NEW YORK FOUR couldn’t make it any more obvious: “New York City. It awes me into silence sometimes.”
  
  
• BILDUNGSROMAN. It might initially sound like a difficult reach, but if you liked Craig Thompson’s BLANKETS or that brand of coming-of-age story, then don’t let the jump from the quotidian indie autobio scene to the more mainstream trappings of an indie insider scare you, because you’d like quite a few Brian Wood books as well. I’d say that SUPERMARKET, LOCAL, and THE NEW YORK FOUR are probably the strongest, most palatable examples of this dynamic for potential newcomers to this writer, but there are certainly elements of youth culture maturation in all of his work. DMZ has it in Matthew Roth’s story, various arcs of NORTHLANDERS possess it, it’s all over both volumes of DEMO, and even something masquerading as a superhero book, DV8: GODS & MONSTERS, has traces of it.
  
  
• GENRE SUBVERSION. It began almost immediately in his career; there is always the sense that Brian Wood will flex any given narrative to tell the moral and thematic story that he wants to tell, regardless of whatever characters or setting he happens to be working with. Give him Marvel’s Mutants and he will create a rich subtext of generational tension and youth identity in GENERATION X. Give him the bold hook of a US Civil War, and he’ll show you a boy grow into a man within the DMZ. Give him free reign to highlight the vibe in different cities, and he’ll show you a girl grow toward womanhood in LOCAL. Give him swords and Vikings, the mother daughter duo of Hilda and Karin, and he’ll give you the emotional depth of Harper Lee’s TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD in NORTHLANDERS. Give him washed up gen-actives from an expiring imprint, and he’ll give you an identity laden deconstruction of the superhero genre in DV8. His work transcends its most obvious origins and sublimates the most commonly used tropes to become something entirely different and defy predictable audience expectations.
  
  
• MARCH OF PROGRESS. I was originally going to title this secondary trait “generational conflict,” because I think the meaning is a little more intuitive, but I also think it’s too limiting. The broad sweep of The March of Progress can create all types of cultural conflict and social tension, the generational variety being just one example. Brian Wood has alternately used “the old” vs. “the new” sequential progression as a loose mechanism to create tension between technologies, religions, generations, families, societies, and all manner of paradigm clashes that impact the lives of his protagonists directly. Due to the flexibility of its cast and structure, NORTHLANDERS is probably the best example of condensing many of these conflicts into just one book. There is frequently discussion of “the old ways” (in some cases that exact phrasing) clashing with whatever the influx of current social trends is.

This probably isn’t an exact match up, but I thought I’d take a stab at it. Looking back at the periods, it seems that THE EARLY YEARS utilize the identity theme more subtly and then marks these initial works primarily with strong high concept hooks (CHANNEL ZERO) and genre subversion (DEMO: VOLUME ONE), while laying the talent of an up-and-coming artist on top of it.

In THE MODERN PERIOD, we witness an increased reliance on that thematic thread of identity as a primary through line, there is still occasional reliance on the strong hook (DMZ) and genre subversion (NORTHLANDERS), and the plentiful supply of young fresh artistic talent remains. Wood then heaps on the secondary traits of the bildungsroman (LOCAL, NEW YORK FOUR, SUPERMARKET), the passion for New York City, the strong presence of well-written women, and clashing values vis-à-vis The March of Progress with an intensity not seen before. He also shifts to a very character focused model, favoring that narrative tool in the toolbox more than just the “shock and awe” of the plot-driven strong hook.

Closing things out (for now) with THE POST-MODERN PERIOD, we see Brian Wood using the primary theme of identity, and continuing to choose from his ala carte menu of reliable and multi-faceted secondary tools. He then takes this heady blend of professional hallmarks and begins to explore an elite pantheon inhabited by revered writers like Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, and Warren Ellis. In short, we see an active deconstruction of the superhero paradigm, with some embedded meta-commentary on the industry’s most prolific genre.

I’ll see you in two days for the conclusion of THE BRIAN WOOD PROJECT.

