Joe Sacco

A journalistic collection in comic book format from the sidelines of wars around the world includes articles on the American military in Iraq, the Caucasus widow trials, the dilemmas of India's "untouchables," and the smuggling tunnels of Gaza.

Journalism

Stijn C

Elizabeth Hisserich

'The blessing of an inherently interpretive medium like comics is that it hasn't allowed me to . . . make a virtue of dispassion. For good or for ill, the comics medium is adamant, and it has forced me to make choices. In my view, that is part of its message' - from the preface by Joe Sacco Over the past decade, Joe Sacco has increasingly turned to short-form com­ics journalism to report from conflict zones around the world. Collected here for the first time, Sacco's darkly funny, revealing reportage confirms his standing as one of the foremost international correspondents working today. Journalism takes readers from the smuggling tunnels of Gaza to war crimes trials in The Hague, from the lives of India's 'untouchables' to the ordeal of sub-Saharan refugees washed up on the shores of Malta. Sacco also confronts the misery and absurdity of the war in Iraq, including the darkest chapter in recent American history - the torture of detainees. Vividly depicting Sacco's own interactions with the people he meets, the stories in this remarkable collection argue for the essential truth in comics reportage, an inevitably subjective journalistic endeavour. Among Sacco's most mature and accomplished work, Journalism demonstrates the power of a great comics artist to chronicle lived experience with a force that often eludes other media.

Frederik Van den Bril

Jolin Masson

Daniel Nieuwenhuizen

"The images Sacco draws are so powerful that they burn deep into your retina and reconfigure how you see the world... Journalism displays Sacco at the top of his game."—National Post (Toronto) Over the past decade, Joe Sacco has increasingly turned to short-form comics journalism to report from conflict zones around the world. Collected here for the first time, Sacco's darkly funny, revealing reportage confirms his standing as one of the foremost war correspondents working today. Journalism takes readers from the smuggling tunnels of Gaza to war crimes trials in The Hague, from the lives of India's "untouchables" to the ordeal of Saharan refugees washed up on the shores of Malta. And in pieces never published before in the United States, Sacco confronts the misery and absurdity of the war in Iraq, including the darkest chapter in recent American history—the torture of detainees. Vividly depicting Sacco's own interactions with the people he meets, the stories in this remarkable collection argue for the essential truth in comics reportage, an inevitably subjective journalistic endeavor. Among Sacco's most mature and accomplished work, Journalism demonstrates the power of our premier cartoonist to chronicle lived experience with a force that often eludes other media.

Journalism

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