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Demo #1
Demo, Vol. 1
"Twelve stories of young people standing at a crossroads, each faced with a life-altering decision in a world where merely living is hard enough."--P. [4] of cover.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
16 people are currently reading
1233 people want to read
About the author
Brian Wood
1,172 books961 followersBrian Wood's history of published work includes over fifty volumes of genre-spanning original material.
From the 1500-page future war epic DMZ, the ecological disaster series The Massive, the American crime drama Briggs Land, and the groundbreaking lo-fi dystopia Channel Zero he has a 20-year track record of marrying thoughtful world-building and political commentary with compelling and diverse characters.
His YA novels - Demo, Local, The New York Four, and Mara - have made YALSA and New York Public Library best-of lists. His historical fiction - the viking series Northlanders, the American Revolution-centered Rebels, and the norse-samurai mashup Sword Daughter - are benchmarks in the comic book industry.
He's written some of the biggest franchises in pop culture, including Star Wars, Terminator, RoboCop, Conan The Barbarian, Robotech, and Planet Of The Apes. He’s written number-one-selling series for Marvel Comics. And he’s created and written multiple canonical stories for the Aliens universe, including the Zula Hendricks character.
From the 1500-page future war epic DMZ, the ecological disaster series The Massive, the American crime drama Briggs Land, and the groundbreaking lo-fi dystopia Channel Zero he has a 20-year track record of marrying thoughtful world-building and political commentary with compelling and diverse characters.
His YA novels - Demo, Local, The New York Four, and Mara - have made YALSA and New York Public Library best-of lists. His historical fiction - the viking series Northlanders, the American Revolution-centered Rebels, and the norse-samurai mashup Sword Daughter - are benchmarks in the comic book industry.
He's written some of the biggest franchises in pop culture, including Star Wars, Terminator, RoboCop, Conan The Barbarian, Robotech, and Planet Of The Apes. He’s written number-one-selling series for Marvel Comics. And he’s created and written multiple canonical stories for the Aliens universe, including the Zula Hendricks character.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 213 reviews
July 23, 2024
Demo volume one - Brian Wood written and Becky Cloonan illustrated short stories of mid-America. Eisner nominated, but ultimately more than a bit unsatisfying, despite the quality of the content. 6 out of 12 Three Stars.
2017 and 2013 read
2017 and 2013 read
May 24, 2015
Did you like DMZ or Northlanders? This ain't either one of those, and you should put this book down and walk away.
This should be called Slit your Wrists: A Teenage Guide to how cool it is to kill yourself.
These collection of 12 stories are mostly depressing, very downer, and if this was the first Brian Wood stuff I'd read, I'd never read another word.
I understand some of it is supposed to be about defining moments from adolescence, and how moments shape people, but honestly? Every one of these stories is about some depressed fucking person who thinks they're Holden Caulfield.
The art is interesting from Becky Cloonan, and it covers a wide range, and the B&W adds to the downer tone.
Don't read this if you're having a bad day, or if you have a teenager and you worry about their mental state.
I don't think a single story had anyone who lived an average existence or had a decent family. There are actually kids like that. Shocking, it may be. I don't know who Brian Wood thought he was, but he's pretty fucking pretentious here.
Everyone in these books are miserable, and yes, people can relate to the teen angst or early adulthood angst, but most of these characters are immature and on the road to even worse depression and substance abuse (those that aren't dead already). The biggest rays of sunshine are for the couple that breaks up "amicably" after being super shitty to each other in flashbacks, or the kids who run away to NYC together, or the Asian kid who gets married to a great girl in spite of his Carrie-like rage as a child.
I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. However, if I were 17 or super angsty, I'm sure this would be right up my alley and lead me to enjoy the beautiful nature of sadness. However, I'm a grown up, and I don't think living life depressed or miserable is some badge of honour anymore; it's fucking pathetic. I'm not saying depression isn't a major deal, I'm saying it IS a major deal, and this book is about the least helpful thing someone could read if they were.
This is Brian Wood on par with his X-Woman work, except worse.
September 9, 2014
So the problem with attempting to write a review of this book is that I really, strongly, actively dislike Brian Wood -- as a writer, as a professional, as a person. I find his comics to be one-note, angsty, dour, and narratively flat -- they're serious without being especially thoughtful, gloomy without being particularly vulnerable or incisive. I feel like Brian Wood has the internet open on one side of his desk and he's reading news articles about bad shit to get himself amped, and on the other side he has journals of ideas leftover from highschool, and that's what you get from him: shrill, vague, condescending mansplainy screeds about life and shit or whatever.
Brian Wood is the guy who's too jaded to be happy about the fact that he's written frigging Star Wars, who decided he was the just the straight-white-male for the job to write an all-girl X-Men comic, and whose creator-owned books seem designed to just kind of make you feel bad about not reading as many news articles on the internet as he does. Brian Wood is a guilt processor; he's channeling the burden of his privilege into comics designed mostly to make himself feel superior, without actually thinking too hard on what the hell he's talking about, on what makes good stories, on what makes believable characters and relatable worlds.
