Shooting War

Shooting War is a future history webcomic and graphic novel by writer Anthony Lappé and artist Dan Goldman. It originated on SMITH Magazine, a web magazine about storytelling in all its forms. The story is set in 2011 and features John McCain as the President of the United States. It tells the story of a video-blogger named Jimmy Burns. Burns films a terrorist suicide bombing attack on a Starbucks in Brooklyn and becomes an overnight media star. Shortly after, he is sent to cover the still-raging war in Iraq for the fictional Global News Network. [1]

The webcomic received recognition from magazines, newspapers and websites such as Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, Entertainment Weekly, Wired Magazine and Publishers Weekly's The Beat blog, and was nominated for the 2007 Eisner Awards as "best digital comic". [2] The online comic was acquired by Warner Books (now called Grand Central Publishing) for publication as a graphic novel. The 192-page full-color hardcover book was released in the U.S. in mid-November 2007, and was published in the UK by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in early November. USA Today chose it as their "big fall graphic novel", calling it "a subversively buzz-worthy online comic."[3]

Writer Lappé drew upon his previous experiences in the Iraq war zone as producer of the Showtime documentary Battleground: 21 Days on the Empire's Edge.[4] Outside of his artwork on Shooting War, Goldman is a co-founder of the ACT-I-VATE webcomics anthology (along with Dean Haspiel, Josh Neufeld, and others). [5]

Storyline

The online preview of the story spans 11 chapters. The book has an additional 110 pages of material.

Chapter 1

In 2011, blogger Jimmy Burns has just gotten his new Samsung MMXI video camera and is taking it for a test drive by making his vlog. He was standing outside of a Starbucks explaining his view and complaints on eminent domain when suddenly a bomb inside the Starbucks detonates. He is blown twenty feet away. After he recovers himself he goes to help other people hurt in the blast. An employee of the news company Global News, sees his vlog and almost instantly gets it placed on live television.

Chapter 2

Later after the terrorist attack Jimmy has become somewhat of a national celebrity. This chapter shows his popularity with news stations and magazines. Near the end of this chapter the head of Global News, a controversial news network which shows graphic violence, offers Jimmy a job as one of his reporters.

Life imitating art

While not as catastrophic as the incident in Shooting War, a Starbucks in New York City was bombed on Memorial Day 2009, recalling a scene from the graphic novel.[6]

External links

References

  1. ↑ Jensen, Jeff; Tom Russo; Sean Howe. (November 23, 2007). "What's New In Comics". Entertainment Weekly. Pg. 79
  2. ↑ Eisner Award Nominations Overwhelm with Variety, from official website of Comic-Con 2007. Retrieved on 27 April 2007.
  3. ↑ (September 6, 2007). "Big Fall Graphic Novel". USA Today. Pg. 6D
  4. ↑ McCullough, Troy. (June 11, 2006). "Terrorism, the cartoon: Web graphic novel expands genre". The Baltimore Sun. Pg. 2C
  5. ↑ (November 1, 2006). "Warning: Graphic Scenes of War". Creativity. Pg. 8
  6. ↑ Paddock, Barry; Kemp, Joe; and Lemire, Jonathon. "Small bomb goes off outside Upper East Side Starbucks" NY Daily News (May 25, 2009).