DMZ - Brian Wood
My boy Ben put me on to this comic series, DMZ. I haven’t read comic books for quite a while, but this joint, my ninjas, is ill.
The setting is New York City in the near future. A civil war is taking place between the United States of America and the Free States. The Free States are described in the first issue as being "New Jersey and inland"; in issue #8, it is revealed that "the Free States are an idea, not a geographical entity";[1] the movement began in Montana and made its way east. The Free Armies and the U.S. military met at Allentown, Pennsylvania where both sides decided that they did not want to fight, after which the Free Armies descended on New York; the exact chain of events from hereon has yet to be revealed. Manhattan is the location of the demilitarized zone between the two warring parties. In an interview, Brian Wood described the back-history as the citizens of Middle America having risen up against the pre-emptive war policies of the US government, causing a Second American Civil War. He expanded on this in a more recent interview:
a€oe | Midwestern militia groups revolt against their local governments in protest of rampant U.S. adventurism overseas and, in the absence of the National Guard, are able to gain far more ground than they thought possible. Small insurgent groups pop up in towns and cities across the country, and a sizable force, the Free States Army, pushes toward Manhattan. The city proves too big for them to take, and also for the U.S. Army to defend. The war stalls there, a stalemate, neither side being able to shift things.[2] | a€A |
Manhattan is mainly empty, with only 400,000 people still on the island (compared with 1.5 million in the 2000 census), populated only by the poor a€" who were not evacuated a€", snipers and holdouts. Wood has described the setting as: "Think equal parts Escape from New York, Fallujah and New Orleans right after Katrina".[3]
The protagonist is Matthew (Matty) Roth, a naAAve photo journalism intern from Long Island, who enters the DMZ with a news-crew. He becomes trapped when the rest of the news crew and the soldiers escorting them are killed in a firefight with "insurgents". Matty becomes the only journalist on the ground in the DMZ and he begins to report on the daily struggle of life for the everyday citizens of Manhattan. [from wikipedia]
PWCW: DMZ is one of the most politically aware books out there, even though it takes place in an alternate time line. How have today’s the real-world politics affected the direction you take with DMZ, especially as the series continues to find its own divergent path?
BW: Real-world politics are a big factor in this book, in a very direct but limited way. As you said, it’s like an alternate time line, but we try and keep it as current and real as possible. Typically I’ll find myself inspired by a certain bit of real-world events, such as military contracting or kidnapped journalists. I’ll then apply that to the DMZ scenario and see where it takes me.
PWCW: As a longtime New York City resident, you’ve gone to extensive measures to make the city more than just a backdrop but a part of the story. Why did you choose New York, and how has your own time in the city affected the way you portray it?
BW: It never occurred to me to set this anywhere else. It has less to do with New York City being the site of 9/11 as it has to do with it being a world city, a massive place teeming with every sort of person imaginable. Even with the DMZ stories relating to real-world events, it’s a book about people first and foremost, people living in a war zone. [LINK]
You can cop these at your local uh… comic book store… and you can read Brian Wood’s blog right here. The art featured above is cover art from two different issues.
Posted: February 5th, 2008
at 3:31am by Black Ock
Categories: art,games,boredom killer
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