It's hard to believe THE WOODS is now entering it's second year. James Tynion IV and Michael Dialynas have been working on this book from BOOM! Studios and it's one that should be on your radar.
With issue #13 on sale last week. Tynion and Dialynas shared their commentary on some key moments from the issue.
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JAMES: With Issue #13, we’re jumping one year ahead into the world of THE WOODS from the tumultuous conclusion of Issue #12. Where we left things off, Karen Jacobs had just been forced to kill her friend Adrian, who had been possessed by the strange forces of this planet, and was starting to change into something less than human. Something frightening. But now we’re going to see that you don’t need the power of the black stones in this world to change you into something new and frightening. We wanted to throw readers right into the thick of something they wouldn’t recognize or understand, and remind them how dangerous these Woods really are. First, we see a hooded figure, strange, observing the world around them, and observing one person in particular… A young hunter, in the mold of the older hunters we spent much of the first year with. This is Karen Jacobs, our de facto lead now that Adrian has passed away. She’s still coping with what she did back in New London, as well as what she’s had to do, and what she’s had to become over the last year. For many of our characters, it’s been a relatively peaceful path, trying to build a life that can last here in the wilderness… With her, she’s never let go of the danger, the threat of death. She can’t let go of the fact that this world is still trying to kill her…
And with the Monk, the frightening figure on the first page, and the first hint at the core threat in Year Two, we see that maybe she’s right not to let that go.
MICHAEL: Oh God, Where to begin? After finishing up with the first 12 issues I had an urge to try something new, something different and with the leap in time into a new year of THE WOODS I made a conscious change in the artwork and added ink-wash into the mix. Doing this brought a grittier feel and darker tone to the story which was needed after the last issue. In our talks we called this our “Goblet of Fire” of the series where all the main cast is slightly older and they all sport shaggier hair-cuts, which i think is a perfect comparison.
The monk on page one was a fun addition and just damn right creepy. Just like when we introduced the inhabitants of New London, this guy here is also a mix of previous cultures that have been teleported to the Woods, you’ll see more of them in this arc and year two. For now just wonder why his teeth are so black.
Also now that we are going deeper in the Woods, it was inevitable to find more beasts that roam the planet. Characteristically in these pages we have a small fluffy bunny-rat with four arms that is super cute AND a huge ferocious lion-like beast with a split jaw and antlers, something that elevates the danger to the max and shows how much of a bad-ass Karen has become. One of these days i’m gonna have to sit down and make a guide-book to all the flora and fauna of THE WOODS.
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JAMES: Here we see a few important things… For one, we see NIGEL, one of the hunters from the first year, now living and working in Bay Point. He’s training the first generation of Bay Point hunters, giving them the skills they need to survive the forest around them. We see that there’s been a peace made between Bay Point and New London, and Nigel’s presence in their camp is one of the core tenets of that agreement. They’re trying to build Bay Point into a real civilization, not just a chaotic high school… They want the tools to fight against the forest, but here we’re seeing one of the most dangerous things these kids have found in the wild around the school. Gazer Root is a hallucinogenic plant that’s starting to spread throughout the school. It hooks deep into your emotions and tries to show you what you want, tries to give you a taste of everything your body is screaming for. So for a bunch of traumatized teenagers, trying to cope with being ripped away from their family and friends back on earth, this is a particularly dangerous drug. The people of New London know how dangerous it really is, but to the kids, it seems more or less harmless… But while it gives you the love and comfort you’re craving, it starts shutting down your mind. It’s one of the most dangerous things these kids have faced.
MICHAEL: Visually Nigel hasn’t changed BUT the two kids in this page that are holding up their junkie friend are no new addition, these are the Stage Crew guys from issue 2. We last saw them around with saws and pretending to be sword fighters, now they have to chance to do it for real and are training to become hunters. With a school of 500 kids on this planet, i try to show the untold stories of some background characters that happen to be their too. These guys were some favourites and i hope to draw them again in their own tale in the wilderness.
As James mentioned above, Gazer Root is a big thing that will the kids will have to deal with and in the next issue I get to draw some trippy hallucinogenic scenes with a new art style that our colourist Josan Gonzalez has made very pretty and its gonna be awesome!
But seriously kids, stay away from Gazer Root, it will mess up your eyes.
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JAMES: Here, we wanted to show a few things… We wanted to see how life is starting to change in Bay Point… How it’s not a rich society, there’s no running water and most of the students still live in communal long-houses with rudimentary cots to sleep on… But there’s a casual nature to what they’ve all slipped into. It’s a life. That’s a huge change from the constant state of trauma we left them in last year. Now they have the opportunity to move forward and make something… But we also see the cost here of what they’ve left behind… The graveyard where we see John Beaumont and Carrie Hill (and a few other fun names in the back). The lives lost to these strange woods, and clearly these are only a few of the dead. And once again, we see Karen, who, more than anything can’t shake that cost… Year Two of the Woods is going to take our characters down a darker road than the first year, as they learn more about their own natures, and the natures of the other humans that have come to live here. They will all have to face the balance of knowing, deep down, that there’s a path home, but that path can and probably will destroy them. Is it better, then, just to buckle down and build a new life, defiant of their destinies? That’s the core question we’re going to explore over the next year, and we hope you guys want to keep exploring it with us!
MIKE: Like James mentioned, all the students now have got used to living here now and are adapting, some more some less, they have to deal with a new life and their lives in Wisconsin are just a memory, items that they had in their school bags that day are tokens of a previous life that they might not get back.
Each look of the core cast has been adjusted to mirror their emotional status quo, for example Isaac Andrews seems to be ok months after the incident in issue 12 but he always wears Adrian’s blazer as a reminder of his best friend. Karen Jacobs has gone full hunter with red warpaint over her eyes and made some upgrades in style to her new uniform to stand apart from the other hunters. Some other characters have stitched up the clothes they wore when arriving cause they can’t let go.
It’s gonna be hard for them, some changes are subtle some are not but everything if different now in THE WOODS and i hope you enjoy it as much as we do creating it.
THE WOODS #13 is now on sale. If you're not caught up, be sure to look for volumes 1 and 2 of the trades containing the first eight issues. Volume 3 is on sale in December.
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