THE BRIAN WOOD PROJECT (Part 9)

In case you missed it;

PART 1 – INTRODUCTION & OUTLINE OF WHAT’S TO COME
PART 2 – THE UNIFYING THEME OF IDENTITY
PART 3 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE EARLY YEARS (Part 1)
PART 4 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE EARLY YEARS (Part 2)
PART 5 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE MODERN PERIOD (Part 1)
PART 6 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE MODERN PERIOD (Part 2)
PART 7 – TRACING IDENTITY THROUGH THE CHRONOLOGY OF WORKS: THE POST-MODERN PERIOD
PART 8 – RESTATING THE PRIMARY THEME & CATALOGUING SECONDARY TRAITS

DEFENDING THE NEW POSITION

There’s an idea that I kept feeling in my gut. It went far beyond Brian Wood’s fascination with identity as a unifying theme. It was a visceral emotional response that went something like this: “Brian Wood is one of the defining writers of my generation.” What did that even mean? Up until this point, I hadn’t dissected it. There seemed to be two ideas embedded in the statement that needed further clarification. One, in the broadest terms, I would need to define “my generation.” Two, an effort would need to be made to explore why his body of work is quintessential to understanding the identity of that generation. So let’s take a musical cue from The Who and talk about My Generation…

In the most generalizing demographic classification, I belong to something known as “Generation X.” No, this is not the Marvel Comics series that Brian Wood wrote for a short span early in his career (though, interesting coincidence that), but a cultural distinction that separates my age group from say, The Greatest Generation, The Baby Boomers, [insert Generation X here], and Generation Y, in that sequential order.

Drilling down to some more specific demographics, at the time of this writing I’m 36 years old. I have immigrant grandparents, making me a second generation American. I’m a Californian. I live in San Diego. I’ve travelled. I’m married. I have two children. I have a college degree. I have a professional career. I own a home. On paper, I’m a pretty typical middle class individual and none of that information has any obvious relevance to a generation discussion except my age, because of what can be extrapolated from that age bracket. My age group puts me in a window in which I have grandparents who came out of The Great Depression. My grandfather served in the Army Air Corps during WWII and was stationed in England. He’s part of what Tom Brokaw popularized as The Greatest Generation, and fits the typical mold as it’s defined extremely well. One of the defining characteristics of this generation was that they helped to solidify the notion of hopeful optimism in this country. The idea that, with an ounce of American ingenuity, a dash of bravery, and a heaping dose of selfless sacrifice and hard work, nearly anything was possible. It helped make attainable the hope and promise in the national ethos concerning The American Dream.

Those in The Greatest Generation were the parents of The Baby Boomers, of my parents’ generation. Merely 20 years later, society witnessed the pendulum swing violently in the other direction. The Boomers eschewed and redefined the traditional values of the prior era. They questioned rhetoric, were mindful of perception, and facilitated rapid social change. It wasn’t just fun times with The Beatles and sexual liberation; it was a rapid erosion of faith in institutions and growing disillusionment with the establishment. It was the stereotypical portrayals we see so frequently of life in the 1960’s. It was the Vietnam War, Civil Rights coming to a head, rioting in the streets, the shift in the power of music, John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X all being assassinated, followed by San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and openly gay Supervisor Harvey Milk a few years later (which is noticeably more a part of the collective consciousness of those of us from the San Francisco Bay Area), and it seemed to culminate with Watergate and Nixon a few years after that. I’m painting broad brushstrokes here, assuming that a fairly educated audience knows most of this and doesn’t need a crash course history lesson, but simply wanted to add some historical context. In short, The Baby Boomers learned of the fallibility of government, of any socialized system, and even began questioning the collapsing American Dream. If The Greatest Generation was met by an idealized vision of The American Dream, then The Baby Boomers woke up to a fractured and broken vision of The American Dream. The pendulum had swung almost completely in the other direction in the span of just one generation.