His comics are neither good at being fun nor at being smart, and I feel like you gotta be one of the two, fireals.
I read Demo so people would stop telling me to read Demo. I'm giving it two stars. There were times when Wood captured pretty believable teen dialogue, but none of the stories had enough of a point for that to pay off. It's like he went and read Ghost World and Sleepwalk and Other Stories, and figured out how to duplicate their plot structures but not their atmospheres. It's like he suddenly had this idea that superhero origin stories are really about the difficulty and isolation of growing up, and it didn't occur to him that everyone KNOWS that already because everyone who reads comics is alive, and then he took this incredibly obvious idea and decided to make sad superhero stories in which flatly-rendered characters do little-to-nothing in thinly-constructed worlds, and also a lot of bad monologues about how teenagers and twentysomethings suck at relationships, because duh.
Also the last chapter is written in free-verse poetry and is occasionally in French. Because it's deep and shit, okay? Because OMG I CAN'T EVEN BRIAN WOOD, YOU ARE A FRIGGING ADULT DUDE WHAT THE HELL.
But see? This isn't fair. Because I like sad superhero stories, and plotless superhero stories, and I get a kick out of grand, sweeping creative failures. So this isn't fair, really, because the main point is that I just don't like Brian Wood.
I also don't particularly groove on Becky Cloonan, but that's just because every cool thing I've seen her draw and thought, "Oh, that's why people dig her!" has been proven to be a direct swipe from someone else's style. I don't know if Demo is either the most egregious example of this, or if she's purposely working with homage -- all I know is that when JH Williams draws in someone else's style, that person is listed in the credits right alongside him, and nowhere here did I see any mention of Paul Pope, Bryan Lee O'Malley, or the grab bag of manga artists that show up in these pages.
But I don't know much about Becky Cloonan, and she seems like a person that other comics people like, so I'm willing to be wrong in my conception of her abilities. Brian Wood's scumminess is a little better-documented, and while most people let that exist separately from his body of work, I just sort of can't. Not for someone whose ethics are so heavily inscribed into what he writes, and then flagrantly disregarded in real life.
But none of that is the point, really. The point is that I didn't enjoy this book, but it doesn't mean you won't. If you want it, you can take my copy. I don't plan on reading it again.
Brian Wood is the guy who's too jaded to be happy about the fact that he's written frigging Star Wars, who decided he was the just the straight-white-male for the job to write an all-girl X-Men comic, and whose creator-owned books seem designed to just kind of make you feel bad about not reading as many news articles on the internet as he does. Brian Wood is a guilt processor; he's channeling the burden of his privilege into comics designed mostly to make himself feel superior, without actually thinking too hard on what the hell he's talking about, on what makes good stories, on what makes believable characters and relatable worlds.
His comics are neither good at being fun nor at being smart, and I feel like you gotta be one of the two, fireals.
I read Demo so people would stop telling me to read Demo. I'm giving it two stars. There were times when Wood captured pretty believable teen dialogue, but none of the stories had enough of a point for that to pay off. It's like he went and read Ghost World and Sleepwalk and Other Stories, and figured out how to duplicate their plot structures but not their atmospheres. It's like he suddenly had this idea that superhero origin stories are really about the difficulty and isolation of growing up, and it didn't occur to him that everyone KNOWS that already because everyone who reads comics is alive, and then he took this incredibly obvious idea and decided to make sad superhero stories in which flatly-rendered characters do little-to-nothing in thinly-constructed worlds, and also a lot of bad monologues about how teenagers and twentysomethings suck at relationships, because duh.
Also the last chapter is written in free-verse poetry and is occasionally in French. Because it's deep and shit, okay? Because OMG I CAN'T EVEN BRIAN WOOD, YOU ARE A FRIGGING ADULT DUDE WHAT THE HELL.
But see? This isn't fair. Because I like sad superhero stories, and plotless superhero stories, and I get a kick out of grand, sweeping creative failures. So this isn't fair, really, because the main point is that I just don't like Brian Wood.
I also don't particularly groove on Becky Cloonan, but that's just because every cool thing I've seen her draw and thought, "Oh, that's why people dig her!" has been proven to be a direct swipe from someone else's style. I don't know if Demo is either the most egregious example of this, or if she's purposely working with homage -- all I know is that when JH Williams draws in someone else's style, that person is listed in the credits right alongside him, and nowhere here did I see any mention of Paul Pope, Bryan Lee O'Malley, or the grab bag of manga artists that show up in these pages.
But I don't know much about Becky Cloonan, and she seems like a person that other comics people like, so I'm willing to be wrong in my conception of her abilities. Brian Wood's scumminess is a little better-documented, and while most people let that exist separately from his body of work, I just sort of can't. Not for someone whose ethics are so heavily inscribed into what he writes, and then flagrantly disregarded in real life.
