After five years of being a DC exclusive creator, Brian Wood is looking for new creative challenges, and he’s hinting at what that means to CBR:
As my two big Vertigo books come to an end, I feel like I accomplished something, that I proved something about being a creator-owned writer. If only to myself, and for myself, I proved that I could do it, I could build a career from scratch doing virtually only creator-owned work, support myself, my family, buy a house, etc, etc. And having done that I now feel like I can relax a bit and take on some work for hire projects and not feel that my identity as a creator-owned guy is compromised. During my exclusive time at DC I produced twenty-two volumes of creator-owned work, something to be proud of.
So by the time NYCC has come and gone, the full scope of my post-DC exclusive work will be revealed. Right now it seems roughly 50/50 between creator and company-owned work, and my intention is to never dip below 50% on the creator owned.
I’ve said elsewhere that Brian Wood’s career to date in many ways represents the realization of the Warren Ellis Forum dream*, in that he was able to support himself and his family, and make a niche for himself within one of the Big Two publishers, pretty much solely doing his own creator owned work. Sure, there were occasional WFH projects, but when you look at Wood’s career, it’s really been all about what he wants to do, rather than taking on projects like Flashpoint: Whatever or Fear Itself: Some Random Mini-Series in order to “get his name out there.” In the career he’s built, he’s consistently managed to challenge himself and grow as a writer, and as a result, it feels like he’s got a much clearer individual voice than most writers of his generation. I’ll be fascinated to see his licensed and WFH books in the future, as well as his new creator owned work.
(* – Maybe Brian K. Vaughan fits in here, as well? Also, Mark Millar, of all people, but that might take a little bit more explanation.)
August 17th, 2011 at 1:50 pm
This seems to have slipped under the radar, but Wood’s new project is a Supernatural tie-in comic. Coming from DC in October, and probably only of interest to rabid SPN fans like myself. But for him to do such a thing is a huge step up from having the show’s producer or two of its lesser writers as the scribes. I hope someone interviews him about this assignment.