DMZ (comics)

DMZ
Cover art by Brian Wood or DMZ issue #3 – the third part of the "On the Ground" arc – featuring the press pass of protagonist Matty Roth above the Manhattan skyline
Publication information
Publisher	Vertigo
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Ongoing series
Publication date(s)	November 2005 – February 2012
No. of issues	72
Main character(s)	Matty Roth Zee Hernandez
Creative team
Created by	Brian Wood Riccardo Burchielli
Written by	Brian Wood
Artist(s)	Riccardo Burchielli Brian Wood John Paul Leon
Letterer(s)	Jared K. Fletcher
Colorist(s)	Jeromy Cox
Editor(s)	Will Dennis

DMZ is an American comic book series written by Brian Wood, with artwork by Wood and Riccardo Burchielli. The series is set in the near future, where a Second American Civil War has turned the island of Manhattan into a demilitarized zone (DMZ), caught between forces of the United States of America and secessionist Free States of America.

DMZ is published by DC Comics under their Vertigo imprint. It ran from November 2005 to February 2012, covering 72 issues that have also been collected in 12 trade paperback volumes.

After garnering increasing recognition for a string of creator-owned comics and runs on major commercial series, writer/illustrator Brian Wood enjoyed a breakout success with his acclaimed yearlong series Demo (2003–2004), opening up the possibility of achieving a career goal of working with DC Comics' independent imprint Vertigo. Wood pitched more than a half a dozen scripts to no avail to admiring editor Will Dennis – who had worked on long-running heavyweight Vertigo titles such as 100 Bullets and Y: The Last Man – before finally his last idea, a tale of war-torn Manhattan, won the editor's instant approval.

The inspiration for the comic had initially come to Wood in early 2003, at a time when the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City and the invasion of Iraq dominated the American national psyche. Wood had just moved to San Francisco from New York City, and the experience of recalling in that political atmosphere the memories and story ideas he had accumulated over a decade living in the city instigated the creation of the artwork that would become the foundation of DMZ. Initially developed as Wartime, a five issue black-and-white miniseries, the comic was consciously a project of importance to Wood, representing a return to the perspective of his breakthrough work Channel Zero (1997), a bleak portrayal of youth culture and anti-authoritarian expression in the repressive environment of Giuliani-era New York City. After "Wartime" had been disqualified as too close a title to that of a contemporary Vertigo release, Wood and Dennis considered a host of alternatives including "Embedded", "No Man's Land" and "The War for New York" before settling on "DMZ".