Brian Wood and Kristian Donaldson, the fan-favorite creators behind titles like DMZ, Demo and Supermarket have come together to create The Massive, a new, ongoing series from Dark Horse that follows life for a group of survivors of a global environmental disaster, referred to as “The Crash,” which wiped out most life and all civilization on the planet. It’s an ambitious and beautiful new title that dips its toes into the frigid, glacier-filled waters of environmental science as an alternative to more traditional world-ending horror scenarios like zombies or war.Wood joined us to discuss the series (the first issue hits the stands on Wednesday), his long-term plan for the characters, and why “post-apocalyptic” is a phrase he never needs to hear again. Following the interview, check out a five-page preview of the series from Dark Horse.
The Massive
It reminds me, a bit, of something like Y: The Last Man. In that vein, do you have an arc planned out so that this ongoing series is really “ongoing for forty issues,” or is this a true ongoing in that you don’t necessarily go into it with an end in sight?
The Massive
DMZ
The bit with the tuna, as you’re recounting the history of the disasters in The Massive #1, it kind of reminds me of all those mass bird deaths and all that last year. Did that play into the book at all in terms of being something in the air (no pun intended) while you were writing?
Four Fish
At this stage, working on creator-owned books for smaller publishers most of the time, do you feel like you have to worry more or less from political blowback from a project like this, with some right-wingers insisting they’ll never buy something like The Massive?
DMZ
DMZ
The Massive
Mary seems to have her own philosophy and kind of march to hte beat of whatever drum occurs to her to march to; is that something that will be a problem for her in interacting with the rest of the characters, long-term?
Her comments on “the luxury of a moral code” really sound to me like something you’d usually hear from a book like The Walking Dead. What do you think are the similarities and differences between your end-of-the-world disaster and the zombie/supervillain variety that comic fans are more used to seeing?
The Walking Dead
The Massive
Why “The Ninth Wave”? It sounds a bit like a cult or a terrorist organization. I keep thinking of Mandarin’s Ten Rings.
Are the end notes going to be in every edition or only for print, like what Matt Kindt is doing with Mind MGMT?
Demo
Is it kind of cool to be at the forefront of what Dark Horse is doing right now? It seems like every month all summer long they’ve got at least one new book coming out that makes me soil myself.
Conan
The Massive