By the mid-70’s, The Baby Boomers were scattered and disenfranchised, my own parents went a sort of semi-hippie route and lived on a walnut farm, they started buying and selling antiques as a hobby that quickly turned into a profitable business. The Baby Boomers started having kids; I was born in 1974. There was an oil crisis. I remember living in the shadow of The Iran-Contra Affair and seeing Oliver North testify before Congress, but not being old enough to grasp the importance of What It All Meant. I remember the threat of mutually assured nuclear annihilation being discussed openly in my grade school after we watched The Day After in the classroom. I remember the Soviets being in Afghanistan and my dad telling me that it was “like their Vietnam.” I can’t resist the interesting aside that during this period the US backed the Afghan Mujahideen Rebels with money, arms, and training against the Soviets, because, you know, the Mujahideen did become The Taliban and all. I remember something called The Cold War ending and Ronald Reagan saying “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” As I grew older, I had wars too, though they didn’t seem quite as noble as fighting the Nazis or prompting an end to the Iron Curtain. I watched Iraq War: Part One on TV, which played like a movie on CNN, starring cool characters like Wolf Blitzer, “Stormin’ Norman,” and the camera-enabled “Smart Bomb.” What was the defining catch phrase for my generation? What was our legacy to be? Who were we? What was our identity? I think we’ve struggled with identity to some degree; the term Generation X has been used with varying degrees of traction by authors and the media to describe this “generation of teenagers who sleep together before they are married, were not taught to believe in God as much… and don't respect parents." So basically… we’re atheistic motherfuckers? That’s it? With a couple clicks of the mouse, you can find many events associated with Gen X, yet information is pretty thin regarding any intrinsic characteristics. Yes, we witnessed everything from the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, to the rise of MTV, to the dot-com bubble and burst, to 9/11, and Iraq War: Part Deux: Mission Accomplished, but who are we?

Gen X is considered a post-modern generation in that demographically it’s comprised of a more heterogeneous cross-section, exhibiting diversity in race, class, religion, ethnicity, socio-economic composition, and sexual orientation. Before I digress too far, I’m spending all of this time defining my generation because it is Brian Wood’s generation as well. We’re roughly the same age (he’s two years older than me) and superficially at similar places in life. Married. Kids. Educated. Live in metropolitan areas. Worked professionally in another field before getting into comics in the capacity we are now. Artistically and pop culturally inclined. Astrologically both Aquarius (if you’re into that). We both lean politically more toward Blue State than Red State, me from the Liberal Left Coast, he from the Liberal Northeast, but probably agree with Barack that we shouldn’t be strictly divided into Red and Blue States, just The United States. I don’t know Brian extremely well personally, but it’s important, and I think safe to say, that you can digest everything I just explained and be assured it applies culturally to him as well. If there is a mindset produced by the progression of The Greatest Generation to The Baby Boomers to Generation X, then we share it, whatever it is.

And that’s the point. “It,” the quintessential generational legacy of Gen X, has not been written. I postulate that Brian Wood is attempting to write it through his work. He himself is seeking, consciously or otherwise, to clarify the identity and subsequent legacy of his own generation, using his characters as ciphers who navigate their own identity, existence, and ultimate place in the world, determining what their imprint will be on the generations that follow. It’s a response to the pendulum swing from The Greatest Generation to The Baby Boomers, as Gen X settles somewhere in the ideological middle. We can look back at the polar opposites of the two prior generations and see that our collective mindset doesn't mirror either completely. We can already look forward to the so-called “Millennials” of Gen Y and differentiate ourselves quickly by recognizing that we didn’t grow up with the intense technology permeation and that we also lack their sense of entitlement. We’re stuck in the middle, in a generational territory that isn’t fully defined, the identity of which is not yet solidified in history. I think deep down we crave the optimism and brotherhood of The Greatest Generation, but it’s certainly not with a sense of blind naiveté. From our Baby Boomer parents, we learned self-reliance, we learned that dissent is patriotic, and that while you should respect authority, the respect must be earned – not demanded, and you certainly have the right to demand transparency and even question authority when appropriate. We have the hope, but we also have the skepticism. From optimists, to idealists and pessimists, perhaps we are settling more toward realists. Perhaps we are refusing the false dichotomy and mutual exclusivity of the two prior generations. Wood is helping forge a social mindset that combines the hope of The Greatest Generation and the responsibility of the 1960’s counterculture movement. As reflected in the titular Parco Delgado arc in DMZ, perhaps he’s after our hearts and our minds.