But none of that is the point, really. The point is that I didn't enjoy this book, but it doesn't mean you won't. If you want it, you can take my copy. I don't plan on reading it again.
February 11, 2018
Underneath an umbrella of the titular duo-nym, Demo, lies twelve semi-tied together mini-stories tempered with edginess and saturated in hopelessly worthless youthful idealism and all the failures of days misspent and time killed. The veneers are are the same, black and white gloss over innumerable representations of explicitly inspired Anime/Manga styled art that ranges in a thin band within the already established illustrated continuum. Sometimes the art is detailed. Sometimes it is starkly minimal. Irregardless, all narratives were only able to grow as far as their puerily bounded bases would allow.
Youth is there and so are some subtle references toward the beloved X-Men canon. However, for some reason the themes of latent/repressed extra-human powers only apply to about half the stories. Other than similar underage-based motifs, not much unites the work beyond a shared author and illustrator who forged the work. Cute idealism this. Teenage heartbreak that. Yadda, yadda, yadda. The well known tropes are there but there is little to show for it.
Most of the endings are unsatisfying and all the characters are forgettable. Even when the art is enjoyable, vague character development and equally paper-thin plots allow little room for any involvement nor internal growth. Demo could have gained greatly from a shaving of stories and a heaping helping of suspense.
Initially I picked this comic out of my local library because the cover resembled another work I thoroughly enjoyed, Guy Delisle's Shenzhen. Where the Asian story set in a South Eastern Chinese metropolis, that I have worked in was enjoyable as it was relatable to my own experiences, Demo forged no connections with my recollections of youth - blissful or otherwise.
No thumbs here folks, this one goes straight into the fireplace.
Youth is there and so are some subtle references toward the beloved X-Men canon. However, for some reason the themes of latent/repressed extra-human powers only apply to about half the stories. Other than similar underage-based motifs, not much unites the work beyond a shared author and illustrator who forged the work. Cute idealism this. Teenage heartbreak that. Yadda, yadda, yadda. The well known tropes are there but there is little to show for it.
Most of the endings are unsatisfying and all the characters are forgettable. Even when the art is enjoyable, vague character development and equally paper-thin plots allow little room for any involvement nor internal growth. Demo could have gained greatly from a shaving of stories and a heaping helping of suspense.
Initially I picked this comic out of my local library because the cover resembled another work I thoroughly enjoyed, Guy Delisle's Shenzhen. Where the Asian story set in a South Eastern Chinese metropolis, that I have worked in was enjoyable as it was relatable to my own experiences, Demo forged no connections with my recollections of youth - blissful or otherwise.
No thumbs here folks, this one goes straight into the fireplace.
November 4, 2012
Teens who discover they have superpowers.. now almost blah as a concept but this really surprised me: the conception of it is novel, the art was great, the dialogue was good, and it moves this idea into new territory... I liked it quite a bit though I don't really LOVE this kind of stuff.
May 6, 2013
Demo is a collection of 12 short stories featuring young people with difficult lives in the midst of change. Initially the stories feel like kids with superpowers stories that wouldn’t be amiss in a Marvel or DC book but, over time, the stories shift from teens to young adults in their twenties minus the superpowers and focused more on their relationships.
The first couple of stories feature teen girls with Carrie-esque psychic powers that trigger when stress is applied and the next story is about a teen girl finding out she can’t die, and so on. These are all pretty on-the-nose in terms of their meaning - they have superpowers, end of. Brian Wood does mix it up in later stories though so you get a story about a young guy enlisting and being sent to Iraq but refusing to use his super-accurate shooting to kill people and the consequences of that upon his own life. And then a strange, almost poetic story about a young man reminiscing about a breakup with a girl who may or may not have killed herself.
Each of these stories are about certain moments in a person’s life which go on to define their identity and later life, for better or worse. Each issue captures perfectly enough of the characters’ lives to present you with a window into another existence and every story here gives you something to think about, something to care about. There really isn’t a single story in this book that feels rushed, unimaginative, or dull - Wood has mastered the short form of comics to present the reader with 12 fascinating people and 12 clever, moving stories.
The stories wouldn’t be nearly as good if the artist didn’t match the talented writer, and artist Becky Cloonan, who draws each of the stories in a different style, really steps up in this collection. Sometimes her stuff looks manga-esque, sometimes she uses heavy shadows and light, some stories have lots of shading, some stories are told in large boxes, some with wide panels, some with lots of small panels making up a page - she has a lot of tricks in her artist’s bag and she uses them all to suit the varied stories Wood is telling. Cloonan’s art is always gorgeous, just take a look at her more recent stuff with Wood on Conan the Barbarian or her work with Scott Snyder on Batman to see how much of a range she possesses.
Demo is a book packed with experience - of love, heartbreak, hate, misery, frustration, pain, and happiness. Each story transports you somewhere new and Wood keeps the twists and nuance coming so you’re never bored nor feel you’re reading something predictable and he’s joined with a super-talented artist to create a masterful and rewarding reading experience. I’ve held back on the details of this book because you should experience it firsthand to get the full impact of some of the stories - go ahead, read this excellent title. You might not like them all but there will be one or two that’ll stay with you for a long time.
