WONDERCON '08: THE BRIAN AND BECKY SHOW

[MattBrady]

by JK Parkin

Who says you can’t go home?

Although they’ve gone on to work on several notable Vertigo series between them – DMZ, American Virgin, Northlanders – it was one series, they said at WonderCon on Saturday, that got both of them into the door with the publisher.

That series was DEMO, a 12-issue mini-series from AiT/PlanetLar published in 2003 and 2004. At WonderCon, they announced a second volume of the series, which will be tentatively published by Vertigo in the fall.

Check out the in-depth interview with Cloonan and Wood for more information on the series.

“I think I always sort of had it in mind as a possible idea when I knew we were going to move the old DEMO over,” Wood said, referring to the Vertigo collection of the first DEMO series, due in May. “I thought it would be nice to do some more.”

Cloonan said there were several stories they didn’t use in the first series. Wood said he had notebooks full of ideas, and added that he could see it becoming a series of mini-series.

“Becky’s book (American Virgin) was ending, and it seemed like a good time to get her on something before she started drawing Sub-Mariner for Marvel or something,” Wood joked.

A fan asked if the series would focus on super-powered people, like the first half of the first series, or normal people, like the second half did. “These first six stick pretty close to the super-powered or supernatural angle,” Wood said. One story will feature a water breather, while another will feature someone who can detonate themselves.

“There’s a time travel one, which I think I’m going to use in a pretty interesting way,” Wood said. "I always love how in time travel films, people end up with doubles of themselves.” He said he’d be playing off that.

When asked about themes for the new books, Wood said DEMO to him was about being stuck in a position where you had to make a choice that’s going to drastically change your life. “Everything’s based around that at its very core,” he said. “There have been a few stories that take the topics of mental illness and compare those to super powers. I think there’s a lot of crossover there.”

Wood said they’re attempting to replicate the first series as closely as they can – they’ll be in black and white, and will include the extras the first series had, like music playlists and essays. Any house ads will also be in the back.

“They’re really, really cool about that,” Wood said. “Everybody there is a fan of the original books and they really understood why they worked, so they’re kinda staying out of our way, which is perfect.”

Wood also said that a DEMO TV show was being pitched around the time that Heroes became a big hit. “I thought someone might want DEMO because of Heroes, but they’re like, ‘No, it’s too much like it.’ And it took me a really long time to even watch an episode of that show because of that.”

Wood said the show was different from the comic, but he thought it was cool. A bible and first episode were written, but a pilot was never shot.

When asked how the two of them work together, Wood said that he sends Cloonan a script, and she doesn’t mess with it; she draws it, and he doesn’t mess with that.

Wood said he writes a fairly loose script, and Cloonan breaks the page down and picks the angles. “There’s no reason for me not to put my faith completely in her skills,” he said.

When asked what he thought their experience since the first DEMO would bring to the new DEMO, Cloonan said, “I hope just more solid art and storytelling. Y’know, with American Virgin when I worked with Steve (Seagle), he’d always throw things at me, like, ‘In this issue, there’s a Land Rover,’ and I thought, ‘Ugh, I can’t draw a Land Rover.’ So he was always pushing me to draw new things.”

“Since the time that I wrote the last issue of the old DEMO and now, I’ve written over 1,400 pages of comics,” Wood said. “So I’m really curious to see how much better I can make DEMO.”

But he added that there was a lot of magic in the old DEMO series, and he didn’t want to lose that.

Wood also provided an update on the Couriers film, saying that the recent writer’s strike had slowed the film down. “Now the draft is being written,” he said. "It’s really, really close, and it’s a really great script.” He said he didn’t know the director, but “he’s directed a lot of episodes of my favorite show, Heroes.”

He said they’ve also hired a casting company and were meant to start filming this spring before the strike, but he wasn’t sure how long it would take them to start filming now.

He said he and artist Rob G were planning another Couriers book to coincide with the film.

“We feel like it would be very, very dumb to not have a book,” he said. He added he’d like to see Olivia Wilde, the “lesbian bartender” from The O.C., in the film.

Another fan asked what they hope to achieve as artists.

“I just want to draw awesome things,” Cloonan said, saying she didn’t have a manifesto or anything like that.

“This is going to sound really, really wanky,” Wood said. “But at the end of it all, when I’m an old man dying in my bed, hopefully, I just want to have this body of work on my shelf that I’ll always be very, very proud of. That’s very broad, but that’s really what it’s about.”

[Ralph Mathieu]

Great news, I think that Demo could be the successor to Y for Vertigo, meaning it has the cross audience that Y had.

[EMeadow]

MORE COURIERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!