Joe Sacco is a comics journalist, or as he describes himself in this book, an "action cartoonist," entering areas of political turmoil to make documentary comics. Despite some occasional dips into free-wheeling personal anecdote reminiscent of Kerouac or Crumb, Sacco is predominantly a documentarian, not terribly concerned with narrative, but more focused on recounting the individual stories of the people he interviews. And there are a lot of interviews, conducted over countless cups of tea in innumerable Palestinian homes, usually with groups of people seemingly eager to recount tales about the oppression and injustice they suffer under the Israelis every day. These range from the petty (police forcing a kid to stand in the rain while they question him under the shelter of an awning), to the horrific (soldiers shooting a mother's son, then her other son, then refusing to release the bodies until the dead of night, then giving the family no more than 15 minutes to mourn over the body), to the dystopian (myriad tortures including stress postures held for days, ball point pen tubes inserted into genitalia, etc). It's rough stuff, and the very few bright spots, like a curious child asking about America or a translator's efforts to help disabled kids, just make it worse by contrast.Sacco intentionally does not tell the story of the Israelis, because, as he says, that's the side we usually get in the West. All I really knew about the conflict when I started reading was that both sides seemed culpable, so I found this approach a little frustrating, because now, of course, I feel like the Palestinians are the most shat upon people on Earth, forced from their homeland by powerful Europeans, and living under Orwellian conditions forced upon them by powerful Israelis and their oil-hungry American financiers. Sacco introduces a few sympathetic Israelis, those who don't believe in the settlements, those who acknowledge the injustices met out to the Palestinians, but even they seem petty and ineffectual under the massive weight of Palestinian suffering. I guess I'm a little better educated about the situation after having read this, but also more depressed. This was written in the mid-90s, after all, and things don't seem much better in 2010.Stylistically, Sacco's approach is interesting. His layouts are creative and diverse, his pacing and illustration skillful enough that I frequently found myself skipping the text and following the images. As I said, Sacco's a documentarian, and most of his illustration is realist, possibly copied and assembled from his photos. His linework is orderly but weatherbeaten, which suits the slums and war zones he visits. His humans, however are rendered with some degree of cartoonish abstraction, usually with exaggerated mouths and lips that gives them an ugly, demanding look. He's either unable or unwilling to depict young women and children with the smooth and unlined faces they usually possess. He seems to both respect his subjects and value authentic representation, so I'm tempted to chalk this up stylistic peculiarity or lack of ability rather than an intent to depict humanity as hungry, babbling, and debased.His depiction of himself is also worth considering, both visually and personally. He draws himself with small, opaque glasses, giant lips, and a scrawny, hunched figure. Kind of a mole-carp-mantis. He frequently describes himself quailing before violence, fleeing in taxis at the first sign of conflict, and predominantly self-interested, constantly reminding himself that he's collecting stories and experience for his own comic. Judging from his photo in the back of the book, he's not nearly as ugly as his cartoon, and it's hard to believe a cartoonist would make a book like this if he didn't sympathize with the Palestinian's plight, so I don't think his own character in the book is strictly accurate. It could be that he's the kind of prat who uses excessive self-deprecation to unconsciously solicit sympathy (I am often that kind of prat, and we recognize our own; see I'm doing it now!), but he might also be deliberately creating a pitiful and ineffectual avatar for the reader to suggest how difficult (or impossible) it is for the West to help resolve or even understand Middle Eastern conflict. Or maybe he's just flawed and human like the rest of us and he was striving for realism again.Certainly recommended reading for anyone who's never read non-fiction comics, or anyone with an interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I wanted to rate this higher, but I'm a harsh critic with my books lately and ultimately it was more of a 'like' than a 'really like'. This book just didn't hit me like I wanted and if I'm honest, I felt slightly underwhelmed by the end. The artwork looked good, with nice varying layout styles, but it was nothing amazing to my graphic novel novice eyes. I really enjoyed the subject matter and reading about Palestinians lives, but there was something lacking for me. I'm used to reading heart wrenching stories, but as this flitted around so many different peoples experiences, it didn't seem to dig deep enough on any one person and I was left wanting more. Perhaps the graphic novel format took something away from the power of the story with it's cartoonish portrayals, although I suppose this made the tales more palatable in their slightly comic way. Don't get me wrong, this is good stuff, but I think my expectations were higher. I guess I was expecting a slightly different work, more of a history of Palestine and examination of lives there, which I got for the most part, but it was also a tale of Joe Sacco's two month stay, with all it's trivialities as well. If I think about it, this is bloody impressive that he was able to write and draw so well on such a complex subject, with only a short stay to work from. I feel mean with my rating now, as I'm sure it is worth more, but as pure enjoyment while reading, I'll stick to my 3 stars.