The first couple of stories feature teen girls with Carrie-esque psychic powers that trigger when stress is applied and the next story is about a teen girl finding out she can’t die, and so on. These are all pretty on-the-nose in terms of their meaning - they have superpowers, end of. Brian Wood does mix it up in later stories though so you get a story about a young guy enlisting and being sent to Iraq but refusing to use his super-accurate shooting to kill people and the consequences of that upon his own life. And then a strange, almost poetic story about a young man reminiscing about a breakup with a girl who may or may not have killed herself.
Each of these stories are about certain moments in a person’s life which go on to define their identity and later life, for better or worse. Each issue captures perfectly enough of the characters’ lives to present you with a window into another existence and every story here gives you something to think about, something to care about. There really isn’t a single story in this book that feels rushed, unimaginative, or dull - Wood has mastered the short form of comics to present the reader with 12 fascinating people and 12 clever, moving stories.
The stories wouldn’t be nearly as good if the artist didn’t match the talented writer, and artist Becky Cloonan, who draws each of the stories in a different style, really steps up in this collection. Sometimes her stuff looks manga-esque, sometimes she uses heavy shadows and light, some stories have lots of shading, some stories are told in large boxes, some with wide panels, some with lots of small panels making up a page - she has a lot of tricks in her artist’s bag and she uses them all to suit the varied stories Wood is telling. Cloonan’s art is always gorgeous, just take a look at her more recent stuff with Wood on Conan the Barbarian or her work with Scott Snyder on Batman to see how much of a range she possesses.
Demo is a book packed with experience - of love, heartbreak, hate, misery, frustration, pain, and happiness. Each story transports you somewhere new and Wood keeps the twists and nuance coming so you’re never bored nor feel you’re reading something predictable and he’s joined with a super-talented artist to create a masterful and rewarding reading experience. I’ve held back on the details of this book because you should experience it firsthand to get the full impact of some of the stories - go ahead, read this excellent title. You might not like them all but there will be one or two that’ll stay with you for a long time.
June 19, 2008
This stark, black and white collection of graphic vignettes, illustrates young people making hard decisions. Some have extraordinary powers, and some are just facing extraordinary challenges. In one, a young girl is working at a gas station. She doesn't speak by choice. She doesn't speak because she can make people do what ever she says. One day she got mad at her mother and now her mother is catatonic. This isn't a collection of superheroes who marvel at their powers. This is a collection of young people examining the consequences of their actions. Each story develops a psychological profile of a person dealing with major topics like death, anger, leaving a lover, and career paths.
June 25, 2016
It's "Small Press Comics that You Probably Didn't Know Existed Day!" SPCtYPDKED for short.
Brilliant.
Sam's review has slightly more words if you need them.
Brilliant.
Sam's review has slightly more words if you need them.
October 18, 2017
A really solid collection of short stories. I can't wait to read more stuff from this author
June 25, 2019
I don't know how to rate this. I'm a big fan of Brian Wood. Becky Cloonan - I like her too. So they were my sell point on this book. It's almost five hundred pages long ode to the feeling "being different". The stories usually incorporate some kind of looser or outsider with some kind of weirdness. From real superpower to curse. The quality varies. From really good stories to complete shit. So make an overall judgement is very hard. It started good, with few rather "superpower" stories, but it eventually steered to some kind of melancholy abstract love bullshit, abstract esoteric weird shit, stories about deeply disturbed persons or weird romantic stories (like weird manga love stories). The art has its ups and downs, but generally, it's OK.
Hands on:
- I don't really know... maybe indie adventurers? People, who like weird shit?
- You're psychologically disturbed or deprived loner in desperate need to relate to somebody.
- You're a big fan of B. Wood with a high level of tolerance.
Hands off:
- If you do not like short stories.
- Confusing or abstract stories are annoying to you.
- Your hatred for BW comics is on medium or higher.
- The quality rollercoaster makes you sick.
Hands on:
- I don't really know... maybe indie adventurers? People, who like weird shit?
- You're psychologically disturbed or deprived loner in desperate need to relate to somebody.
- You're a big fan of B. Wood with a high level of tolerance.
Hands off:
- If you do not like short stories.
- Confusing or abstract stories are annoying to you.
- Your hatred for BW comics is on medium or higher.
- The quality rollercoaster makes you sick.
August 20, 2023
I loved the art in this so much. Each story had a slightly different style despite being by the same illustrator. I imagine she wanted to match her work to the mood of the stories…. The stories themselves left much to be desired. I actively enjoyed maybe 5/12 of these. The rest were either ok or straight up not good
October 2, 2011
For those who haven't read this yet, the idea is that every issue was a short story about a young person with a different "power."
