Joe Sacco ' Safe Area Goradze/Palestine' and Comic Journalism

I think its ad excellent medium for journalism, maybe better than photojournalism because the subjectivity is far more obvious. I think it is good to be reminded at every turn that journalism is in some way subjective, prejudiced byt the journalist. It's to easy to take a photo or a news story at face value but with a comic the subjectivity is inescapable and, as pete says, freely admitted.

that is my helpful comment.

He's a lovely man too. Saw him at the ICA a couple weeks ago chatting with Martin Rowson. Not nearly as geeky as he paints himself

I think Chuck OTM about the ending just meaning that things will just carry on as they are. Palestine was well drawn and very interesting but unfortunately suffered because I am very aware of the situation and history of the region.

On the other hand Safe Area was totally harrowing because I really knew so little to start with! The characters were all very well constructed both as a trope within the story (Silly girls, Rikki, etc) and as individuals away from the story. His damning of the UN was pretty shocking for a person like me (the UN and it's ilk are the kind of bodies that my father and my friends' fathers worked for) especially when I realised how spot on he was in that context and how it still seems to be happening ("Neutrality above all else") in Darfur etc.

There is a bias naturally and that is understandable: He went to find a story and became very close to the people involved while finding it. That might not really explain the bias! I personally think that he portrayed the Serbs like Spiegelman had the Poles in Maus where the default was that they came from a negative position but they weren't all tarred with the same brush i.e. evil. He is definitely NOT a Serb apologist, they are condemned mainly by their actions and the way they turned on past neighbours and friends (again, like Maus) where necessary.

I notice that the Irish Times recently reviewed exciting new comic Safe Area Gorazde

Ha ha, no (I sadly cut that out of the paper and put it in the book) what they had was an excerpt from a blog (like the Guardian does for filler) talking about the book. I don't recall them actually try to claim that it was new!

Right. I read The Fixer and proceeded to have horrific nightmares last night. It's more powerful than Safe Area because it's so focussed on one person imho. SPOILER The fact that he is a Serb who sees Sarajevo as home and fought bravely for it who knew most of the warlords before the whole struggle just makes it all that credible. That there is only one mention of how dangerous that was is a pretty impressive use of understatement (if that makes sense...)!.

Horrific and brilliant. Definitely the one I'd recommend: It's more concise and straightforward (less names and places sort of thing). It's scope is much more limited, as I said above, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't explore most of what was covered (both as action and as philosphy i.e. politics etc) in Safe Area. Very happy that I read this but could do without the whole thinking about it late at night just before going to sleep thanks!

I love the bit with the tanks in The Fixer. TANKS!

I love Joe Sacco!

His Notes of a Defeatist are a bit rub though.

Oh bugger. That should be 'is a bit rub' and Notes From A Defeatist.

I was looking at it the other day. the rock band stuff is good, as is the stuff about his mother in Malta during the war. And I liked trying to spot locations in the Berlin stuff.

An aside - I was looking at "Palestine", at the bit where he walks through the Olde City of Jerusalem with two Israeli Jewish women, and the drawings are so evocative of the place. I could mentally trace the path he walked, and was almost recognising individual stalls that I had seen. It captures well the claustrophobic mentalism of the Olde City. It is a pity, though, that he did not have The Tamarhindy Guy outside the Damascus Gate, though maybe The Tamarhindy Guy is a product of the Oslo era.

Show off!

I dunno, I just felt a little cheated. I suppose it wasn't as huge as the rest or as coherent and that bugged me a little.

I just read "Palestine" and I am fucking astonished. Wow. I'd never read Sacco before and I have no idea how this happened.

I have "Gorazde" too, which I'll read when I have time, but are there any other comics journalists out there?

I just read Gorazde and I like it even better than Palestine. It had the side effect of persuading me that U.N. neutrality is a terribly offensive joke.

interesting interview regarding his new one: http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/01/201011783113578937.html

has anyone read it?

I got Palestine for my birthday from my Dad and I've been slowly reading it and enjoying it. My dad asked me if I'd like another one of his books for Xmas. What would people recommend?

Safe Area Gorazde

Of the many Sacco comics I have skimmed, I think The Fixer is my favourite. But if you want to go further with the Middle East stuff Footnotes in Gaza (about some forgotten minor massacare by Israeli troops of (who else) Palestinians in 1956) looks interesting.

Gorazde.

Footnotes in Gaza is the only one I read, and I enjoyed it a lot. The fact that most people seem to consider it a lesser work of Sacco's really makes me want to seek out his more well known stuff.