book two for Jugs & Capes, my all-girl graphic novel book club!Whew. This is a really, really devastating book. Part of the problem (and obviously part of the point) is that it is relentlessly awful, with story after story after story of death, destruction, skirmishes with soldiers, dead sons, dead husbands, maimed daughters, displacement, oppression, poverty, and pain. It's so painful, horribly, that I actually started to get a little jaded; or that's not what I mean exactly, but the stories after awhile sort of lost their power to shock, to devastate. I understand this was originally published as many small issues, so perhaps if I'd read each story as a standalone, with in-between time to fully process each before moving on to the next, they would each have continued to wield as much sorrow as they were meant to. I don't know. I feel like I should say something intelligent about the art, since this is after all a graphic novel, but I'm still finding my sea legs, as it were, on the books with pix. So here's a try: Sacco has an incredibly chaotic style, which really helped to create an immersive feeling. That said, though, there's practically just as much text as pictures, and at times I wondered why he chose to tell this story as a graphic novel, rather than just straight prose. There were plenty of illustrations that were particularly affecting, and times when the images did enhance the story it was paired with, but for the most part I think this could have been text-only without losing a whole lot.I talked a lot about this book with my Zionist-leaning mother, and it was pretty difficult. Like so many impossibly polarizing issues, it's tough to even find the language with which to locate a middle ground. She would say, "The Gazans have no electricity because they dig up the pipes to use as weapons against the Israelis." And I would say, "Well, according to this book, the Gazans have no electricity because the Israelis cut it off all the time, at random, just to keep them unstable." And she would say, "Why do the Palestinians keep asking Israel to give them jobs? Why can't they just make their own industry?" And I would say, "How can they do that? Israel controls the water, the power, the supplies, the land, the permits, the transportation, and everything else. From what could they possibly make industry?" And she would say, "Israelis are ready to discuss peace, but most Palestinians won't even acknowledge Israel's right to exist." And I would say, "This has been going on for decades. Imagine if you were a teenager in Gaza and all you had ever known was relentless humiliation, oppression, and poverty? How would you feel about your oppressors? Would you be in any hurry to negotiate anything?" And then we would have to change the subject, because where could we go?

Well. I think this should be required reading in high school. It's cool (graphic novel), it's controversial (not everyone is interested in the Palestinian side), and it's informative (I defy anyone to look at the pictures and say you knew this--and walked away without saying anything). Whatever you believe about the Israel-Palestine question, this is a book that will challenge your powers of argument. Quite apart from the situation on the ground in Israel/Palestine, the author shares his fears, discomforts, happiness, and pain. It looked and felt authentic to me. So, yes, required reading. Every country, but at least in the USA, since I don't think we see enough truth about this small problem that plagues the Middle East, and US, I might add.

Apart from Spiegelman's "Maus" this comic covers another serious topic. The book's best review is written by Edward Said as his Homage to writer Joe Sacco. There's no attempt to smooth out the meager, uncertain existence, collective unhappiness, and deprivation of the beings. This comic depicts a life of aimless wandering within inhospitable environment and mostly waiting. The images are more graphic. Joe has been a watchful listener, often skeptic, occasionally fed up, but mostly sympathetic and funny in his drawings.