Graphic Novel Review

posted by The Vidiot @ 1:48 PM Permalink

I can't remember if I've mentioned this series before but the illustration above is from a graphic novel series called DMZ and it's by Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli. IT'S AWESOME. Really. I've never been all that nuts about comic books, per se. But this stuff is incredible. From the book description on Amazon:

Excerpt: A near-future America is torn by war between the Free Armies, who control New Jersey and the inland, and the United States, ensconced in New York City's boroughs. In the war-torn DMZ of Manhattan, Matty Roth, hired as a phototech intern to a famous battlefield journalist, is stranded when the rest of his crew is killed. Overcoming initial panic, he decides to remain as the sole embedded journalist in the devastated, largely depopulated city. It's a career-making assignment--if it doesn't get him killed. Befriended by former med student Zee, who runs a clinic, Matty discovers a society struggling to survive amid skirmishes and snipers (appropriate soundtrack music: Talking Heads' "Life during Wartime"). Of the DMZ issues collected here, the first three establish its premise. In the succeeding two, Matty discovers the "Ghosts of Central Park"--paramilitaries who defend the now-deforested preserve and its zoo animals--and chases a robber who steals his press badge. Wood's writing does justice to the intriguing concept, and Burchielli's jagged artwork effectively conveys the characters' desperation.

The drawings of Manhattan are perfect and the story is bit too probable. I ate the last installment up in less than hour. I couldn't put the damn thing down and if someone had tried to make me, they'd have had quite a fight on their hands.

Read them. Read them now.

Labels: book review, police state