Forget what you know about comic books: in most of writer/illustrator Brian Wood’s works, there are no spandex outfits, no world-devouring threatsand it may be difficult to pick out who the villains are. The reason for this open-ended and diverse manner of storytelling probably comes from Wood’s own history. His formal training was in art, graduating from the Parsons School of Design in 1997 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Illustration. That year also saw the release of his first work, the 5-issue miniseries Channel Zero. As Wood’s comics profile grew, he maintained a day job as a staff designer at Rockstar Games, in which he worked on similarly-groundbreaking titles such as Grand Theft Auto, Midnight Club, and Max Payne. In 2003, Wood quit this job to focus on comics full-time.Wood’s first work, Channel Zero is a science-fiction series which eventually spawned its own franchise. The first collection (144 pages, AiT/PlanetLar, 2000) follows the character of Jennie 2.5, a media agent who comes into conflict with an Orwellian, dystopian government. However, the spirit is more punk than proletariat, and one reviewer compared it to the cyberpunk stylings of William Gibson. A prequel, Channel Zero: Jennie One (72 pages, AiT/PlanetLar, 2003), was later released, and Jennie 2.5 also later appeared in Wood’s Couriers series.![]()
However, first Wood wrote Couscous Express (80 pages, AiT/PlanetLar, 2001). The title refers to the restaurant owned by the main character’s parents. The action soon heats up outside the kitchen when the young protagonist falls in love with a courier-mercenary working for the local crime syndicate, who get around town on their stylish scooters. The book is action-packed and energetic and will leave you wanting more.Luckily, that’s just what the Couriers series offers, which Wood turned to after a short punk action-romance-comedy called Pounded (96 pages, Oni Press, 2002). The characters of Moustafa and Special, two morally ambiguous freelance delivery boys, take center stage. The Couriers (88 pages, AiT/PlanetLar, 2003) tackles one of their toughest assignments: protecting a young deaf/mute girl being tracked by rogue agents. Jennie 2.5 appears in the finale. The Couriers 2: Dirtbike Manifesto (88 pages, AiT/PlanetLar, 2004) focuses on a deal gone wrong, during which one of their number gets killed. The couriers head into the badlands of New York to get revenge. The Couriers 3: The Ballad of Johnny Funwrecker (88 pages, AiT/PlanetLar, 2005) is a prequel, tracing the characters of Special and Moustafa at 15 and 12, respectively. A film is currently in the works, but with no director attached.Wood’s first work to get widespread critical acclaim out of the comics community was Demo, originally published from November 2003-November 2004. This title dropped most of the action/adventure backdrop of Wood’s earlier work. Instead, it played up his love of New York City, underground movements and subcultures, and characters who are no longer young but still have a lot left to learn. The collected edition (352 pages, Vertigo, 2008) contains all 12 issues of the original series. Each story focuses on a different character, some of whom have supernatural powers, some of whom have less discernible talents, but all of whom are trying to find their way to a home that makes sense. This book set the standard for Wood’s later work, and a six-issue miniseries was published in 2010 and will be collected in 2011.In 2006, Wood published The Tourist (104 pages, Image Comics), a gritty crime story about an ex-Special Forces soldier, and Supermarket (104 pages, IDW Publishing), another action story with a young heroine in a dystopian future. Two series that you can currently get in on are DMZ (started in 2005), a dystopian story set after a future war in which Manhattan has become a demilitarized zone, and Northlanders (started in 2007), a Viking historical fiction series. Other works include Local (2005-2008), Fight For Tomorrow (2002-2003), The New York Four (2008), and a sequel to the last, The New York Five, which is set to premiere in January of 2011.