I say "power" instead of power or Power! because I guess some of these things would not really be qualified as powers. Eating human flesh? I mean, I guess it depends on the chef. You know that part in the Hannibal movie where he's just cooking up a piece of that dude's brain? I feel like brain meat would be rubbery. Not the most delicious part of a person. So eating that, that's a sort of power, I guess.
The thing wasn't up my alley because, frankly, I think I'm kind of over origin stories. I thought it was because I ended up reading the same origins so many times, and one of my fantasies is to have an amnesia that wipes only my knowledge of comics as it would allow me to enjoy them with a fresh eye. But it turns out, origin stories are just a little boring to me. Usually they're a necessary evil to get to the meat of the story, but Demo is kind of all origin.
It's not a bad idea, but I feel like comic book fans have seen about half of this whether it be Rising Stars or Rising Starts the TV Series aka Heroes.
So instead of talking more about how origins bore me, which is sort of MY origin and therefore also boring, I figured I'd write how I would handle a few of these situations differently if I were involved in them.
Issue 1 summary: A guy and a girl are running away. She is on mystery meds, and when she gets off them you get the idea some bad shit is going to happen.
Uh, baby, listen. I know you think that the meds you take to not make you crazy are really only because people are scared of your superpowers. But maybe you think that because you're crazy, which is why you are taking the meds. Now, I'm not calling you a liar. Sweetness, maybe you ARE the only person who has ever been prescribed medicines to somehow dampen superpowers for some reason. And I want to encourage you to explore that idea, do some soul-searching, while I see other people, preferably who are either not insane and on meds or having superpowers that could blow up someone's head. Either way.
Issue 2 summary: A girl can make anyone do anything she says. Or, to shorten:
Issue 2 summary: Preacher.
Okay, this is pretty serious. You seem sincere about being a normal kid, doing the right thing. So I can see why never saying a thing is appealing. But I think we can both see how someone pushes your buttons, and you hold it in so long that instead of saying something harmless like, I don't know, "Please leave immediately and never talk to me again" you end up telling them to put a grenade in their own mouth and pull the pin. I feel like there's room for compromise here.
Issue 3 summary: A (step)brother and sister come together at their father's funeral, where the brother points out that their family line is immortal. Also, creepy incestuous vibes run amok.
Look, if you want to bang your step brother, just do it. The more you debate it in your head, the creepier it is. The more you think about it, the harder it is to get drunk and "accidentally" do it. Five or six times.
Issue 8 summary: A guy finds his dead girlfriend and listens to a tape she made him, which is full of instructions and revelations.
Um, sorry, but a tape that doesn't include Phil Collins' "Against All Odds"? Even once? Pass.
Issue 12 summary: Some kind of poem thing(?)
[angrily flipping back to cover to check price after finishing the issue within 40 seconds of reading]
I say "power" instead of power or Power! because I guess some of these things would not really be qualified as powers. Eating human flesh? I mean, I guess it depends on the chef. You know that part in the Hannibal movie where he's just cooking up a piece of that dude's brain? I feel like brain meat would be rubbery. Not the most delicious part of a person. So eating that, that's a sort of power, I guess.
The thing wasn't up my alley because, frankly, I think I'm kind of over origin stories. I thought it was because I ended up reading the same origins so many times, and one of my fantasies is to have an amnesia that wipes only my knowledge of comics as it would allow me to enjoy them with a fresh eye. But it turns out, origin stories are just a little boring to me. Usually they're a necessary evil to get to the meat of the story, but Demo is kind of all origin.
It's not a bad idea, but I feel like comic book fans have seen about half of this whether it be Rising Stars or Rising Starts the TV Series aka Heroes.
So instead of talking more about how origins bore me, which is sort of MY origin and therefore also boring, I figured I'd write how I would handle a few of these situations differently if I were involved in them.
Issue 1 summary: A guy and a girl are running away. She is on mystery meds, and when she gets off them you get the idea some bad shit is going to happen.
Uh, baby, listen. I know you think that the meds you take to not make you crazy are really only because people are scared of your superpowers. But maybe you think that because you're crazy, which is why you are taking the meds. Now, I'm not calling you a liar. Sweetness, maybe you ARE the only person who has ever been prescribed medicines to somehow dampen superpowers for some reason. And I want to encourage you to explore that idea, do some soul-searching, while I see other people, preferably who are either not insane and on meds or having superpowers that could blow up someone's head. Either way.
Issue 2 summary: A girl can make anyone do anything she says. Or, to shorten:
Issue 2 summary: Preacher.
Okay, this is pretty serious. You seem sincere about being a normal kid, doing the right thing. So I can see why never saying a thing is appealing. But I think we can both see how someone pushes your buttons, and you hold it in so long that instead of saying something harmless like, I don't know, "Please leave immediately and never talk to me again" you end up telling them to put a grenade in their own mouth and pull the pin. I feel like there's room for compromise here.
Issue 3 summary: A (step)brother and sister come together at their father's funeral, where the brother points out that their family line is immortal. Also, creepy incestuous vibes run amok.
