Leandro Fernandez talks the art of THE PLAGUE WIDOW Part 2

Fri, 11/05/2010 - 11:00am | DCE Editorial

There is one thing I consider especially interesting to emphasize in NORTHLANDERS, in general, not only in this particular story: the use of the splash pages. I can say Brian means something with them, he’s giving us (this is just an interpretation, Brian you can correct me if I’m wrong) a rhythm on reading. Considering how different time passed by during that time compared with modern urban life, between rush hour, mobile phones, work duties and so on... there’s a clear intention to say: “slow down, see this moment, get involved with the story...”. And the key thing is most of those splash pages don’t show the classical picture of the action shocking moment. They give us a special one, and they lead us into a different speed of reading. Even though I’m not a big fan of using splash pages, I agree with Brian on this story, as that’s my interpretation of their use.

splash-01

splash-02

splash-03

There are lots of things related with the storytelling I’d love to explain to all readers, some intentional movements we’ve made on this, but I don’t have the time and space to do it, and I honestly prefer that the story speak for itself. Just as an example, the final fist fight between Gunborg and Boris is done on purpose but without any special fight technique. This is just about how men were supposed to fight in a duel to the death fist fight. In the example below, see the fist on the fourth frame and how it hits Gunborg’s face?

nl-27-101

These were mostly technical aspects of this book. From the other side, when I started doing this it was the same time the Inlfuenza A flu disease was spreading all over the world, especially at the beginning of the southern hemisphere winter in Argentina, so the atmosphere was sadly coinciding with the story of the epidemic we were telling.

Right now it’s hard to tell that happened just one year ago, but the feeling of hysteria and panic was something present in most of the world during the beginning of it. People almost don’t talk about it anymore, but the image is still vivid--most of public places empty or closed, the kids missing their classes, people avoiding shaking hands or kissing, arguing to buy the last alcohol in gel bottle remaining on the pharmacy, buying extra medicines just to pile together as a stash “just in case,” or giving bad and blaming glances at someone just because he had coughed, all these kind of things mixing together with the “Plague” hitting this Russian Viking city, so many years ago. In some aspects, the book just tells us about human nature in similar times of disease spreading.

So…I could tell this wasn’t only about people in the 1000’s.

Anyway, going back to the book itself, I hope readers find it an interesting read and enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making a Viking story.

Thanks to Brian, Massimo for his awesome covers, Mark, Dave, Travis and the whole team of people working on this book I’m so happy to have it now on my shelf.

As an adult, I’m happy to have worked on it. And if I had the chance to meet with myself when I was a small kid, I supposed I (or he) would be happy about it, too.

leo-2-001

Best,

Leandro.

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brian wood, leandro fernandez, northlanders: the plague widow

Leandro Fernandez talks the art of THE PLAGUE WIDOW Part 1

Fri, 11/05/2010 - 8:00am | DCE Editorial

I always wanted to draw a Viking tale.

Since I was a little kid I felt special attraction to this topic. I felt an obsessive admiration for these guys who had the guts to jump into the sea and sail across unknown waters, travel long distances on a very different and dangerous world, conquer countries, know different cultures, and so many other things they did along a very wide period of time in history.

I used to read some very nice and interesting Viking comic books when I was a kid, some of them published in an Argentinian comic magazine, written by a very popular Paraguayan writer called, and what a funny coincidence, Robin WOOD. I especially recall some quite impressive drawings of Zaffino on those stories. I remember how much I loved them.

Then I had the chance to steal some Asterix books from my dad’s collection from time to time, like the “Asterix and the Normands” and “The Long Journey” (I’m not sure if this is the right translation), which had Vikings as the characters playing a role in them, and my interest was increased even more.

I remember looking at history books, TV documentaries, movies, some funny arrow points and tools in the Dublin city streets--the subject was always chasing me from time to time. I even called a raft I built with some friends when I was a kid “Viking” to sail the river in my home town...

So, it happened that I saw some of the first issues of NORTHLANDERS on Will Dennis’ desk, and I just jumped into it. He explained to me what the project was about, the historic content it would have, the interesting thing of having separated story arcs of the length each one had to have depending on the story, with different characters and situations, in a different place of the Viking era geography, each one drawn by a different artist... and written by Brian WOOD!! I just loved the idea of doing it.

My mind was in only one direction at that moment:

I WANT to do this.

Better said, I HAVE to do this.

Better said, I NEED to do this.

So, I had the luck to join Brian on this ride, a very interesting story taking place in an area which had been very influenced by the viking presence, somewhere in the actual Russia, along the Volga river.

This is a drama story.

We wanted to tell how life was in that time. This isn’t about sort of barbarian muscled guys throwing axe strokes against each other... it is supposed to be a graphic novel with a deeply human story to be told.

I had fun doing this. I must confess, I enjoyed every single day when I was doing it just because of it, and the result of it is a book I can be happy about. I can even recommend it to readers thanks to the excuse of the great story Brian has written!

