Joe Sacco

Sacco gradually realized that Neven's own story - a microcosm of the Balkan conflict itself - might be the most compelling of all. Through Neven, Sacco tells the story of the warlords and gangsters who ran the country during the war, but all the time he - and the reader - never know whether Neven is telling the truth.

In late l991 and early 1992, at the time of the first Intifada, Joe Sacco spent two months with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, travelling and taking notes. He captures the heart of the Palestinian experience in image after unforgettable image, with great insight and remarkable humour.

"Sacco brings the conflict down to the most human level, allowing us to imagine our way inside it, to make the desperation he discovers, in some small way, our own."--Los Angeles Times Rafah, a town at the bottommost tip of the Gaza Strip, has long been a notorious flashpoint in the bitter Middle East conflict. Buried deep in the archives is one bloody incident, in 1956, that left 111 Palestinians shot dead by Israeli soldiers. Seemingly a footnote to a long history of killing, that day in Rafah--cold-blooded massacre or dreadful mistake--reveals the competing truths that have come to define an intractable war. In a quest to get to the heart of what happened, Joe Sacco immerses himself in the daily life of Rafah and the neighboring town of Khan Younis, uncovering Gaza past and present. As in Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde, his unique visual journalism renders a contested landscape in brilliant, meticulous detail. Spanning fifty years, moving fluidly between one war and the next, Footnotes in Gaza--Sacco's most ambitious work to date--transforms a critical conflict of our age into intimate and immediate experience.

Utan fixare kommer du ingen vart som krigsreporter. Det är fixaren som har de rätta kontakterna, som känner till dolda fakta, som kan leda dig till de bästa scoopen om du kan betala, förstås. Neven, en serb från Sarajevo, var Joe Saccos fixare 1995/96 när han samlade material till Gorazde, sitt första seriereportage om kriget i Bosnien. Innan Neven blev fixare slogs han för sitt älskade Sarajevo i en av de många privatmiliser som uppstod spontant i krigets tidiga skede, innan en bosnisk armé hade hunnit bildas. Flera av Sarajevos karismatiska milisledare och deras män hade ett förflutet i den undre världen. Det var tack dessa hänsynslösa, sociopatiska krigsherrar som staden överlevde belägringens första tid. Men samtidigt som dessa patrioter slogs mot de serbiska belägrarna terroriserade de landsbygden och roffade åt sig allt de kunde. Många fakta om krigsherrarnas massakrer, grymheter, plundringar och andra krigsförbrytelser hälldes nog ut med slasken när politikerna tvättade av sig krigets smutsiga allianser från sina händer och lär för alltid förbli dolda i krigets dimma. Varken Sacco eller läsaren vet om allt Neven säger om sina upplevelser är sanning. Men just genom att berätta Nevens historia visar Sacco en realistisk, motsägelsefull bild av kriget i Bosnien, fjärran från medias förljugna uppdelning i nattsvarta skurkar och oskyldiga offer. Fixaren påminner i sitt bildspråk och med sina moraliska gråzoner om filmen Den tredje mannen, som skildrar en annan härjad efterkrigsstad, Wien 1948. Och den skrävlande, halvskumme men sympatiske fixaren Neven själv kunde vara hämtad ur en roman av Graham Greene eller John Le Carré.

On October 7th 2001, US-led forces invaded Afghanistan, marking the start of George Bush and Tony Blair's "War on Terror." Six years on, where have the policies of Bush and Blair left us? Bringing together some of the finest contemporary writers, this wide-ranging anthology, from reportage and "faction" to fiction, explores the impact of this "long war" throughout the world, from Palestine to Iraq, Abu Ghraib, the curtailment of civil liberties and manipulation of public opinion. Published in conjunction with Stop the War coalition and United for Peace and Justice, War With No End provides an urgent, necessary reflection on the causes and consequences of the ideological War on Terror.

In late 1995 and early 1996, cartoonist/reporter Joe Sacco travelled four times to Gorazde, a UN-designated safe area during the Bosnian War, which had teetered on the brink of obliteration for three and a half years.

Lähi-idän miehityksen ytimeen tunkeutuva sarjakuvareportaasi Ensimmäisen Intifadan aikana, loppuvuodesta 1991 alkuvuoteen 1992, Joe Sacco vietti kaksi kuukautta Palestiinan Länsirannalla ja Gazan alueella. Hän seurasi mielenosoituksia, keskusteli kadunmiesten kanssa, vieraili kodeissa ja pakolaisleireillä ja merkitsi muistiin hajotettujen perheiden, poliittisten aktivistien ja väkivallan vammauttamien kertomuksia. Palattuaan Yhdysvaltoihin Joe Sacco yhdisti silminnäkijän raporttinsa palestiinalaisten jokapäiväisistä kokemuksista ainutlaatuisen oivaltaviin ja humoristisiin sarjakuviinsa. Palestiina asetti uudet laatustandardit dokumentaarisille sarjakuvaromaaneille. Teosta pidettiin ensimmäisenä, Art Spiegelmanin vuonna 1992 Pulitzer-palkitun Mausin (WSOY 2003) veroisena työnä.

Collects stories such as 'When Good Bombs Happen to Bad People', 'More Women, More Children, More Quickly', and 'How I Loved the War'.

Praised by The New York Times, Brill's Content and Publishers Weekly, Safe Area Gorazdeis the long-awaited and highly sought after 240-page look at war in theformer Yugoslavia. Sacco (the critically-acclaimed author of Palestine)spent five months in Bosnia in 1996, immersing himself in the humanside of life during wartime, researching stories that are rarely foundin conventional news coverage. The book focuses on the Muslim-heldenclave of Gorazde, which was besieged by Bosnian Serbs during the war. Sacco lived for a month in Gorazde, entering before the Muslims trappedinside had access to the outside world, electricity or running water. Safe Area Gorazdeis Sacco's magnum opus and with it he is poised too become one ofAmerica's most noted journalists. The book features an introduction byChristopher Hitchens, political columnist for The Nation and Vanity Fair.