Look, if you want to bang your step brother, just do it. The more you debate it in your head, the creepier it is. The more you think about it, the harder it is to get drunk and "accidentally" do it. Five or six times.
Issue 8 summary: A guy finds his dead girlfriend and listens to a tape she made him, which is full of instructions and revelations.
Um, sorry, but a tape that doesn't include Phil Collins' "Against All Odds"? Even once? Pass.
Issue 12 summary: Some kind of poem thing(?)
[angrily flipping back to cover to check price after finishing the issue within 40 seconds of reading]
April 13, 2012
Eh, I don't know about this one. Too many stories, too many abrupt ends. Nothing felt finished. And although it purports to be about conflicted teens, who are these people? When I was a teen, I didn't live with some guy or have a job that required a suit & meeting attendence or throw a desk down a flight of stairs & then go home to my live-in girlfriend and tell her to beat it. I was still living with my parents. Perhaps the teen misnomer is why it's kept in the YA section, but surely all the boobs mean it should go in with adult graphic novels?
March 25, 2008
This series of 12 stories of young people who are standing at the crossroads of some life-altering decision they have to make is somewhat uneven, but the stories I liked were really good. They leave the reader with a sense of shock. Some of the stories are fantastical and some real.
March 9, 2018
Brian Wood continues his unending streak of stories that are all premise, no execution. This is one of his earliest independent creations, before DMZ or Northlanders, and it's a pretty clear indication of his style and what was to come next.
In this (very long) book, we have the full collection of Wood & Becky Cloonan's original run of Demo: 12 issue-length stories about emotional young people being affected by various "superpowers." Honestly, several of these stories have solid premises. My favorite is one about a young woman who physically "becomes" the ideal of whoever is currently looking at her, which could function as a great metaphor for the male gaze and the sexualization of women.
Instead, it just turns into a very annoying story about how this woman finally meets another woman who sees her for who she is, and therefore stalks her relentlessly. This story is around 26 pages long, which means there is not enough time to suddenly shift into the Twilight Zone. Just live in the premise! Carry it out! Don't turn it on its head immediately when we definitely have not had any time to grow to care about this character.
This is the formula for all of these stories, each of them with varying degrees of premise-coolness. Some are very been-there-done-that, some are decently fresh, but it doesn't matter. Not one of them is carried out well. Wood writes flat, one-dimensional, mostly whiny characters in rushed stories that have no time to breathe or pay off, thereby making each one seem like a false start. More than anything, this book feels like a collection of incomplete, unfinished first issues of longer comic series that we never get to read the rest of.
It's so weird to me reading Brian Wood's work and seeing how often his premises are smart and his stories are empty. It makes me wonder how fast he writes these things. I'm guessing he just churns them out and doesn't do much rewriting, because almost everything he does feels like a first draft. If he would only ratchet up his character development and emotional stakes, I think I might actually be a fan of some of his work. As it stands I'm just tired of it.
In this (very long) book, we have the full collection of Wood & Becky Cloonan's original run of Demo: 12 issue-length stories about emotional young people being affected by various "superpowers." Honestly, several of these stories have solid premises. My favorite is one about a young woman who physically "becomes" the ideal of whoever is currently looking at her, which could function as a great metaphor for the male gaze and the sexualization of women.
Instead, it just turns into a very annoying story about how this woman finally meets another woman who sees her for who she is, and therefore stalks her relentlessly. This story is around 26 pages long, which means there is not enough time to suddenly shift into the Twilight Zone. Just live in the premise! Carry it out! Don't turn it on its head immediately when we definitely have not had any time to grow to care about this character.
This is the formula for all of these stories, each of them with varying degrees of premise-coolness. Some are very been-there-done-that, some are decently fresh, but it doesn't matter. Not one of them is carried out well. Wood writes flat, one-dimensional, mostly whiny characters in rushed stories that have no time to breathe or pay off, thereby making each one seem like a false start. More than anything, this book feels like a collection of incomplete, unfinished first issues of longer comic series that we never get to read the rest of.
It's so weird to me reading Brian Wood's work and seeing how often his premises are smart and his stories are empty. It makes me wonder how fast he writes these things. I'm guessing he just churns them out and doesn't do much rewriting, because almost everything he does feels like a first draft. If he would only ratchet up his character development and emotional stakes, I think I might actually be a fan of some of his work. As it stands I'm just tired of it.
May 19, 2023
I liked some stories, but a majority of these left me with an apathetic feeling. I'm pretty sure I've already forgotten most of these stories, which to me says that Wood is not my guy (I already knew this do to... reasons outside of this comic but I won't get into that). Cloonan fucking kills it though, and is the main reason to actually read through this. Her page layouts aren't usually that complex, but the art in the panels is gorgeous and has a loose feeling that captures you and makes you keep reading. If anything, read it for her.
October 22, 2024
This is a weird, but super cool collection of stories. Each one is about a different person dealing with strange, sometimes supernatural stuff, but it’s less about the powers and more about their emotions and inner struggles. Some of the stories are pretty out there, and not all of them hit the same, but that’s part of what makes it interesting. The mix of weird scenarios and real, raw feelings keeps you hooked.
