DMZ or The American Nightmare

I mentioned in my first post that I'd base my "lessons" on news about comic book-related projects that might spark people to do some research on the source material. I've quickly realized this is a bit flawed, mainly because comic book-based news isn't the type of hard hitting journalism that crosses everyone's desks these days. So I've decided to dig a bit deeper and use the broader world as inspiration for my posts. That said, there's really just one thing on everyone's mind right now: the absolute shitty state our country is in. I'm not here to point fingers or to rant about my opinions on "recovery bills." No, I'm here to talk about comics and when I think of how bad things have gotten in this country and how much worse it COULD get, I think of one series: DMZ.

DMZ, as a general term, stands for "demilitarized zone," which is essentially neutral ground between two warring nations that acts as a buffer area so that trigger-happy soldiers aren't standing face to face with each other at some imaginary border. A clever idea that really only works in theory...just ask North and South Korea. Anyway, the comic book series takes its name from this phrase because the setting happens to be in a DMZ. And like most DMZs, this one is a barely habitable, completely dangerous pile of rubble that was once called Manhattan.

You see, after countless years of war-mongering, political stagnation, corporate corruption and financial & social breakdowns, the people of the America had enough and slowly but surely decided to fight back against the "power" that failed them: the American government. Incredibly, just as with Iraq or Katrina, the federal and state authorities are completely unprepared and eventually are--state by state--overrun by these militias until they reach the all-powerful east coast. Of course that's where the rich people lives, so that's where the US FINALLY decides to take a stand. After years and years of violence along the coast, a tenuous cease-fire is signed between what's left of the USA and the Free State Armies.

This back-story is obviously only filled in piece by piece and ironically, for some one who's been reading the series for several years now, seems eerily prophetic considering the failings of our once-mighty nation. I'm not saying this is the path we're heading toward, but it sure seems like a bleak option that might be worthwhile being entertained by before the possibility of LIVING it comes around, right?

We follow the character of Matty Roth, a young, naive photographer who is given the golden assignment to accompany a hot-shot reporter into the forbidden DMZ of Manhattan in order to learn what life is like for those who live there. Unfortunately, immediately upon his arrival on the island, the shit hits the fan (or, in this case, the rocket hits the helicopter blades) and he's stranded in the hellhole that is New York City.

The series then takes us on a whirlwind tour of the city, the people and, as mentioned before, the history of this world. It's fascinating on several levels, as we uncover the basic corruption that led to this point, while experiencing--along with Matty--the cut-throat living situation that the inhabitants of the island now have to endure. If you currently live in NYC or are in anyway attached to the city as a concept (and who isn't?), then you'll be amazed to see how the writer and author depict the Big Apple as a rotten piece of fruit that you'd want to avoid at all costs. It's interesting to see how every neighborhood in the city still maintains its old identity along with a new sort of attitude that makes it more dangerous than the next.

You have to give credit to Brian Wood, the writer of the series, for his ability to reconfigure your feelings toward America and New York City by essentially making it a place of nightmares instead of dreams. Brian Wood is what you would call an "indie" writer in the comic world, which essentially just means he's not the type of guy you find on a Superman or Spider-Man comic. From that you can derive that he has lofty ideals for the medium he writes in, hence his desire to deal with some heavy subjects like the ones found in DMZ.

Wood weaves some very intricate plots of political and corporate intrigue that, along with some very graphic depictions of violence in warzones, really hit hard and close to home for some people. If you're looking to read something dark but endlessly interesting and thought-provoking that directly connects to the stuff you read in the news every day, then DMZ is for you. The series goes beyond your traditional "dystopian future" story by tapping into something terrifyingly real and human...so I definitely recommend checking it out.

The first collection, On The Ground, sets up our characters and the city, but it's really the second trade, Body of a Journalist, that REALLY pumps up the shock and awe in the series. Here's a link to both: Volume 1 and Volume 2.
And even better, DC Comics (who publishes the series under its Mature Readers imprint called Vertigo) has the first issue available for you to read online right here: Issue #1.

So "enjoy" DMZ...don't forget, at the least what you're reading is fiction and not actual headlines. Well, at least not yet...

WATCHMEN or Who Watches the Watchmen (before reading it)?

As expected, I have decided to make my next post about the "graphic novel" that has been in the news the most in the past couple days/weeks/months...WATCHMEN. The movie came out last Friday, so I'm assuming that anyone reading this blog will have already seen it or, at the very least, is planning on seeing it soon. Either way, as I mentioned before, I'm not here to talk about the movie (as much as I'd love to comment on it), but rather the source material that it was based on.

