Northlanders - a crime saga set in the viking age

Iceland

In 2006 I went on a research trip to Iceland (okay, it was also my honeymoon) and brought my shitty old Holga with managed to shoot one last roll of 120mm before crapping out.  I got the film developed into negatives, and, long story short, it was ages before I got them scanned.  Here are a few shots from that dying plastic camera, only slightly adjusted for contrast and with some double-exposed frames pasted together.  I love them, weird and dreamlike and pretty much exactly how I remember the sun-drenched summer days I spent there.

Northlanders for February 2010

The Vertigo Comics: Graphic Content blog has a post up now about something they are calling “Brian Wood Month”, where I’ll have four books released in February 2010.  Up there is the cover to Northlanders #25, but click through to see the art for NORTHLANDERS BOOK THREE, which will be called “Blood In The Snow”, collection all the short stories to date:

“Lindisfarne”, art by Dean Ormston (#9, #10)

“The Viking Art Of Single Combat”, art by Vasilis Lolos (#17)

“The Shield Maidens”, art by Danijel Zezelj (#18, #19)

“Sven The Immortal”, art by Davide Gianfelice (#20)

It’s a wonderfully understated cover, but, to me, is a perfect representation of the series.  I’ll post the final cover once its designed.  It is, as always, painted by Massimo Carnevale.

Northlanders Research Source List

(re-posted from an earlier version of this site)

Partial list of the sources and texts that were part of Brian Wood’s research for the book:

Non-fiction
-The Anglo-Saxons by Geoffrey Hindley
-Queen Emma and the Vikings by Harriet O’Brien
-Gods and Myths of Northern Europe by HR Ellis Davidson
-The Far Traveler by Nancy Marie Brown
-1066: The Year Of The Conquest by David Howarth
-Wars Of The Irish Kings by David Willis McCullough
-The Barbarian Conversion by Richard Fletcher
-The Druids by Peter Berresford Ellis
-The Viking Art Of War by Paddy Griffith
-Collapse by Jared Diamond
-The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey and Danny Danzinger
-The Vikings by Jonathan Clements
-1066: The Bayeux Tapestry by Andrew Bridgeford
-Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga edited by Fitzhugh and Ward
-The Norsemen by Count Eric Oxenstierna
-The Penguin Historical Atlas of the Vikings
-Battle and Warrior by HR Grant
-Battles Of The Medieval World
-Warfare: The Middle Ages 768-1487
-The Viking World by James Graham-Campbell

Sagas and Ancient Texts
-The Sagas of the Icelanders
-Orkneyinga Saga
-The Vinland Sagas
-The Sagas of the Jomsvikings
-The Tain translated by Thomas Kinsella
-Alfred The Great (Asser’s Life of King Alfred)
-The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
-Beowulf

Modern Fiction
-Vinland and Magnus by George Mackay Brown
-The Ice-Shirt by William T. Vollman
-Saga by Jeff Janoda
-The Thrall’s Tale by Judith Lindbergh
-The Sea Road by Margaret Elphinstone
-The Saxon Series by Bernard Cornwell
-Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton
-Conscience Of The King by Alfred Duggan
-Viking Trilogy by Tim Severin
-Thunder God by Paul Watkins