When President Obama was elected, I remember feeling like there was a passing of the torch from generation to generation. For the first time in my lifetime, I am closer to POTUS in age than my father is. In terms of simple age and basic generational experience, I identify with Obama more than my father identifies with Obama, though as a lifelong Democrat and former political activist, the significance of the moment wasn’t lost on him. That election was our inheritance from The Baby Boomers. As we watched together on election night, as President-Elect Barack Obama took the stage in Chicago’s Grant Park, I had my daughter on my lap, and my dad turned to me and simply said “this is why we were marching in the streets in the 60’s.” It’s almost as if there was something tangible in the historical zeitgeist.

Getting back on track here, it seems to me that as his characters seek to understand what informs their identity, Brian Wood seeks to understand what defines his generation in parallel. It’s fairly easy to see with repeated readings that the theme of identity is a strong constant in the body of his work. However, I’ve learned that’s only one layer of how the works operate as a whole. His legacy as a writer is not as simple as just using the theme of character identity. There are actually three intertwined layers at work, which operate from the most basic and the most precise thematic consistency, to the secondary characteristics in the work that revolve largely around generational tension, to more complex ideas possessing larger social implications. It culminates with my visceral experience about Wood’s voice being representative of a larger social group, to which I belong. If you’ll allow me to condense this integrated creative system as much as possible, the three tier formula would look something like this;

1) Protagonist Identity Exploration As Theme = Drives Character Development
2) Generational/Social Tension As Storytelling Engine = Drives Narrative
3) Exploring Generational Identity & Capturing Voice = Drives Creator

If Generation X seems to struggle with their cultural identity and ultimate legacy, clues to its composition may be found within the protagonist quests reflected in the large tapestry of Brian Wood’s projects. Embedded in the work is the true nature of this generation; it revolves around the aspirational attainment of an intellectually honest, informed, engaged, and progressive class of social beings. It requires an agile sense of independent thought and adaptability. Government. Law. Crime. Politics. War. Technology. Science. Education. Civil Rights. Environment. Economy. Race. Class. Ethnicity. Gender. Sexuality. Religion. Family. Ethics. Morality. Culture. Identity. Regardless of the social principle the ideas are rooted in, this generation’s legacy must drive a philosophical movement that shifts the social paradigm to a tolerant meritocracy that finds sensibility in a more pluralistic viewpoint. In order to propel our children’s generation forward to thrive and not just survive their existence, Generation X must possess the ability to process multiple points of view that are constantly evolving, without strict adherence to any static dogma, doctrine, or ideology.

From an artistic perspective, Brian Wood has employed a determined sense of reflection for his creations, and by extension, for himself and his generation. He’s worked under an indie umbrella of near total rejection of the medium’s most stereotypical genre, except when sublimating it and questioning its very identity. From a social relevance perspective, he’s operated with the promise inherited from The Greatest Generation and tempered it with a countercultural sense of insurgency that allows transformation of the generational narrative from within. If you buy at least half of the old adage that art can imitate life, then Brian Wood’s work is a responsorial hymn about capturing the values present in the cultural outlook of Generation X.

If the identity of Generation X is the question, then the Brian Wood library is the answer.

Brian Wood is the voice of our generation.

Petrol Prices & Sequential Stories

How’s that for alliteration? What do rising gas prices have to do with my comic book buying habits, you ask? Let’s take a closer look, shall we?

The MBZ isn’t a gas guzzler by any means; for a non-hybrid vehicle it gets decent mileage, around 25mpg. In the US, unless you live in New York or San Francisco, most of the big cities really don’t have any substantial mass transit infrastructure. I have a pretty healthy commute from the northern part of San Diego to either my office in downtown San Diego or to another site in La Jolla. I consume about 14 gallons of gas per week on average, which generally equates to about $60 per week. Keep in mind that this isn’t really a precise scientific set of calculations, it’s largely from memory and includes rounded off figures that are easy on my noggin. At 14 gallons per week, for every .20 cents or so that gas prices fluctuate (typically up), that’s roughly $2.80 per week. Or, basically the average price of a single floppy comic.