So, since before the start, Brian sent me lots of visual references. He’s been to Norway and some of the places the Vikings lived and were, so this wasn’t just about researching through the web for it (even though we did, of course). I’ve jump into some reading of the topic before starting, just to try to give the book the most realistic view possible.

As an example, I especially remember a shot on the story where a woman is hit by an arrow and the food she’s carrying in a basket fell into the air... I had drawn some potatoes in it in the first version of the page... then I’ve realized potatoes were brought to Europe AFTER the discovery of America, so it wasn’t possible Vikings of that time could have used those. I had to do some research to see which kind of vegetables or food they used just to get the most realistic approach.

nl-21-19-potatoes

Something similar happened when I designed the characters. People were different then they are now. Even if the Vikings were tall guys, they were short compared to today’s average man’s height. So, I tried to figure out how they should look and put some special attention to little details, as the teeth, for example. The lack of them should have been something very common in those times. Same thing with the eyes, or fingers, above all between warriors. As they use gloves most of the time, this is something we don’t see that much in this book.

teeth-and-faces

Other thing that was determinant on this book is the color. As it takes place on a very hard, long and iced winter, I wanted this to be the “white book” of Northlanders. If this had to have a color, it should be white. And it had it, mostly. It was Dave who proposed the page streets and margins be colored ochre so all of the pages don’t look so white. I think this was a good call, as it unifies the book and makes it easier to read.

colors

One other very important fact was this should mostly be an urban story. The idea was to show the life of a former big city. That’s why I’ve tried to make it a setting with a living metropolis, with its people moving around, and having their lives there.

street-life

Check back later for Part 2!

Tags: 
brian wood, leandro fernandez, northlanders

Brian Wood talks NORTHLANDERS: THE PLAGUE WIDOW

Tue, 10/26/2010 - 9:00am | DCE Editorial

The Rus, as they are called, camped above the river trading furs from a log hall, axed out by slaves. The men—tall as date palms, blond, tattooed— had set a pole out front carved with gods to which they offer things to bless their trade. This was all I saw of their piety or conscience. Caliph, they are the dirtiest creatures of God.
- Ibn Fadhlan, On an Arab Mission, Encounters Vikings Volga River, 922 A.D.

northlanders21

I’m looking at the “bible” document I wrote when I was developing THE PLAGUE WIDOW. I consider Northlanders to be the high point of my current output. It’s certainly the title where I feel I am at my creative peak, firing on all cylinders, and a lot of that has to do with the format. It keeps me on my toes constantly, always in a position to refine the concept; each time I start a new story what I’m really doing is starting a brand new project. So there’s a lot of proposal writing and outlining and collecting of reference that goes along with that, and each story gets a bible document.

Here’s the working list of titles I generated:

THE WINTER OF THE PLAGUE
THE PLAGUE WINTER
THE PLAGUE YEAR
DEAD YEARS
DEAD WINTER
THE YEAR OF THE PLAGUE
THE OUTBREAK
OUTBREAK 1000AD
THE FALL AND THE DEATH
DEATH OF A VILLAGE

I remember the first two were the ones I presented to my editor Mark Doyle, and I think we had agreed on The Winter Of The Plague. The others are more stream-of-consciousness, just writing stuff to exercise the brain sort of thing (you should see the titles list for The New York Four - close to a hundred ideas). The Plague Widow, the actual title, came later, in an email exchange with Mark. Not sure how or why, but as soon as I typed it I knew it was the one. I changed a few things around in the outline so the story more closely followed Hilda, our widow. Before that Gunborg, the “crooked cop” was the lead character.

(Gunborg, a few observant readers have pointed out to me, is a female name. I knew this pretty early on, after I had assigned it to the character, but I loved the way the name looked and sounded, so I kept it as a sort of joke.)

THE PLAGUE WIDOW came out of a bunch of notes I had written for a prose novel about the Black Plague. I had it in my mind to write it, until I began to get a sense of just how many novels are out there already about the Plague. So I moved the material over to Northlanders, thinking it would have greater impact as a graphic novel, even if I had to switch it from the capital-P Plague to a lowercase, fictionalized plague. Beyond that, the story is pretty much intact. Using the book A Prayer For The Dying as inspiration, I wanted to tell a story that detailed the fall of a village suffering under a plague, and every step they take to protect themselves just throws up new challenges. Grim stuff, coming from a guy who has a history of writing, grim, depressing stories. I started to refer to it as “survival horror”. Viking-survival-horror-plague-drama, pretty much the book I know I’VE been waiting for, as a reader!