Let's start with the men behind it...writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons. They were essentially paired together by DC Comics after Alan Moore proposed a series based on the classic Charlton Comics line of superheroes with DC owned. Once it became clear that Moore's story would change the world/characters so radically that they'd be usuable for future use, DC allowed the duo craft their tale using completely original characters, thus giving them the creative freedom they needed to turn Watchmen into the brilliant piece of fiction that it is recognized as today.

As much as I love Dave Gibbons, the artist of Watchmen, I still believe that the person most responsible for the work is writer Alan Moore. There is no doubt in my mind that Gibbons was the perfect artist for the comic mini-series--his ability to capture both the scope of the world and, more importantly, the subtleties in the characters is almost unmatched still today. Yet, in the end, the story, the dialogue and the themes that came from those elements all began as mere thoughts from the wild mind of Mr. Moore, who eventually put pen to paper so that we could partake in the craziness too.

Alan Moore is a man that I will undoubtedly talk about again on this blog. He is single-handedly responsible for some of the greatest works in the comic book medium, while also being one of the most controversial figures in it. To call him eccentric is to call the Pope moderately spiritual...let's call it how it is and just say it out loud: Alan Moore is bat-shit insane. Here's a good look at him. You may think that I purposely chose the picture with the long hair and the creepy stare to prove my point, but trust me, this might as well be a Glamour Shot considering how he looks in other "portraits." Either way, it's clear that his general off-the-beaten path view of life helps him craft his stories the way they are. But I'll leave a more in depth exploration of Alan Moore for another day because today I'm here to talk about his most celebrated work: Watchmen.

Watchmen, which started off as 12 individual issues that were eventually collected into a single volume to create a "graphic novel," has received so much acclaim that just recounting some of its accolades should be enough to persuade an average educated person to check it out. The only comic book/graphic novel to win a Hugo Award, the only comic/GN to be placed on TIME magazine's 100 Greatest Novels Since 1923...the list goes on and on. But if you ignore all that, you still get a beautifully-crafted and intelligently-written work about the Cold War, comic books in general and the nature of humanity and salvation itself.

First of all, as a piece of historical fiction, it has a stamp placed firmly upon it as commentary about the world during which it was written. Like Dr. Strangelove or Reagan's Trickle-Down Economics, Watchmen gives us a chilling view into what COULD happen if the wrong people stayed in power too long during the paranoia-filled days of the Cold War. This is a double-edged sword, since this clearly dates the book, but (as the movie proved) it's still very much a relevant work of fiction despite no longer having to fear the aggressive, militaristic policies of a totalitarian state known as the Soviet Union...now we just call it Russia! But seriously, folks, you feel the dread in the air in this book and it's rare to find a comic that so delicately straddles the line between sci-fi horror and human drama.

Moving on, and this is what truly sets it apart as a work within the comic book medium, is it's commentary on comic books and super-heroes themselves. You see, Alan Moore wrote Watchmen as a commentary on super-hero conventions. To do so, he made characters that represented a skewed version of the most popular comic book heroes.

For example, Dr. Manhattan is Superman (as they even say in the book: "The Superman exists and he is American" - clear reference to the fact that Superman as a character is so blindly patriotic to the "American Way")...specifically, Manhattan is Superman without the moral convictions that makes him choose the right thing time and time again.

Along those lines, he took the most complex of comic book characters, Batman, and split his psyche in a sort of Freudian multiple personality experiment: the Id is very clearly Rorschach -- the sociopathic element whose only goal is to eliminate crime and has no real restraints placed upon himself. Next is the ego, which is a moral compass of sorts that place limits on right & wrong and puts importance on honesty of self -- that is clearly Nite-Owl. Lastly is the super-ego, which defines the extreme drive for perfection...right and wrong are irrelevant as long you achieveyour goals, but unlike the Id, the Super-Ego IS capable of projecting emotions...so that would represent our character in question, Ozymandias. Freud's basic theory is that a person can only be complete (mentally, spiritually and physically healthy) if all three parts of the psyche balance each other out, so by splitting them all up and creating characters that represent the purest form of each, Moore managed to give us the most precise analysis on how a hero would act depending on his psychological state.

I think now would be the right time to mention that Watchmen is NOT an easy read. I know people who have picked it up and assumed that it can be tackled in a couple hours...not the case. There are several parts of the graphic novel that are essentially chapters from a book in full prose and skipping those sections is a travesty, as they add so much to the characters and the world in the book. Not only that, but the multi-narrative threads that engulf certain chapters make it crucial for you to pay attention to every panel, lest you find yourself blending several storylines into one and completely losing the flow of the story. So readers beware, this is not for beginners, but at the same time, if you really allow yourself to become engrossed by the story and characters, you won't find a more rewarding graphic novel out there.

