Journalism: Bits and pieces are better than nothing

Journalism
By Joe Sacco
Published by Metropolitan Books



In 2003, I saw the movie City of God, and it had a unique effect on me. Leaving the theater, and for as long as a few days afterward, I felt like I was out of breath, with a tightness in my chest that I assumed was from the intensity of the material, the violence and danger that surrounded the characters' lives in the slums of Rio de Janiero. But now I'm not so sure. While reading Journalism, a collection of Joe Sacco's short comics, a single panel of the story "Chechen War, Chechen Women" induced the same effect in me. A woman who lived through the miniature Holocaust that Stalin inflicted on the Chechen people in 1944 looks back on her hard life and says the following:



That deep, profound sadness is so alien to me as a resident of the world's wealthiest country that it hit me like a punch in the stomach. It seems impossible to me that someone who lived for sixty years and had a family could wish to exchange it all for an early suicide. The tragedy she lived through is downright incomprehensible to my sheltered sensibilities, and the fact that she is only one among so, so many should bring tears to the eyes of all but the most cold and emotionless of automatons.

Such is the power of Joe Sacco's comics, which peer into the hidden corners of the world and illuminate the suffering of so many that are otherwise invisible to those of us in the rich, walled-off first world. While Sacco's longer works, like the recent Footnotes in Gaza, focus on one area at a time, this collection skips through several different troubled areas, including the aforementioned Chechnya, Palestine, and the Kushinagar region of India (which is home to some of the world's poorest people); examining the war in Iraq from the perspective of United States troops, Iraqi troops in training, and victims of (probably illegal) detention by the U.S.; glimpsing the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague as it attempts to make sense of the atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia; and looking at the issues faced by the small Mediterranean island nation of Malta (and by extension, the rest of Europe) as it is swamped with refugees fleeing from war-torn Africa. It's a wide-ranging gathering of short glimpses at some of the worst things going on around the world, and while the length of the stories are only enough to provide a taste of the issues at play, Sacco provides enough background information in each case that one feels at least a small amount of understanding, as well as some empathy for the victims, who Sacco never fails to place front and center, their emotions communicated heartbreakingly and their stories related in detail, all the facts laid out for everyone to see and become outraged by. It might be a troubling service that Sacco provides, but it's a necessary one, a jolt to the system that reminds us that the world is larger than our small lives, and that our troubles seem miniscule next to those of so many who are just struggling to survive.

Footnotes in Gaza: This might be beyond my capabilities

Footnotes in Gaza
By Joe Sacco



How does one even begin to approach the Israel/Palestine conflict, a notoriously complex situation that has been tangled with emotion and soaked in violence for more than 50 years?  With this book, Joe Sacco, who has established himself as the foremost journalist working in the comics form over the past two decades, takes the micro approach, choosing to examine two events that have nearly been forgotten by history, but were as traumatic to those who experienced them as any of the bursts of death and bloodshed that have struck the region.  During the Suez Crisis of 1956, Israel invaded the Gaza Strip, and in the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, Israeli soldiers carried out a massacre of hundreds of Palestinian men who were of fighting age, with the former city seeing a chaotic gunning down of men in the streets and the latter a more planned affair in which men were gathered into a schoolyard and made to wait for hours before suspected militants were separated out to be killed or imprisoned. Laying out the specifics of these events is a narrow enough focus, and trying to work out exactly what happened from the various conflicting accounts must have been a headache.  You wouldn't be able to tell from Sacco's approach, though; aside from some material that sets up the geography and historical background of the Gaza Strip, he focuses almost completely on the personal accounts of the Palestinians who survived the ordeal, although he does regularly jump back to the present to show his own experiences as he tracked down the information.  It makes for an excellent look at the subject, making sure that the lesser-known tragedies of history have not been forgotten, but also relating them to the present day.  It might not be a perfect, all-encompassing summation of decades upon decades of history, but it's enough to give readers a picture of the past and present (or near-past, since Sacco's research was done in 2003) of the area, and a sense of how vast and eventful that history has been, even when focused on such a tiny piece of land.

In fact, the 400 pages of material that Sacco has put together here are all but overwhelming in the way they pile moments of violence and agony on top of each other.  Trying to get a handle on everything included herein is a difficult task in itself; perhaps the best way to do so is to emulate Sacco, discovering and highlighting the smaller details of his work to see how effectively he is able to paint a picture of the land and the people living there, both in the past and the present.

To start with, the detail Sacco brings to his scenes is fascinating, specific in the way every bit of dirt and rubble is noticeable, but just cartoony enough to make the people relatable, like someone the reader might know personally.  He works from photo reference, but it's not obvious, and the people fit right into their environments as fully-dimensional figures, whether in the past:

Or the present:

Sacco never lets you forget that this is real, however, whether by placing quotation marks around the captioned descriptions of his subjects, or by depicting them as talking heads, speaking directly to the reader, with their name included to remind us of their reality.  He also places himself right in the panels along with them, showing us that he was there and adding another reminder that he's not just copying images off the TV. It's intimate, and it's a beautiful portrait of humanity persisting, even in the worst and most disheartening of conditions.

