DMZ, an outstanding post-apocalyptic comic written by Brian Wood which came to its satsifying conclusion in 2012, and has been subsequently collected in beautiful deluxe editions (which also reprint my introduction to the series' third volume) is being adapted as a pilot for HBO by Ava DeVernay, the afrofuturist filmmaker whose work includes A Wrinkle in Time and Selma.
After six years and 72 issues, Brian Wood has finally finished his epic graphic novel DMZ, and the final issues are collected in a collection, entitled The Five Nations of New York.
There is practically nothing I can tell you about this installment that isn't a spoiler. — Read the rest
As the final volume of Brian Wood's brilliant anti-war graphic novel DMZ nears publication, Dominic Umile looks back on the series' 72 issue run of political allegory and all the ways that it used the device of fiction to make trenchant comic on the real world. — Read the rest
Free States Rising is the 11th (and penultimate) collection of Brian Wood's masterful (anti-)war comic, DMZ. Wood has spent the past half-decade spinning this tightly plotted, gripping, and sardonic adventure story about a second American civil war fought in Manhattan, told from the point-of-view of Matty Roth, a reporter who becomes part of the story. — Read the rest
At this year's Comic-Con, I sat down for a joint iFanBoy interview with Brian Wood, creator of DMZ, one of the best new comics of the decade. Brian and I talked about creators' rights, copyright, my forthcoming comics, the next volume of DMZ (which I wrote the intro for) and other assorted bits. — Read the rest
Stories matter: the recurring narrative of radical Islamic terror in America (a statistical outlier) makes it nearly impossible to avoid equating "terrorist" with "jihadi suicide bomber" -- but the real domestic terror threat is white people, the Dominionists, ethno-nationalists, white separatists, white supremacists and sovereign citizens who target (or infiltrate) cops and blow up buildings. That's what makes Brian Wood's first Briggs Land collection so timely: a gripping story of far-right terror that is empathic but never sympathetic.
Today marks the publication of Rebels: A Well-Regulated Militia, the first collection of Brian Woods comic about the American revolutionary war that tells "the epic story of the colonists, explorers and traders, wives and daughters, farmers and volunteer soldiers who, in a few short, turbulent years, created the brand-new nation of America."
Brian "DMZ" Wood's new comic from IMAGE is Starve, and issue one, which just hit shelves at your local comic shop is the strongest start since Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan.
When Brian Wood's brilliant America-at-war comic DMZ completed its six-year run in 2012, I wished for Vertigo to bring out a single edition collecting the whole series. They haven't quite gotten there, but with tomorrow's release of DMZ: The Deluxe Edition Book One, they're getting close. — Read the rest
The Couriers: The Complete Series collects four short stories from early in Brian "DMZ" Wood's career, involving a pair of courier/ninjas who run parcels for crime syndicates, shady characters, and other nonstandard enterprises. They're armed to the teeth, hyper-violent, skillful, wisecracking, and remorseless. — Read the rest
DC's Vertigo has published The New York Five, the sequel (and conclusion?) to the original Minx title. I've just finished it and it was worth the wait. The characters from the original story return seasoned by their first semester, wiser and more gunshy, but still filled with the wild, reckless energy that made them so engaging in the first volume.
Brian Wood, creator of DMZ and many other brilliant comics and graphic novels, has put his second sketchbook, entitled Public Domain, online as a free download. He hopes that if you enjoy it, you'll buy the limited edition, signed print book. — Read the rest
Collective Punishment, the tenth volume of Brian Wood's fantastic (anti-)war comic DMZ, follows the format set out in the first half of book nine: a series of short vignettes that jump from character to character, setting to setting, each illustrated by different artists,It's a chance for the illustrators who've been captured by Wood's apocalyptic, besieged New York City to play around in his world. — Read the rest
DMZ: MIA is the ninth collection of Brian Wood's spectacular (anti-)war comic set in a Manhattan ravaged by an American civil war that is fuelled by scumbag profiteer military contractors, sensationalist right-wing cable news, hard-ass pandering politicos, and a redneck separatist army who've all converged on New York for a decade of house-to-house fighting amid gangs and co-ops and losers and heroes. — Read the rest
War Powers is the seventh collection of Brian Wood's ground-breaking war-comic DMZ, which tells the tale of a civil war in America that turns Manhattan into a free-fire zone trapped between US and rebel troops and mercenaries from Trustwell, a thinly veiled version of Blackwater or Halliburton. — Read the rest
I've just finished Blood in the Game, the sixth collection in Brian Wood's remarkable comic book series DMZ, a nail-biting, blood-boiling story of America gripped by civil war and the cynics who profit from it.
America's civil war has its front lines in Manhattan, in the DMZ where the Free States (separatist militiamen), the USA and its military contractor, Trustwell (a stand-in for Halliburton or Blackwater) all clash. — Read the rest
The fifth collected volume of Brian Wood's comic DMZ, "The Hidden War," does the least to advance the story of any of the collections to date — but does more to advance its theme than any book so far. And that makes it the best book in the series, if you ask me. — Read the rest
I've just finished DMZ: Friendly Fire, the fourth collection for Brian Wood's incredible, next-gen war comic that is busily redefining the genre as something more relevant and important than it ever was before. In the DMZ storyline, America is plunged into civil war, a war between the redneck Free States movement and the authoritarian, Iraq-shocked US military. — Read the rest
Public Works is the third collection of DMZ comics, and it's stupendous. DMZ is Brian Wood's remarkable war comics about a civil war in America in which both sides have turned New York into a heavily shelled no-man's-land where the fighting never stops, and the story is told from the point of view of Matty Roth, an intern journalist who is stranded in Manhattan and becomes the world's most celebrated reporter of the war. — Read the rest
After being totally blown away by Brian Wood's comic DMZ, I decided to seek out some of his earlier works, starting with 2005's DEMO, a collection of 12 short stories about "teens with power." Wood's introduction says he came up with the idea after working on franchise comics about teen underwear perverts, and he wanted to revisit the subject from a grittier, more inventive place. — Read the rest
