Action/Adventure

Channel Zero

There’s something seriously cool about this book. Maybe it’s the Warren Ellis introduction that really sells the book exceptionally well. Maybe it’s the fantastic graphic design of the entire package. The truth however is probably a combination of all these points and the story found within these pages. Originally it was released by Image Comics but it didn’t find the audience that it needed, which is just as well for Larry Young (the publisher of Ait-Planetlar) since he’s found his golden boy.

Looking at the front cover when Channel Zero was published the San Francisco publisher had a mere 6 other graphic novels in it’s library (3 of which were more graphic novellas than novels but I digress). This was the biggest release by Ait-Planetlar at the time and it still sells for them and with good reason.

The book is set in New York sometime in the future, after the Clean Act. A bill passed in parliament that put a stranglehold on free speech. Everything was censored and the government clamped down. The story follows Jennie 2.5 as she tries to wake people up, as she stages her resistance to this situation. The story is told from a first person perspective as you get into Jennie’s mind as she fights through. The resistance is being built and staged in a different way, it’s dirtier, it’s grittier, the future it’s portraying is real. This is a resistance as someone young would stage it.

Artistically the book is a pastiche of black and white photographs superimposed on solid black inks, done in a very scratchy style. The art style fits the story perfectly. I’d even go so far to say that I couldn’t imagine any other style associated with this type of story. The really annoying thing is that Brian Wood doesn’t draw much sequential stories anymore as he concentrates to drawing/designing covers and writing stories for others to draw. It’s a shame really because I think that is what gives him that certain edge to his work. It’s like because he’s drawing it he puts that much more emotion into the page and he makes it all count.

One of the great little details that I love about the book are the little messages that are scattered randomly about the page. It’s a good little way of showing off what it’s trying to tell you. My absolute favourite line in the book is:

‘Your Mind is a Weapon. Use it’

However there are loads more:

• Beware those who know
• Bomb the system
• Don’t be a puppet

On Broken Kode, I wrote an entry a while back that effectively attacked Brian Wood’s latest work (at the time latest). Unfortunately if you google Ait Planetlar in google that particular post comes up on the first page. What the post also fails to tell you why I was upset. The reason was simple, I had read Channel Zero. It’s a very tough act to follow, and unfortunately that was Brian’s first sequential work. I have enjoyed a few of his books since this book was released, however they can’t match this, although I’m always keen to see if he can.

Writer : Brian Wood
Illustrator : Brian Wood
Letter: Brian Wood
Publisher: Ait-Planetlar