I’ve never in my life paid attention to gas prices. This used to drive my parents crazy. It seemed that, to them, the cost of a gallon of gas was a standard unit that represented some sort of economic barometer used to generally gauge reality by. When I moved to the “big city” of San Jose, they’d constantly ask what I was paying “over there,” as if it were some foreign land, liquid nitrogen powering my way to the Moon of Deimos in the Outer Rim territories. My answer was always a flat, “I have no idea.” I roll into the gas station when I'm close to empty, fill it up, and drive away. It’s just a random commodity to me, something that I can’t possibly do without and don’t have the time or inclination to drive across town for in order to save a mythical nickel. My dismissive argument was always that the time it took me to investigate a better price and the money it would cost to actually make the drive to an alternate station would negate any meager savings realized. Not to mention the sheer inconvenience of it all. I had “my” gas stations already picked out based on convenience and their proximities to home, school, work, friend’s houses, etc. Having worked the majority of my adult life for the Federal Government, then a lucrative Fortune 100 company in Silicon Valley, I had always netted a healthy disposable income. The actual price of gas was inconsequential to me. I can’t tell you how much toiler paper costs either, how much I spend or consume in a week, month, or year. It’s not a single line item that’s called out in my household budget, yet it gets purchased ad infinitum without fail, a basic necessity, one that I never ponder because simple acknowledgment of the price would never cause me to stop buying it. Though, surely if the price rose to $5 per individual square sheet, I’d take notice. But, I digress.

Sure, I used to think it was cute, in an anecdotal way, that even during my lifetime I could remember much cheaper prices. I remember as a kid that gas was usually around $1 per gallon. At the risk of sounding like the proverbial old fuddy-duddy who rambles nostalgically about walking 6 miles to school, in the snow(!), with no shoes(!) all uphill(!), both ways(!), I remember taking trips across country with my parents. Sometimes in the Midwest you could still score a gallon for under a dollar, .89 and .92 cents not being outside the realm of possibility. Even in high school, I recall that a $5 bill could be fuel sustenance for what seemed like an eternity. In my old ’82 BMW, I could buy about 2 gallons for a crisp fiver. At 30-some mpg, that would last me all week. But, it was never something I actually spent time thinking about, that I actually worried about, until this year. The sting at the pump finally has me considering the shortest routes around town, combining multiple errands into single ventures, ways to avoid travelling altogether, different types of cars, and ways to cut all manner of discretionary spending to a degree never necessary previously.

The combination of ill-conceived wars, the weakening American dollar, now working for a small NPO, and the depleting fossil fuelishness of Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth all coalesced to create the perfect storm. I’m suddenly very aware of the price of gas. I’m deeply concerned about the price of gas. It’s hitting home and affecting my lifestyle. And the price of a comic book is something that I can equate the number to, it means something to me personally (as does the cost of a gallon of milk for my daughter, but that’s not nearly as fun to write about!). Equating this to a comic allows me to be able to gauge the relative value of the price by considering it in different terms. So for every .20 cents, that’s roughly $2.80 per week for me, the price of a single issue. Every time gas rises, an easy way to make a balancing fiscal course correction is to look at what to cut from my pull list to keep overall expenses flat. If you follow this logic out further, I’ve noticed that it’s considerably changed my standard buying practices too. Here’s what’s changed…

“Failure is Not an Option:” I remember that for years my standard practice when I was somehow interested in a new series was to give it three issues to hook me. Usually not quite a full arc, but enough to give me a good sample of what the creators were going to offer and analyze whether it was speaking to me or not. Suddenly, I don’t have the means to lay out this much financial risk. Now, the term "risk" may sound like a strong word, but I come from an environment where risk management is essentially the game I play all day long in the business world. Weigh the inherent or likely risk in a given situation vs. the institutional tolerance for that risk vs. the degree to which the risk can be mitigated (usually by throwing money at it) = the expected reward or typical outcome. To review, that’s a floating scale of Risk x Tolerance x Mitigation = Outcome. If Risk goes up or Tolerance for it goes down, then Mitigation efforts must go up to achieve the same Outcome. In the case of comics, if Mitigation in the form of available funds goes down, then both my Tolerance level for poor quality and inherent Risk with trying more books must also go down in order to achieve the same level of satisfying entertainment Outcome. I simply can’t afford three issues of the same title to validate the hope that a new series will hook me. I’d like to be able to try three first issues of different titles with the same amount of funding, but in this little equation the basic tenet is that I have only the funding to try one issue total, regardless of title, not three. This puts books in the unenviable position of “doing it for me” in the very first issue. Sure, there are some exceptions. If we’re talking about an “established” creator (whatever that term means to you) like Warren Ellis or Brian Wood, I can muster a dash of consumer loyalty and feel that I owe them another issue or two to try and make it come correct. But for the average book that piques my interest, it’s right out of the gate – they get one issue and one issue only. New books get one chance and must deliver right then and there.

