Feeding Ground #1-4 (Archaia – Lang / Lapiniski / Mangun)

This new series is ripped right out of the real-life drama unfolding on the Mexico-Arizona border! FEEDING GROUND reaches a large and diverse audience no matter your personal point of view on the issue. In this factious story, a famine caused by Blackwell Industries drives Diego Busqueda, a noble “coyote,” to lead a band of Mexican border crossers across the unforgiving Devil’s Highway, a desert cursed with blistering days and deadly nights. Back home, Diego’s daughter Flaca discovers that something hungrier prowls the factory fields. Stalked and persecuted, can the Busqueda family maintain their dreams of immigration or will the horrors of the desert tear them apart? Also included in each issue is 24 pages of bonus content in Spanish!

At one of the first booths I visited at C2E2, I met Chris Mangun and I was introduced to the world of Archaia’s Feeding Ground – for the rest of the creators I saw during the day, it was a tough act to follow!

Being someone who is only second generation born in America, my ears perk up when anyone starts talking immigration issues.  In big broad strokes, these are hugely complex issues for our nation both at the macro and micro level and should not be simplified by anyone regardless of where you fall along the political spectrum.  That being said, it is hard for me when bringing up and thinking about immigration issues to not put faces on the stories and not think about the families involved presently and those from generations past.

This series written by Swifty Lang does exactly that, it fleshes out a shared experience and a common tale known to countless families – the story of trying to do something better for your family, even if it means breaking the law – to a specific family.  Some of what is written in these issues are based on real stories, experiences and details – and those are fairly easy to identify.  Hint: they aren’t the parts about the genetic-experimentation farms and the werewolves.  The details of this story that are written into the emotion and characters are so solid and genuine that they should not be overlooked when reading the entire tale.  Even in light of the conflict in-between border patrols and out of control lycanthropes.

Michael Lapinski’s art, while being dark toned and focused much more on fluidity of motion rather than specific details, is down right beautiful and actually fits exactly the over-bearing fear and intensity of the story.

The Bottom Line: A brilliant thinker worth reading all at once!

Update from Greg: I’m so glad Eric got to this one. It would have taken me at least another week and I wanted this out sooner than that. When talking with Chris Mangun at C2E2 about the concept of the story I had a huge “Wow” moment.  The concept of werewolves and how they are used in the story is nothing short of brilliant.  Much in the same way everyone smacked their foreheads when we heard the concept of 30 DAYS OF NIGHT.  It was so simple, yet so awesome, we couldn’t help but pay attention.

Grade: A