Those of us who heard that Brian Wood was going to be writing a Viking book for DC this weekend from WW:Chicago and found it an… odd choice of subject matter can now have our collective mind put somewhat at rest by Brian himself:
NORTHLANDERS is not a barbarian title, a fantasy book, not pure hack-and-slash, and it’s not going to be full of half-naked men wearing horns talking to their gods. Mythology will really take a back seat in this book in favor of real people and day-to-day life. I have yet to see a comic treat Vikings the way I want to, which is good. I remember reading in the Times about that movie Pathfinder, and how the filmmaker explained why they had to use historically incorrect things like horned helmets, saying that depicting these people as they actually were would be kind of boring, would be too “quaint”. I strongly disgaree!
Even though the subject matters seems like a big departure for me, this is very much going to be a ‘Brian Wood’ type of story. I think somewhere in the approval process for this I got a bit off track, and my editor Will Dennis steered me in the right direction, spointing out what was missing, and it was the best of what worked for Demo and Local and my other, more ‘human’ types of stories. I like writing about average people and how they relate to each other when placed in extreme situations… how their personalities, flaws, and true colors are pushed to the surface and laid naked.
Much more at the link, including just why it’s Vikings in the first place. For those who prefer current Wood work, DMZ colorist Jeremy Cox discusses his work on that series over on his blog…
