Graphic novel asks, how much privacy would you sacrifice to feel safe?

The Homeland Directive by Robert Venditti, illustrated by Michael Huddleston

This superbly-illustrated graphic novel asks how much privacy you would sacrifice in order to feel safe.

The Homeland Directive

Writer: Robert Venditti

Illustrator: Mike Huddleston

Publisher: Top Shelf Productions

IN this age of digital footprints and cyber-surveillance, how much is too much when it comes to privacy? In other words, how much of your personal data would you be willing to give up in order to feel protected?

Robert Venditti’s The Homeland Directive dives right into these issues, in the manner of an adrenaline-pumping Hollywood thriller; in fact, more movies could stand to take some pointers from this graphic novel when it comes to building up a story and stretching out the suspense.

Seemingly random illnesses around the US are never unrelated when there's a good conspiracy theory to spin. 

The story centres on one Dr Laura Regan of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, a world authority on viral and bacteriological studies. On her way to speak at an event, Laura’s life is suddenly turned upside down: her research partner turns up dead, she’s the prime suspect and a nationwide manhunt is in progress for her.

Primed as we have been before this happens though, we know all is not as it seems.

For one, there is the beleaguered Head of the Department of Homeland Security, who has a mysterious plan that seemingly involves the deaths of a few thousand people. There are also the patients being admitted into hospitals around the country, suffering from an unknown disease. And then there are the three rogue government agents who are helping Laura because they believe the Government is behind the whole thing.

But how do these seemingly disparate elements fit together? That is what we uncover bit by bit as we are sucked deeper into the conspiracy that surrounds Laura. And it’s a true indictment of our times that we are not at all shocked by the existence of a team of cyber-detectives within the US Government, who trail Laura by unearthing every single detail of her life, as long as it is present online.

Shady deals in the story are depicted using pencil-shaded panels. 

It is a deft move by Vendetti: instead of taking sides in the debate over cyber-surveillance, he instead presents it as both the problem and the solution. His science fiction background (he is the author of The Surrogates graphic novel series) fits this story of the pervasive, tech-empowered Big Brother well, and the way he manages to juggle the story’s many characters while making them memorable is impressive – particularly enjoyable are the computer geeks who treat their omniscient access into people’s lives as entertainment.

It is Huddleston’s frenetic artwork, however, that really sucks you into the story. As both illustrator and colourist, his work here is superb, using a variety of drawing styles, and more specifically, colours and colouring styles, to show different moods, plot points and story arcs. To depict shady White House dealings, for instance, he uses pencil-shaded panels, while rich, tonal shades are employed for cityscapes; watercoloured backgrounds appear in bleaker scenes while spot colouring in otherwise grey panels draw the eye to particular elements. Truly, the book needs more than one read to fully appreciate the detail put into its art.

As with all thrillers, the pay-off at the end needs to live up to the journey that brought us there, and this is where The Homeland Directive falters slightly. The “big reveal”, as well as the story’s conclusion, while satisfying, feel a little too neat. That’s not to say it wasn’t plausible; just that, in its last few pages, it felt like the story decided to go truly Hollywood and play it safe.