April 7, 2019
A mixed bag. Some were plain and boring slice of life stories. Some were indeed interesting. Particularly the ones about hidden powers and the like. One was rather funny (11th entry if I recall correctly).
I didn’t get the ending to ‘Stand Strong’. ‘Girl You Want’ was plain weird. All the stories seem to feature different characters in unrelated stories, but they look pretty much the same (i.e not much variation in terms of character design). And the art style changes a lot though. Sometimes it’s too manga-ish. I rather much preferred when it’s not.
I didn’t get the ending to ‘Stand Strong’. ‘Girl You Want’ was plain weird. All the stories seem to feature different characters in unrelated stories, but they look pretty much the same (i.e not much variation in terms of character design). And the art style changes a lot though. Sometimes it’s too manga-ish. I rather much preferred when it’s not.
July 24, 2019
I need to put it out there that I’m a fan of Wood. I loved DMZ, Rebels, The Massive, Northlanders and although Demo is a departure from those titles I still really liked the book. Coupled with the Cloonan art, which is best when it’s Paul Pope inspired, I’d recommend this for it emotion and angst. My soundtrack was Thundercat and Kamasi Washington jazz.
June 14, 2024
I HATED how quality of the stories were going up and down. I am not a fan of BW comics, so that did not make me like it more either. If I was 16 again, I believe in my emo phase I would maybe like some of the stories more, but now it felt most of the time like whining. Ironically, I could not wait for the book to end, and when I got to the end, that story was the one I liked the most..
August 22, 2025
Le aspettative erano molto alte.
I disegni sono immersivi e mai banali, molto apprezzati i volti dei personaggi.
Ci sono dei “però”, a tratti la trama delle storie è confusionaria e poco lineare, spesso non si capisce nemmeno il super potere del protagonista, difficile capire se in alcune sia voluto o se sia stata la traduzione a peggiorare la situaIone.
I disegni sono immersivi e mai banali, molto apprezzati i volti dei personaggi.
Ci sono dei “però”, a tratti la trama delle storie è confusionaria e poco lineare, spesso non si capisce nemmeno il super potere del protagonista, difficile capire se in alcune sia voluto o se sia stata la traduzione a peggiorare la situaIone.
August 27, 2017
Some truly intense stories, made that much rougher by the haphazard artwork...but happily there's some light at the end of this very dark night.
Gonna take a good long break before volume two, but I'll be going forward for sure
Gonna take a good long break before volume two, but I'll be going forward for sure
Read
February 22, 2017oh good more poorly remembered rehashes of Twilight Zone episodes!
Nope nope nopety nope!
Didn't finish.
Nope nope nopety nope!
Didn't finish.
May 14, 2022
All black and white, more drama than you could think, literally to make you think. Very good. Art varies.
June 11, 2020
Several short stories, Fantastic ever changing Art styles from the same artist Becky Cloonan The stories may not be for your Teen freshly removed from his ritalin but they are well done stories. This was a Good Read.
July 9, 2009
For a while, I was not sure about this book. The stories, while interesting, seemed to vanish without figuring out how to be awesome. Young people faced decisions, yes, and sometimes they had powers of some kind. Generally very large powers--one girl could make people do what she said, another could make things go boom. One girl became whatever anyone wanted her to be. This was cool, and horrifying, and it was clever how she latched onto the one girl who saw her as she was. As she, the girl who hated being everyone's dream and no one's reality, found herself falling in love with her own dream of this girl. But it didn't move me beyond a feeling of, yes, that was good how you did that.
And then, near the end, something happened. The powers became more subtle. They were quiet powers: of lingering, of hope, of remembering everything someone ever said to you. "If I told you I would love you forever, you would never, ever forget?" "Never, ever." The stories around these powers became more subtle as well. They became less about simple decisions, or revelations, and more about impossible choices and hopeful leaps into nowhere. They won me over.
It's kind of wonderful to watch Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan (the writer and artist/sometimes writer) as they figure out what they're doing.
And so I've given it four stars.
Though, really, something more like three and a half would be more accurate. Silly goodreads and their whole number bias. It's prejudice is what it is. We should have a march.
And then, near the end, something happened. The powers became more subtle. They were quiet powers: of lingering, of hope, of remembering everything someone ever said to you. "If I told you I would love you forever, you would never, ever forget?" "Never, ever." The stories around these powers became more subtle as well. They became less about simple decisions, or revelations, and more about impossible choices and hopeful leaps into nowhere. They won me over.
It's kind of wonderful to watch Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan (the writer and artist/sometimes writer) as they figure out what they're doing.
And so I've given it four stars.
Though, really, something more like three and a half would be more accurate. Silly goodreads and their whole number bias. It's prejudice is what it is. We should have a march.
January 3, 2014
Part of the growing trend of putting superheroes into an everyday context (see also Powers, Runaways, "Heroes" on TV...).
