Review: The Once and Future Riot

The Once and Future Riot is a recent piece of comics journalism by Joe Sacco, published last year. Sacco is best-known for his work Palestine; given his areas of interest, I think if Sacco shows up in your hometown, your hometown has got some issues.

For this book, Sacco went to Muzaffarnagar, India, where a riot erupted between Hindus and Muslims. But as Sacco finds in interviewing the people there, the precise details as to how the violence started and who suffered change depending on who's telling the story (which Sacco presents with his usual skepticism).

The moment I found most fascinating came when Sacco visited a camp of Muslim refugees who had fled after the riot and had yet to return home, despite government assurances that it was safe. One of the refugees spoke passionately about his former Hindu neighbours and the good will that had existed between them. Another refugee responded with the armor-piercing question, "Why are you here, if you have a house there?"

The book does not paint a pretty picture of India but I came away affected by many scenes such as the one I described. It's another fine piece of work by Sacco.

Review: the Great War

"Field Marshal Haig has formulated a brilliant new tactical plan to ensure final victory in the field."

"Ah. Would this brilliant plan involve us climbing out of our trenches and walking very slowly towards the enemy?"

"How could you possibly know that, Blackadder? It's classified information!"

-Blackadder Goes Forth

I didn't pay attention to the product description of the Great War: July 1, 1916 - the First Day of the Battle of the Somme by Joe Sacco. A new non-fiction book by Joe Sacco, you say? Bought. Had it arrived in my house just one day sooner, it would have been in time for Remembrance Day.

What is the actual product? Allow me to illustrate:

I joked online about my copy of Destroy!! being inadequate by comparison.

The Great War is a 24-foot long panorama of the Battle of Somme. Beginning from the left, you see images of cavalrymen, the beginnings of trenches, then the mines and shelling, the disastrous casualties, the hospitals and finally the graveyards. The panorama contains no text.

An accompanying booklet explains the genesis of the project and annotates the panorama. There's also a fantastic description of the Battle of Somme written by Adam Hochschild (author of King Leopold's Ghost).

Like a great museum diorama, it's amazing to see how Sacco is able to tell a story with the Great War sans text. Suppose you know nothing about the Battle of Somme and don't have access to the accompanying booklet - you can still see the story of the battle unfold across the panorama. It's a brilliant piece of art; not exactly a comic book or graphic novel, but a bloody brilliant idea, executed by an expert.

Review: the Fixer and Other Stories

Although I've enjoyed Joe Sacco's long-form journalism works (Palestine, Safe Area Gorazde & Footnotes in Gaza), I resisted picking up the Fixer and Other Stories for quite some time, not realizing it comprised three journalism stories from 1997-2003 in the same mold as the aforementioned books.

"The Fixer" is the longest tale, relating how Sacco met Neven, a former soldier in Sarajevo who helped him get about the city in exchange for money. Much of the story involves the tales Neven would tell about what he'd done in the Cold War and in the Yugoslav Wars. Neven's stories are quite engaging, particularly one where he shoots a soldier, relaxes, then the enemy soldier turns out to have survived his first salvo and shoots Neven, knocking him down and forcing him to shoot his gun through its holster before the enemy can fire another round. They're great stories, but over time Sacco begins to wonder how much truth they contain. This is a great companion piece to Safe Area Gorazde, focusing more on the soldiers' lives than the civilians.

Also closely related to Safe Area Gorazde is "Soba," about Sacco's encounters with the titular character, a soldier who became a celebrity in Sarajevo as just about every visiting journalist would seek his commentary on the conflict. It's a short story, but gives space for Soba to elaborate on his activities during the war, his perilous work disarming landmines and his hard-partying lifestyle in Sarajevo.

The last - and least - is "Christmas With Karadzic," detailing how Sacco and two other journalists managed to briefly interview Radovan Karadzic some time before Karadzic was arrested for war crimes. However, it's not really about Karadzic, it's about the journalist trio doing the work to find Karadzic and sharing their reactions to their surroundings. The accompanying journalists' personalities are so strong it overwhelms the narrative about Karadzic - it's probably better suited to a collection around the theme of journalism rather than sitting alongside two pieces about the Yugoslav Wars.

Overall, this book was worth adding to my collection for the Fixer on its own; there's another Sacco collection coming out in a few months and I won't hesitate to pick it up this time!