“The Phrase That Pays:” This is the dreaded “wait for the trade” section of this discussion. I believe in voting with my wallet. Even though with the modern distribution channels, this is not a “direct democracy” approach to supporting creators, but more of a “representative republic” style of consumer voting. But, in general I still believe that buying the titles you want to support creates, in small part, the cascading effect of demand, which helps ensure continued supply. That said, there are a couple of titles I buy that have been placed on the chopping block and will be moving into “wait for the trade” status. When the current arc of Fear Agent is over, for example, I plan to make the switch to trades only. I really enjoy Fear Agent, but it’s fairly well established. On the other hand, if the title is something I’m really passionate about and want to support, like Scalped for example, then I make a conscious decision to spend a portion of my finite dollars there. I’ll buy the single issues knowing full well that I’m going to pay for them all over again and upgrade to the trade. While I like both Fear Agent and Scalped, if I’m forced to choose only one for continued success, I would personally pick Jason Aaron’s Scalped. If the title is something that I just need my fix of, like All Star Superman for example, I also pay for it twice. I know that a book like All Star Superman, with a premiere property and creative team, will succeed or fail without my involvement, and it doesn’t really matter what I do, but hell, there are some books that I like so much all logic flies out the window and I may pay for three or four times just because I dig it. If you count single issues, softcover trades, hardcovers, then an Absolute Edition, sometimes I end up paying around $28 for the same single issue! Want to know how I got there? Let’s say a 6 issue mini-series runs about $3 per issue, or $18 for the whole shebang. You buy the trade for around $20, you upgrade to the hardcover for about $30, then you just have to have the Absolute Edition for around $100. Add it all up and you have $168 in this endeavor, or about $28 for the content of each of the single issues. That must be one fine comic! The poor cost effectiveness of this strategy is reserved for the irrational love of my personal top tier books and is quite rare actually. Honestly, if I love something that much, money is no longer an object. The second tier books though, things like Conan, those are things that chug forward and I can wait for the trade on.

“One Day You’re In, One Day You’re Out:” When I look at my permanent collection, there really isn’t a single anthology that I’ve kept long term. Anthologies are known for being largely uneven, I mean that’s sort of the point. If you don’t like one piece, you’ll surely like another. If you like one going in, you’ll get exposed to another one you might have otherwise overlooked. For me, it seems like the success rate is usually far outweighed by the failure rate though. Yet they continue to appeal to me at first glance. It seems like a good idea, like a lot of entertainment value for the dollar, crammed with different creators, styles, and content. There are a couple exceptions that I’ve kept because a friend has a piece in one or there’s a single artist I like to such an intense degree that I want all of their work (I’m looking at you, Paul Pope). But my old rule used to be if I liked, or thought I’d like, 50% of the content or more, I’d venture out and take a risk on the whole package. Not anymore. Anthologies as an entire category are essentially off the pull list. Anthologies are usually put out by smaller publishers. Small publishers usually do smaller print runs. Smaller print runs are usually more expensive from a per page perspective. Which makes anthologies expensive; anthologies I’m not really enjoying in the first place, regardless of their ostensible attractiveness. Therefore, as a rule, anthologies are out.

“If It Bleeds, We Can Kill It:” I like the idea of mini-series. They are usually self-contained stories, even if part of a larger mythos or property. It’s a chance to organically rotate creative teams. It’s a relatively low risk way for publishers to give a chance to new teams trying to break into the industry and gain exposure. Mini-series are usually collected if you’d ultimately like the upgrade. I find that I try a lot of them, and I’ll continue to. However, in the old days I would continue to buy the entire mini-series even if I didn’t like it. By issue two or three, I’d be thinking to myself that there’s no way in hell I’m going to keep this long term, it’s bleeding out, and I’d even start thinking about who I could give it to, mentally earmarking it for a cousin, friend, or coworker. Some bizarre sense of completion was compelling me to complete it so that I could give it away as a complete set. No more. I’ve stopped buying a four issue mini-series by issue 2 or 3 if it’s just not doing it for me. I’m still drawn by some embedded parental voice to the work ethic of finishing something I’ve started, but it’s just not a luxury I have anymore.