Standouts for me were
2. Emmy (gas station attendant) and
5. Girl You Want (what you see is what I am)
Some really beautiful, manga-influenced drawing here. Becky Cloonan's style is remarkably similar to Ryan Kelly's. And so, this feels very much like Local (a book I adored almost completely). It has the same short story style, and the tone is very much the same. Dark and ominous and angsty. In a beautiful way.
I didn't love it quite as much as I wanted to, but I did enjoy watching the stories unfold and trying to predict what the superpower might be. Cloonan varies her style a bit (within a range), and though Wood calls this out as a good thing in his note afterword, but I found this to weaken the look of the book. Every story used different thicknesses of pens and my eyes had to readjust, so that the stories seemed to occur in different worlds. It's a minor issue, but I suspect it contributed to my not getting totally sucked in.
Solid indie comic that deserves a place in every graphic novel collection.
Standouts for me were
2. Emmy (gas station attendant) and
5. Girl You Want (what you see is what I am)
Some really beautiful, manga-influenced drawing here. Becky Cloonan's style is remarkably similar to Ryan Kelly's. And so, this feels very much like Local (a book I adored almost completely). It has the same short story style, and the tone is very much the same. Dark and ominous and angsty. In a beautiful way.
I didn't love it quite as much as I wanted to, but I did enjoy watching the stories unfold and trying to predict what the superpower might be. Cloonan varies her style a bit (within a range), and though Wood calls this out as a good thing in his note afterword, but I found this to weaken the look of the book. Every story used different thicknesses of pens and my eyes had to readjust, so that the stories seemed to occur in different worlds. It's a minor issue, but I suspect it contributed to my not getting totally sucked in.
Solid indie comic that deserves a place in every graphic novel collection.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 29, 2008
I think I'm slightly picky lately, for some reason, but this is only 3 1/2 stars for me. There were a few of the vignettes that I really loved, and the rest were good, but it was slightly uneven to me. I laughed out loud, not in a bad way, but in an unexpected way, at the story where the girl ends up with a chunk of wood sticking out of her. The first story is memorable, and my husband reminded me of the one with the "Slacker Code" when I was asking him which stories stuck in his mind. That one was also pretty funny. Maybe I'm missing some of the satire aspect or something. I loved the last piece. That one definitely hit home with me, because it specifically says that the character is 28 and it's set in Brooklyn. I was 28 when I met my husband at a party in Brooklyn, and we spent time on the roof of the building the night that we met. I absolutely love the end of this! I love the superhuman, outsider aspect of all of the stories, and maybe I'll remember them better than I'm expecting to.
January 3, 2012
I first heard of Demo in a class I took on graphic novels (isn’t college awesome?). It wasn’t required reading, but one of the final presentation groups focused on it, and I’ve been eager to read it ever since. I’m a sucker for realistic portrayals of life with super powers, but what really attracted me visually is that each story has a separate art style, despite all being illustrated by the same artist.
Each of the stories is touching, in some cases heart-wrenching, and feels very true to life (even when cars are exploding and characters are literally changing their shape). Even in such short snippets, you really get a feel for the individual characters. My only regret is that we don’t get to follow them for more chapters.
The art is, simply, stunning. Each chapter has a different style to it, and yet they still all manage to feel connected. The overall style is very manga-inspired, but the artist really runs with the style and makes it her own. Each page is a pleasure.
Each of the stories is touching, in some cases heart-wrenching, and feels very true to life (even when cars are exploding and characters are literally changing their shape). Even in such short snippets, you really get a feel for the individual characters. My only regret is that we don’t get to follow them for more chapters.
The art is, simply, stunning. Each chapter has a different style to it, and yet they still all manage to feel connected. The overall style is very manga-inspired, but the artist really runs with the style and makes it her own. Each page is a pleasure.
November 17, 2015
Some time ago I’ve read “Local” from Brian Wood. I really enjoyed it, so I was disappointed with this book. “Demo” is a short stories collection of miserable teens. Some of them are in love, others are trying to find a way of life and most of them have some kind of power.
I think the author was trying to give some profound meaning to all this, but he kind of missed the point. I didn’t felt connected to any particular character. I actually found them quite superficial. The plot was a mix of overdramatic and clichés, with unexpected turn of events that don’t really add to the plot. I don’t know… Maybe I couldn’t grasp the stories message.
Even the art wasn’t my type. I get the white and black mood, but I’m not a fan of the illustration here.
So it was just ok. It didn’t measure up to “Local”.
I think the author was trying to give some profound meaning to all this, but he kind of missed the point. I didn’t felt connected to any particular character. I actually found them quite superficial. The plot was a mix of overdramatic and clichés, with unexpected turn of events that don’t really add to the plot. I don’t know… Maybe I couldn’t grasp the stories message.
Even the art wasn’t my type. I get the white and black mood, but I’m not a fan of the illustration here.
So it was just ok. It didn’t measure up to “Local”.
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