And when it comes time to depict the awful events, Sacco can give it the air of utter chaos, as when Israel made their initial attack:

Or an unflinching, placement of death and violence right in front of our eyes, without being gratuitous but still making sure we know exactly what happened:

As matter-of-fact and striking as those scenes may be, the depictions of people's emotional reactions linger in the memory even more.  Sacco hits us hard when he shows the terror the people felt:

The humiliation they were subjected to:

The anguish of watching loved ones die:

The unshakable memories:

The lingering emotional damage:

And the ever-persisting sadness of being powerless to even care for your loved ones' bodies after they have been slaughtered:

In fact, the present-day emotional reactions to the continuing situation are just as key as those from the past.  Seeing that the cycle of hatred and death is still going on is heartbreaking, whether it's in the grim sadness of funeral-goers for a killed child:

The frustration of a man who wants to protect his house from being demolished by Israeli bulldozers:

The anger of another man who sees his children being threatened:

Or the misery of an old woman whose home was destroyed and has nowhere to go:

As sad and ugly as everything depicted here is, that fact, that the Palestinian people are still suffering and in constant fear, is the real tragedy of the story.  Early on, Sacco transcribes a surprisingly empathetic speech by Moshe Dayan, who was one of Israel's military leaders in 1956, as he attempted to describe the hatred the Palestians held toward his people.  In a striking line, Dayan says, "For eight years now, they have sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and have watched how, before their very eyes, we have turned their lands and villages, where they and their forefathers previously dwelled, into our home."  Now add another fifty years onto that, and we can see how the tragedy has compounded, with decades passing and generations being raised while the violence continues.  It's a terrible story, and the fact that we're seeing only a small, nearly forgotten sliver of it multiplies its awfulness into incomprehensibility.

Sacco has created an important work here, one which strikes directly to the heart and refuses to let the reader forget the continuing situation.  And there's so much more within than the basics covered here; Sacco's struggles with the emotional distance that accumulates as his research turns people's experiences into mere facts and figures and the relationships he builds with people as he travels around Gaza and gets caught up in their lives are two more interesting aspects of the work among many others that are there to be found.  It's a rich, complex book, full of insights, recollections, experiences, encounters, and reactions, and it's something that will definitely stand the test of time as a major work of comics literature.

100th post spectacular! Wherein I look at artcomix and such

That's right, according to Blogger, this is the 100th post on the blog. Of course, that includes "inventory" posts devoid of content, but who's checking? Not me! Being a comic fan, you have to celebrate multiples of 100; it's a rule. Actually, I could celebrate an "anniversary" every multiple of 25, but I'm not that meticulous.



Anyway, I'm looking at some artcomix (is that an annoying term? If so, sorry.), inspired by my recent reading of An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories, which came out last fall. I also recently read (and sort of reviewed) The Best American Comics 2006, which I would have included here, but my wife took it back to the library. So I'll stick to the Anthology, although if I get on a roll I might break out my copy of McSweeney's #13, or maybe some Chris Ware or Daniel Clowes books. We'll see.

I'll try to stay positive here, looking at the stuff I like, but if I find something especially distasteful, I might not be able to contain the bile. First up: Maakies! I've never been a huge fan of Tony Millionaire, although I generally find his art appealingly grotesque. However, the few strips in this volume may have swayed me, with their offensive but hilarious humor. I like the way he emulates old newspaper strips, complete with goofy jokes in a tiny secondary strip at the bottom of the main strip. I might have to check out a collection of Maakies, or possibly Billy Hazelnuts. Here's my favorite strip from this collection (click to enlarge, or it won't be readable):



There's a Charles Schulz tribute section, mostly collecting stuff that I assume was done around the time of his death, along with a 1959 essay by Schulz called "Developing a Comic Strip". I especially like Art Spiegelman's and Chris Ware's entries; they both ape Schulz's style and iconography very well in tribute to the master. There's also a hilarious set of strips by R. Sikoryak called "Good Ol' Gregor Brown", which retells Kafka's The Metamorphosis as a series of Peanuts strips. It's awesome:



Peter Bagge has an enjoyable excerpt from Oedipus Junior. I kind of like Bagge; his cartoony characters are very expressive. This excerpt is only four pages, but it's a pretty funny story about the titular Junior (I assume) drawing a picture of a naked woman and then being ashamed of himself. We've all been there, Ed!

