randyhate

brianwood:

My next big project, only about 18 months in the making.  Consider this the next step in my post-DMZ, post-Northlanders career.

I did a short interview here.  Some excerpts below:

I thought it was interesting to write about activists and environmentalists who have formed that entire identity around efforts to save the world, and then finding out they utterly and completely failed. Where do you go from there? …And these are not necessarily tree hugger types, these characters, and this story is not something that can be categorized as some lefty fearmongering. I think if I’ve proved anything with “DMZ,” is that I can take a socio-political, topical issue and write both sides, and make it not at all preachy. There’s actually very little partisan politics in the story concepts I wrote for “The Massive.” In a way, you can call it post-politics as well as post-crash. 

This is a huge world of conflict and chaos. If you take a look at “DMZ,” a lawless city and all the danger and detail I put into that, this is a global “DMZ.”

I’m known for building worlds… specifically “DMZ” and in a way with “Northlanders,” and the work my agent gets me in the videogame industry is all focused on world-building. I do a lot of research for everything I write, and my aim is to really fully realize this “post-” world, to exceed what I’ve done on “DMZ” by several orders of magnitude.

I know [Kristian Donaldson] can handle anything I throw at him, whether it be hundred-foot rogue waves, a semi-submerged Hong Kong, or an carrier battle group. 

I sorta feel I can group my past work into specific “eras,” defined by a couple things but mostly by my personal perceptions. This may be boring to people who aren’t really familiar with my backlist, but all the books I did prior to “Demo” I put in a category, where I was sort of playing around with comics and trying to figure out not only how to write them but what I wanted to say, what my “voice” was. And then along came “Demo” and up to and including my current Vertigo work, “DMZ” and “Northlanders,” where I figured that out and got a bunch of stuff out of my head and became, in my own eyes, a fully realized writer. And now I am in the position to take the next step, to build on all of that which came before, and advance myself to a next level.

In these last few years of being DC exclusive and working on these long-running series, I’ve accumulated a lot of new material. “The Massive” is one of about 6-8 books more or less ready to go, and they do feel like part of a whole, part of a next phase in how I want to work in comics.

Lastly, a lot of people forget this or don’t realize it, but “DMZ” was my first attempt at a monthly ongoing series. It was very successful and I’m proud of it all, but it was my first try and I’m ready to a second and a third and fourth tries and see how much better I can make them. 

very excited for this.

though i guess i need to be somewhere where i can read/buy comics. sadly so far behind on dmz.