Public Domain
By Brian Wood
Published by AiT-PlanetLar
There's nothing bright or cheery about the world Brian Wood created in Channel Zero. Paranoid and mean, the only hope is subversive and the only reality is the one you resist. It's a stark place of black and white, and even your hope will betray you.
There were people who told me they didn't like Channel Zero, that there wasn't enough story there for them. I knew it wasn't all about the story, although that was fine, and enough to make me like the book. But I knew it was the whole package. Wood is fascinated with packaging and imagery and black and white and dark and light. And some people didn't care for that. Fuck 'em. I get blank stares from people who don't like David Lynch and Tool, too.
They'll probably hate Public Domain, which has even less in the way of story and more in the way of imagery that infects your head with dire warnings that This is What The World Could Be (and Maybe Already Is).
This is a 144 page journey into Brian Wood's head, disguised as a 144 page art book/studio tour. This is how he sees the world, and this book is how he shows you how he sees the world. There are story pages, perhaps more than you'd expect; but this is not a comic book. This is an oversized coffee-table art book brought down to human dimensions but losing none of the insight and incision that Wood wants you to come away with.
This is, in a sense, a manual of how to create a comic book. A very specific comic book. It's Wood explaining his creative process and hauling out tons of illustrations and taking the time to explain why he changed what he changed as he developed and mutated his Channel Zero concept. It's wood taking the time to explain himself in a way that the real world would never allow. To explain this in person would take days, and you might not be able to reconform to normal society at the end of it all. Hell, you run the risk just looking at the book.
Channel Zero considered a lot of the pernicious evil that was creeping into our world at the time of its initial publication. That evil is alive and well and making policy even as we speak, and Brian Wood's subversive and blunt images are a kick in the face to the dull, soulless contentment that keeps the status quo ever turning, like a wheel in a hamster cage.
If you haven't read it, you need to read Channel Zero. Then you need to read Public Domain. It's like a backstage pass into the mind of Brian Wood. I hope other creators get the courage to let this much of themselves be examined and judged and turned inside out. Like I said, there were people who told me they didn't like Channel Zero. I did. By the time you're done with this volume, you'll know which side you're on. Which, I think, is kind of the point.