I could obviously go on and on about this book, but I don't want to unintentionally give away too much plot for those of you who haven't read it yet, so here it is in its cheapest form: http://www.amazon.com/Watchmen-Alan-Moore/dp/0930289234/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236810565&sr=8-1
I will gladly address any other elements of the comic, so feel free to post any questions/thoughts in the comments section. In the meantime, I would love to hear what you all think of the work if/once you've read it.

More posts coming soon, but in the meantime...keep reading!

FATHOM or The Ocean's Hottest Inhabitant

Well, I promised to post pretty regularly and based on "real world" tidbits that might spark interest in the average person, so I'll use today's news to start you guys off with a "lighter" comic to prepare everyone for a more involved post I'm preparing for the upcoming week (you should all probably know what that post will be about).

Anyway, today it was announced that a comic book series called FATHOM is not only being adapted into a film, but also already has a "star" attached, namely the unfathomably (see what I did there?) hot Megan Fox. For more details on the project, check this out:
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118000796.html? categoryid=13&cs=1.

But I'm not here to talk about the film. As much as I love movies, the studios look at these projects as money-making products, and although there's nothing wrong with that, I'm more interested in the source material...so keep that in mind as I begin to post more often-- the focus of this blog is and will always be the comics, not the movies/TV shows/etc. they inspire.

Ok, so Fathom...well, let's start by taking a look at the basics of a comic book. There are usually two elements that come together to create a good or, at the very least, entertaining comic/graphic novel: the writing and the art. Usually those tasks are done by two separate people, but in some instances a comic book is crafted by an auteur-like creator who can do both-- Fathom is one of those books. The writer/artist was a man by the name of Michael Turner, an artist who had the ability to create flashy worlds populated by characters who popped from the page (his most famous creation, prior to Fathom, was the series called WITCHBLADE, which was evenutally adapted into a TNT TV series). Some people might say he wasn't the most technically-gifted artist, but those people would be hard-pressed to deny his popular (well, as popular as comics can get) appeal among the fanboys, and if you look at his work, it's not hard to see why: the girls he drew were HOT...like Megan Fox-HOT.

So yep, in a rare instance of Hollywood going for the obvious casting choice, they've found the one actress who can portray Michael Turner's vision of Fathom's protagonist, a young woman by the name of Aspen Matthews, pretty much spot on. Allow me to provide you with a visual aide:

There...that is the artwork of Michael Turner in all it's glory. As I said before, he may never have been the guy that the publishers turned to when they needed a subtle penciller who could handle emotional moments, but that certainly didn't make him any less in demand.

Moving on from the artwork and onto the story...well, it's pretty basic. Our hero, Aspen, is this fun-loving young woman whose life has revolved around water ever since she was "found" in the middle of the ocean as a child. She grew up to become an Olympic swimmer and well-respected marine biologist, so the only place she feels comfortable is among the waves. Her kin- ship with the sea is explained as the series progresses and we learn her TRUE origin--she's not just some kid who fell off a boat, she's much, much more...

It's a really fun comic book series that started off small by focusing on Aspen and eventually expanded to include a large supporting cast and an exciting underwater world. Eventually, the writing and art duties were passed on to others due to the tragic revelation that Michael Turner was suffering from cancer. Although Turner continued to work throughout the years, he recently succumbed to the disease during the summer of 2008...a heartbreaking end to a promising young artist who, right before his death, took the Fathom world from its previous publisher, Top Cow Comics, and used it as the foundation to start his own company: Aspen MLT (MLT stands for his initials), which still exists today.

It's exciting to know that one of Turner's most popular creations is finally becoming a big feature film with a perfect lead actress, but you can't escape the sad fact that its young creator never lived to see it on screen...

I wrote this post to give you a bit of context behind the recently-announced project, but also in hopes that you might be interested in taking a look at it. Frankly, the series has two major appeals...the (let's call it what it is) sexy artwork that probably lends itself to a young teenage male audience, but also the ocean-centric story, which is filled with well-researched details about oceanography and underwater life, which is only highlighted by the Turner's rich artwork. If you think it may interest you, I highly recommend starting with the first storyline, which is collected in Trade Paperback format (also known as a TPB - remember this term, I'll be using it a lot) on sale here: http://www.amazon.com/Fathom-Vol-1-Michael-Turner/dp/1582402108.

So that concludes my first official comic book "lesson," by NO means am I suggesting that this be the FIRST comic book you should go out and buy...this is more of "first day of class"-like session where I give you guys a brief idea of what I'm trying to do with this blog...I hope you all enjoy it!