Ideals by force.
Creative Staff:
Story: Brian Wood
Art: Mack Chater
Colors: Lee Roughridge
Letterer: Nate Piekos of Blambot
What They Say:
Briggs Land, nearly a hundred square miles of rural wilderness, contains the largest antigovernment secessionist movement in the United States. When matriarch Grace Briggs wrests control of the operation from her incarcerated husband, she sparks a war within the community—and her immediate family—that threatens to bring the full power of the federal government down on their heads.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Brian Wood has put together some really interesting works in the last several years and currently has the Aliens: Defiance series running, also from Dark Horse. While I enjoyed his run on The Massive and the miniseries recently, the book that really got me interested in him is his work on Rebels as it explored an interesting area of history little covered in most entertainment. With Briggs Land, Wood and artist Mack Chater look at things in the present day but you can see threads of the past mixed in here with relation to the ideals that these characters live for. It’s easily to feel sympathetic to varying degrees with some of the concepts, but as is made clear throughout this, there are some very dark things about it all.
With a TV series in the works as well, Briggs Land tells a familiar tale of a family in turmoil as the reins of power are shifting. These are things we’ve seen with families tied to companies, politics, and the mafia and other criminal enterprises as well. Here, it focuses on a hundred square mile area of land in northern New York that’s known by the family name as Briggs Land, an off the grid and largely secessionist place where it stands apart as they attempt to live a mostly neutral way in regards to the state and government at larger. It’s not easy overall because there are things one gets involved with in a range of ways, but with lots of people living within the borders, family dynamics and politics, and the other strains that comes from the sovereign citizen and secessionist movements such as racism and anti-semitism, there’s a very intense feeling about much of it.
The game changing moment within this story as we meet the core family is that the man currently behind it all, Jim Briggs, is in prison for an attempt some twenty years prior in assassinating the President. Jim is still essentially running the whole thing from prison, but that’s starting to end now as his wife Grace is taking control of it after she learns that he’s cutting deals with the D.A., something that goes against their ideals in a big way. The book gives us a lot of background on Grace and her family as told through the two FBI agents that are observing them as a new agent is coming on board to take it all in. We get a good look at the family dynamic through this and Grace’s own interactions with her sons but also simply the structure of the Land and how her attempt at wresting control away from her husband is going to really bring these factions and fault lines to the forefront.
In Summary:
Briggs Land got a lot of attention for its arrival combined with a TV series being put into production and I’ll admit that got me to take a look at it as well. Wood has landed well with artist Mack Chater as he brings to life this place and its people really well as there’s that layer of normality with something very different underneath. We got a lot of shades of this with the Cinemax series Banshee and I can see Briggs Land charting its course very well with what it wants to do here. Wood and Chater have a lot of things laid out quickly and easily here and even though you can view it as a storyboard for a pilot episode you realize just how much it conveys and how quickly it draws you in. I’m really curious to see just how far Wood will go in bringing to light what this kind of environment is like as there’s a lot of ink on that over the last few years alone.
Grade:
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: August 17th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
