Walking the DMZ of Creator vs Company Owned

There are two sides to every creator, the company man and the creator owned man. Few writers symbolize this more than Brian Wood.

Brian Wood has gone mainstream.

Wood has spent the last few years creating numerous books, of a deeply personal nature, and has been ignoring the mainstream industry of the big two in favor of these smaller, independent, creator owned titles. Wood is a prime example of the struggle many creators are facing in the new comic market.

Own a property and struggle, or go mainstream and make some money that can then support your dream project. Ownership is a powerful thing in the comic industry, titles are being bought up by studios looking for a new franchise. Plus we all know of the legal battles being fought over the big guns of Marvel and DC.

By creating Northlanders and DMZ Wood was able to tell the stories he wanted to tell with full control over the characters and concept. This freedom, and the stories, were strong enough for DC to sign Wood as an exclusive creator. This made him an anomaly, he was an exclusive writer working on creator owned work.

Unfortunately the idea of ownership and freedom cost Wood his exclusivity with DC.

Wood was a Vertigo guy, one of the few remaining ‘independent’ pillars of the publisher, he worked almost exclusively within their brand. This came back to bite him when DC reduced the Vertigo output and wanted him to work in the main universe, having him pitch Supergirl only to get the rug pulled out from under. Those are the ropes when you play with another property, you could have the best Batman story ever conceived, but one word from a higher up and it’ll never see print, or change dramatically when it does. So when asked to renew his contract and work in the main DCU Wood said no and walked.

Right over to Marvel and Dark Horse.

Now he is working on a Wolverine mini series and a Conan arc with his former Demo artist Becky Cloonan and is still able to balance his creator owned itch at Dark Horse. This balance is hard for many creators to maintain, there is a steady pay check being a company man, working on a tie in for the next big event and writing Spider-Man.

Ask any creator and they will tell you they have a great idea for a creator owned book, but they just don’t have time to write it with all their other work. It takes some guts to work on indie books, that you believe in and control, over a steady gig with limitations.

The Massive is Wood getting back to his roots, its a title he invisions as an ongoing tale for years, a combination of DMZ and Northlanders. Its a sign, that while you might have to go mainstream to pay the bills, you can always return to your roots and craft a title you control fully.

The idea of ownership and creative freedom drives a lot of authors, Wood in particular. He left DC because he didn’t want to be a full time mainstream creator, he wanted to play with the company toys as well as build new ones. You have to respect that in a creator.