(Insert Pithy Quote Here): I couldn’t really find anything apropos off the top of my head, what I’m really getting at in this paragraph is: buying to keep vs. buying to review. This has been a phenomenon I noticed after a few months of running this site. When I buy something like 52 or Secret Invasion, I know damn well that the odds of me keeping it long term are really low. Yet, somehow I feel compelled out of a sense of obligation to the blogosphere to purchase and review an event book so that yet another blogger will have an opinion, as if the audience expects this. And rule number one of anything creative? Never do what you expect the audience wants – do what you want, and your audience will find you. Secret Invasion is such a good example. I grew up a DC kid, I could really care less about Skrulls. So, I try to force myself into the mindset of “buy it because you want it, not because you want to review it.” I try to only buy things that I “normally” would, regardless of 13 Minutes. Sure, I’m being comp’d on a few books that I wouldn’t typically buy and that certainly helps the financial situation, but you see my main point here.

The “Tim or Tom Rule:" Tim Tom is actually a really cool short film directed by Christel Pougeoise and Romain Segaud about existential angst and the reality of a higher power exerting influence over your choices, but good luck getting anyone to recognize that reference. Ahem. Moving right along… a new comic book series needs to have a hook or I’m really not that interested. Hooks can come in many forms and are largely personal and subjective. If I hear that a new writer named Writey McWriterson is going to be writing a new Speedball series for Marvel, there’s no hook there. I don’t know that writer. I don’t find the character compelling. If someone said that Alan Moore would be writing a new Speedball series for Marvel, well hell, that sounds like silly fun and I’d check it out along with everyone else. Not that this would ever happen, but if I heard that Writey McWriterson was going to pen a Flex Mentallo series, I would absolutely check that out because I have an interest in the property. If I hear that Paul Pope will be penciling the new Boring Man book, I would surely buy it. No idea what the property is, sounds droll, but I love his art enough to pick up anything he does. Whether it’s an established creator, or fondness or loyalty to a character, those things can serve as hooks. If you’re lucky, you sometimes get the uber-hook: a writer you like, an artist you dig, both on a property you have some attachment to. However, all that explanation aside, there’s a wide world of books out there that don’t fit neatly into any of that criteria and the number one hook for me is a recommendation from a credible source. It’s not enough for a prospective book to pass the casual flip test at the LCS anymore. I don’t pay attention to overblown press releases. Tim Goodyear (friend and artist on my first mini-comic, The Mercy Killing) is probably the only person I’ve met who completely gets my quirky personal taste in books. If Tim says to me “you should check out Mine Tonight by Trevor Alixopolous,” I pay attention. He’s never been wrong on a recommendation. If Tom Mattson over at .newseedcomics is hyping a book on his site, I’ll check it out. We generally park our cars in the same garage when it comes to comics and if I see him getting fired up about something, I know there’s a good chance I’ve missed out on it and need to investigate further. Personal recommendations trump everything. Word of mouth turns summer movies into blockbusters; comics can work the same way.

“So Be Good for Goodness Sake!” I can be a fairly impulsive guy. This is only aided and abetted by a freewheeling disposable income. My old practice was pretty simple; if I was interested in something, I’d buy it on sight. As you grow older, you tend to develop the ability to take the long view of things, maybe this is wisdom. I know that the Ex Machina Deluxe Edition, Starman Omnibus, or Dash Shaw’s Bottomless Belly Button will be there in December. If I don’t buy them today, the world won’t end. There’s really no sense of urgency to some things. I’ve put those books on my Christmas Wish List that gets circulated and exchanged with family and friends. These books all make nice compact packages, they’re at an affordable price point, and they’re relatively easy to find in stores or online. For the most part, I’ve already read most of the content, I’m not dying to read or review it. They’re things I want, but can also hold out for. Patience can pay off. Example: after reading an interview with Jonathan Lethem in Comic Foundry, Omega the Unknown suddenly sounded interesting to me. Despite really digging Pop Gun War and seeing that Farel Dalrymple (in color no less!) was on this book, I didn’t originally pick it up. I could have run right out and snapped up all the back issues. I could have waited for the trade. What I did instead was muster an ounce of patience, scour the dollar bins at the San Diego Con, and find it all; this puts me into it for $10 rather than the $30 cover price or eventual trade that will likely be somewhere in the 20’s.

