Brian Wood (born January 29, 1977) (died September 16, 2010) is a writer, illustrator, and graphic designer living in Brooklyn, New York. He was known primarily as a comic book creator; Wood had both written and illustrated graphic novels and serialized monthly comic books for a variety of publishers.
During his comics career, Wood held a day job for several years as a staff designer for Rockstar Games, designing for video game franchises such as Grand Theft Auto, Midnight Club, Max Payne, Smuggler's Run, and Manhunt. He is also one of the most distinctive graphic designers in the comics industry, having created covers for Warren Ellis's Global Frequency, his own DMZ as well as many others.
Wood's illustrations have appeared in Punk Planet, Bail Magazine, The SF Bay Guardian, and short films for Nike.
Early life
Wood was in Essex Junction, Vermont. Wood moved to New York City in 1991 and went on to graduate from Parsons School of Design in 1997 with a Bachelor's Degree in Illustration.
Career
Wood's first professional work in comics was the 5-issue miniseries Channel Zero, published by Image Comics in 1997, created as part of a final project for graduation from Parsons. Channel Zero is set in a dystopian near-future New York City where the tenets of Mayor Giuliani have grown into a freedom-restricting government initiative called 'The Clean Act'. The protagonist is Jennie 2.5, a DIY media personality. Channel Zero was orphaned shortly after Image Comics sold out of the first print run of the collection, opting not to return to press. AiT/Planet Lar acquired it soon afterwards and has kept the graphic novel in print.
Wood was absent from comics for several years, working at a series of internet design jobs during the dot-com boom. In early 2000, Warren Ellis offered Wood a co-writing job on Marvel Comics' Generation X, as part of Ellis's Counter-X run (in which Ellis served as 'Plotmaster'). Wood co-wrote issues #63–70 with Ellis, and wrote #71–75 on his own. The series was canceled as part of incoming editor-in-chief Joe Quesada's attempts to simplify the X-Men franchise.
Wood returned to creator-owned comics between 2001 and 2003, producing several graphic novels and miniseries, including Couscous Express, The Couriers, and Jennie One for AIT, Pounded for Oni Press, and Fight For Tomorrow for DC's imprint Vertigo. He was employed as AIT's art director for roughly six months, creating not only their current logo and branding, but covers for many of the books they published during this time. He also found time to work again with Warren Ellis, creating 14 covers for the critically-acclaimed Wildstorm series Global Frequency.
Demo
In late 2003, Wood quit his staff job at Rockstar Games and teamed with artist Becky Cloonan to create the monthly series Demo. Each of the 12 issues told its own complete story, and included eight pages of "backmatter", bonus material that was intentionally left out of the eventual collected edition. Demo was highly successful, earning two Eisner Award nominations, many positive press mentions and multiple editions in foreign languages.
As a career milestone, Demo indicates a shift from Wood's earlier high concept action-adventure work. Demo, and much of his later work, tends towards focused human dramas with strong emotional elements.
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