Sudden and dreadful, Wood's CHANNEL ZERO now seems strangely prescient and simultaneously more human than it did when I first read it. A parable about revolution that never becomes the didactic claptrap such subject matter seems to inspire, Wood crafts a heavy and paranoid story about an America that's handed its civil liberties part and parcel over to a Big Brother Government that crushes and controls speech and thought, when it can. Jennie 2.5, a video-revolutionary, takes it upon herself to bring free speech back to the masses with pirate television broadcasts that fly in the face of the powers that be. And then things fall apart.
Whereas many lesser writers would carry on with the polemic, Wood centers his work on the humans at the heart of this erstwhile revolution and thus CHANNEL ZERO focuses on the human trappings and failings of every movement: people themselves. Lucid and sharp, crackling with dread, CHANNEL ZERO is one part DIY zine and one part condemnation of a world too eager to be spoon-fed and prepackaged, and the people living opening their mouths for the first bite.
Matt Fraction splits his time between motion graphics and design house MK12, writing comics, and reading comics. He is the author of the graphic novels The Annotated Mantooth and Last of the Independents, both available from AiT/Planet Lar. He can be found on the web at mattfraction.com. His wife is hot.