I wanted to make a change from past stories and set this one in a city, or what would pass for a city back then, as opposed to the Viking equivalent of a one-horse town. I wanted streets and alleys and open air spaces. I was lucky to have just returned from Oslo, Norway, on a research trip and had several dozen photos of period homes I took at the Folk Museum there. I sketched out a really simple map for Leandro Fernandez with the city layout, as a guide. So when I would write that scene where Hilda is forced to march across the city, he and I are both on the same page in terms of what landmarks she would pass and what would be in the background as she went.

settlement_map

settlement_map_wide

village04

One thing that really attracted me to the Rus, the Vikings who settled in what is now Russia, is the inherent mixing of culture that the location would allow, a mainstay in all Northlanders stories. I came across this great quote in a book called The Vikings In History: “in 839, the Rus’ were Swedes. In 1043, the Rus’ were Slavs.” I made the residents of the city Christian converts, but not so much that the pagan detailing on some of the architecture would have disappeared. Boris, the “foreigner” in the story, is someone who would have travelled north from the Middle East, and his very presence brings out the xenophobes in the story. But he persists, right up to the end.

painting
A painting by Sergei Kirillov, showing an idea of blend of culture inherent at that time, Norse with Christian Slavic.

With NORTHLANDERS, I’m looking to set the gold standard for Vikings in comics, and the longer the series runs the more creative I am with the term “Viking”. The first few stories dealt with the sort of hacking, slashing marauders that immediately comes to mind, the 9th century criminals, the invaders. Themes of culture war and assimilation followed, and with the short stories that make up most of Book 3 Blood In The Snow, I feel I was hitting my stride, confident enough in the series to start taking risks. THE PLAGUE WIDOW and the currently running Metal are great examples of this, and I’m especially proud of my upcoming The Girl In The Ice, a Viking-era murder thriller, and The Siege Of Paris, a fictionalized account of a real-life battle that is obscure enough that even people familiar with the history of the Vikings might be surprised exists.

I am immensely proud of THE PLAGUE WIDOW (on sale tomorrow). Leo and I had a blast doing it, and don’t be surprised if you hear about me and him on another book, shortly.

-Brian Wood

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brian wood, leandro fernandez, northlanders: the plague widow

NORTHLANDERS #28 preview

Tue, 05/25/2010 - 8:00am | DCE Editorial

We’ve survived the violence, hunger and death of the cold hard winter over the last 7 issues of NORTHLANDERS. Now, the conclusion of "The Plague Widow" sees Hilda and Karin faced with an impossible choice and a leap of faith. The brutal Russian winter closes in like a vice, and salvation could just as easily be a death sentence for one of them.

Here’s a glimpse of what’s in store:

[gallery link="file"]

Pick up NORTHLANDERS #28 written by Brian Wood with art by Leandro Fernandez and cover by Massimo Carnevale this Wednesday!

And next month, stay on course for a stand alone story about a Viking expedition at sea with art by Fiona Staples (who, by the way, has been doing amazing work for Wildstorm)!

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brian wood, fiona staples, leandro fernandez, massimo carnevale, northlanders

First look: Brian Wood covers

Tue, 02/09/2010 - 2:46pm | DCE Editorial

The reviews and features just keep coming. Here are a few highlights that you may have missed:

USA WEEKEND features an interview with Brian about all his monthly titles.

G4 TV/Fresh Ink reviews DEMO #1

And COMICS ALLIANCE and CBR feature interviews with Brian about DMZ #50.

And now, here’s an exclusive first look at some upcoming covers [Not Final]:

DMZ #53
dmz53coveryellow

DEMO #4
demo-cv4

NORTHLANDERS #28
nola-cv28

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becky cloonan, brian wood, demo, dmz, jp leon, leandro fernandez, massimo carnevale, northlanders, riccardo burchielli

NORTHLANDERS #23 preview

Mon, 12/21/2009 - 4:54pm | DCE Editorial

The NORTHLANDER'S arc THE PLAGUE WIDOW continues this Wednesday in issue #23.

Brian Wood sets up the preview below. Check it out!

"As the cold descends on the settlement, citizens like Hilda here are forced to butcher their livestock early in an effort to keep valuable food from the roving bands of thieves and home invaders. It's this desperation, still so early in the winter, that will make the arrival of the Death Ships so important."

NOLA Cv23

[gallery link="file"]

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brian wood, leandro fernandez, northlanders

VERTIGO GRAPHIC CONNECTION

Wed, 10/28/2009 - 12:15pm | DCE Editorial

As mentioned in my post last Thursday, today begins a compelling 8 issue arc called The Plague Widow in NORTHLANDERS #21. Check out a preview at CBR And find out more about this new arc in interviews with Brian Wood at CBR and iFANBOY.

Bloodthirsty for more on AMERICAN VAMPIRE? Read USA TODAY's interview with Scott Snyder.

And just in time for Halloween, fans of Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN will enjoy the coverage of ABSOLUTE DEATH at WIRED/Underwire and TWITCH FILM.

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absolute death, american vampire, brian wood, leandro fernandez, neil gaiman, northlanders, rafael albuqurque, sandman, scott snyder, stephen king
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