“Tell Me What You Want, What You Really Really Want:” In order for something to stay in my collection permanently, I can’t merely like it, I have to absolutely love it. This criteria seems to be getting more and more strenuous as time goes on and I use this wacky set of subjective inner illogic to validate it. The criteria is really difficult to articulate. It has to have a great creative team that just clicks, with an intriguing or well executed high concept, preferably both. Warren Ellis and John Cassaday on Planetary. Ellis and Stuart Immonen on Nextwave: Agents of HATE. Moore and O’Neill on the first two volumes of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (hated the Black Dossier, more on that in a sec). Or, it could be a singular creator with a distinct vision. David Mack on Kabuki. Paul Pope on Batman: Year 100. I’ve found that industry meta-commentary will get you far in my permanent collection. Morrison and Quitely on Flex Mentallo. Casey and Wood on Automatic Kafka. Azzarello and Chiang on Dr. Thirteen: Architecture & Mortality. These are some of the perennial favorites. I find that I’m also a bit of a format whore. Having things in their best available format and how they sit on the shelf make them more desirable and ready to covet. The Alias Omnibus, The impossible-to-find Red Star Hardcovers, Absolute New Frontier, Absolute Planetary, Astonishing X-Men Oversized Hardcover, or Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s Hardcovers from Drawn & Quarterly. If there’s more than one of these volumes to collect, all the better. Re-readability is a factor. I can read books like Queen & Country, The Escapists, All Star Superman, Desolation Jones, Billy Hazelnuts, or Battle Hymn over and over and pick something new up every time. Some books I buy, I like, I keep, but the desire to read them again never strikes. Those are getting culled from the collection. I’ve absorbed and considered the material, know how I feel, know what I’d say about it or who I’d recommend it to, be it fan or layman, and I really am done. Thank you, next please. Some comic book fans consider themselves completists. They have to have every appearance of a character or everything creator X has ever done. Paul Pope is probably the closest I come to this; he’s not terribly prolific, but even I don’t quite have everything he’s ever done. Completism is becoming less and less a desire for me. If I didn’t really like LOEG: The Black Dossier, I don’t have to have it just because I have the first two and the trinity forms a “complete set.” Another nice example is David Mack’s Kabuki. I began following David’s career in the early 90’s, long before he was close to being a household name. He’d just come out of Caliber Comics (shudder) and Kabuki was underway. I fell in love with this series and picked up all the single issues, eventually upgrading to the trades. After many repeated readings, I found that certain volumes of the work spoke to me stronger than others. While I appreciated Kabuki’s origin and the importance of the earlier stories to her character arc and the Kabuki universe, I only kept the hardcovers of Volume 4: Skin Deep, and Volume 5: Metamorphosis. I plan on picking up Volume 7: The Alchemy when it comes out. I like them all, but I love these.

In summary, a “successful” book in my little corner of the world must navigate this byzantine process and somehow make the cut. I find that I’m continually going through the collection deciding what I need to keep. The older I get, I find that I just don’t want to own things. At some point, they’re just physical possessions taking up space, cataloguing life, and I’m really not into that notion. I find I’ve become this way with not just comics, but movies, antiques, cars, any physical things that I used to collect. I still have a voracious appetite for “stuff” and want to read every comic, burn through magazine subscriptions (none being renewed thanks to gasoline prices), and knock down about two NetFlix movies per week, but precious few can be found sitting around my house taking up space. If they’re not living up to this admittedly tough set of factors, they’ll find their way to a garage sale, get sold, get gifted to friends, or traded in for store credit, thus financing even more comics.

It’s tough, but this is the world we live in.