Ibrahim Alcinkaya - Paramilitary and Police State as a Dystopian Future in Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli’s DMZ
03/07/2020 13:00 Room 1 #parcnp
As Pustz suggest, comic books can be read as a cultural memory and to a certain degree a reflection of the contemporary times in which they are created. Considering Pustz’s claim, Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli’s 71-issue comic book series titled DMZ functions as a reflection of the post 9-11 American metropolitan, specifically the considerably reinforced internal militaristic control, media oppression, and the traumatized citizens.
As Kraska and Kappeler put forward, since the 1980s, there has been a dramatic uptrend in the number of paramilitary police units or so-called the PPUs. Not only did the technological progress translate into the upgrade and diversification of the equipment that the police utilized, the occasions that the PPUs were called out significantly increased. Sturt Schrader also pointed this empowerment of policing in his work on the adaptation of counterinsurgency model that the United States provided the third world countries as a consultation back in the United States as a policing strategy. After 9-11, means of control and surveillance have continued to expand and gain power, manifesting itself as a cultural memory in Wood and Burchielli’s comic book series DMZ.
