holds at least part of New York State, and presumably other territories further northeast. In an interview, Brian Wood described the back-history as the citizens of Middle America having risen up against the pre-emptive war policies of the U.S. government, causing a Second American Civil War. He expanded on this in a later interview: Manhattan is mainly empty, with only 400,000 people still on the island (compared with 1.5 million in the 2000 census), populated only by the poor who were not evacuated, snipers and holdouts. Wood has described the setting as: "Think equal parts Escape from New York, Fallujah, and New Orleans right after Katrina". The comic series begins when reporter Matty Roth arrives in Manhattan, five years after the outbreak of the war. Through the series' first 22 issues, DMZ followed Matty Roth through various crises in his first year and a half around the DMZ and the surrounding areas, such as military bases of the Free Armies and of the United States. In issue #23, however, Brian Wood started several tangents from the main storyline and devoted single issues to the stories of several other characters from the DMZ; a street artist, a young girl living rough, the triad leader Wilson, Matty's love interest Kelly, a local DJ, and the commander of the Central Park "Ghosts" – Soames, respectively. The story returned to primarily following Matty Roth in issue #29. Impact and reception The series had an immediate impact, attracting critical recognition from the American national media with the release of the first trade paperback, DMZ Vol. 1: On The Ground. Paul Katz of Entertainment Weekly accorded the volume an "A−" rating in a July 2006 assessment, while Jessa Crispin soon followed with a confident prediction in the Chicago Sun-Times that the series would fill the void being left by Vertigo blockbuster Y: The Last Man, writing "DMZ is incredible. It is addictive and brutal, and a perfect antidote to the flag-waving Fox News broadcasts of the War on Terror. Wood and Burchielli have created something special, something that gets beyond the body counts and the headlines of setbacks and failures". The San Francisco Chronicles Peter Hartlaub hailed the comic as an "excellent series ... equal parts compelling drama and cautionary tale, filled with inspired little touches", and commended in particular the evoking of both Iraq War-era Baghdad and Katrina-era New Orleans in the city's portrayal as