One of my favorite stories (if you can call it that) is "Here" by Richard McGuire, whose name I realize I don't recognize. Does anybody have any information about him? Anyway, it takes place in a single room, but we get glimpses of events that took place in the room in many different time periods, including some from before the house was built and the land was wilderness or farmland, as well as some from the future after the house has burned down and been destroyed. Some panels depict a single scene, while others have other squares inset in them showing events from a different time period; each of the panels or insets is labeled with the year of its origin.



It's a very affecting look at all the generations of people who inhabit the same space. I like it a lot, and I'll have to look for other stuff by McGuire.

Okay, time for some negativity. Can somebody explain to me what is supposed to be the appeal of Gary Panter's Jimbo stories? There's an excerpt from Jimbo in Purgatory here, and frankly, I find it impenetrable. I can understand the appeal of the design work Panter does; these pages are laid out very uniquely, but what the hell is supposed to be going on? The loincloth-clad Jimbo seems to be wandering through Purgatory and quoting from Dante (I assume, I've never read any of his stuff), although the text in the balloons is not exactly easy to read. Plus, I think there are other characters accompanying him, one of whom appears to be a Fryguy. I don't get it, and I probably don't want to.

Okay, back to the positives. We've got an excerpt from Charles Burns's Curse of the Molemen, and it looks pretty good. I've read Black Hole, which was great, so I might have to check this out. It's very creepy, with a weird-looking kid being interested in the apparent excavation of his neighbor's back yard. It seems the neighbor is looking for treasure in the guise of digging a swimming pool, but the kid sees a freaky creature crawl out of the hole at night. His parents don't believe him, and I'll have to get the book sometime to find out what happens next. I really dig Burns's art; it's heavy with shadows, and his realistic depiction of "normal" people really brings out the freakish look of the weirder characters. Good stuff.




Then we have "Young Ledicker", by Kim Deitch. I believe this is part of his new book Shadowland, which I will definitely have to read. The story here concerns young Al Ledicker, a kid with clown makeup who works in his father's dime museum. His father is working on a rain-making machine that he's trying to sell to the mayor. As the story proceeds, prostitutes, midgets, political corruption, and sexually-transmitted disease all enter the mix. It's pretty crazy.



Apparently, Shadowland details the life of Ledicker, and he's a nasty, mean guy. I can't wait to read it.

We've got an excerpt from The Golem's Mighty Swing, by James Sturm. I haven't read this, but I've heard it's good. It sure looks nice; I dig Sturm's clean art style:



There's an excerpt from Sammy Harkham's Somersaulting in here. I don't know if I've read anything by him; I think I've seen some of his art and liked it, but this doesn't really appeal to me. The characters are kind of lumpy. I'll have to check out something else he's done.

Next: an excerpt from Hawaiian Getaway by Adrian Tomine. I like Tomine, but man, his stuff can be depressing. But in a funny way:



I have a few issues of Optic Nerve, and they're pretty much like this. That's all I have to say.

Next we have a couple stories from the Hernandez brothers. "A Little Story", by Gilbert, is a cute story about kids in a Mexican town. I assume it's from his "Palomar" cycle. I really need to get that.



"Flies on the Ceiling" by Jaime, is a creepy, surreal story about a woman fleeing her past after she had an abortion, I think. It's kind of hard to tell (or maybe I'm dense). He's a master of his style of art, and he really communicates the troubled nature of her thoughts.



Both these stories are from the 80's; I assume they were originally published in Love and Rockets. Man, I can't wait to get the collections of those.

I haven't read much of Joe Matt's stuff, and I don't especially like what I've read, but I think I understand the appeal. There's an excerpt from The Poor Bastard here, and it's a good illustration of his talents:




He's a really good cartoonist, clearly expressing his characters' emotions. And he's pretty funny, especially when he's making himself look bad. Which is pretty much every panel. He's just such an unpleasant person to spend time with, I don't really want to read very much of his stuff. Short excerpts in anthologies like this are just about enough for me.

Another cartoonist whose work doesn't grab me: Seth. Not that I dislike it or anything, but there's not much to it that makes me want to read more of his stuff. I've read some good reviews of Wimbledon Green, so I might check that one out, but the excerpt of It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken in this book is kind of boring. It follows a guy (salesman?) walking around a small town with a briefcase and thinking thoughts. Yawn. The best part is when he stops to observe a kid who is acting out a parade along with his (the kid's) dog. I liked that bit. Oh well, maybe someday I'll read something by him that I really like.

Dammit, I'm trying to be positive in this review, but here's another slightly negative comment: I'm not especially enamored with Jeffrey Brown. He seems to specialize in whiny autobiographical strips about his relationships. The ones here (excerpted from Clumsy) are cute and kind of funny, but mostly boring. Maybe it's his art style that I don't like; it seems kind of rough and amateurish to me.



Okay, a more positive note: I didn't especially like the excerpt from John Porcellino' Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man in The Best American Comics 2006, but there's an excerpt here from King-Cat No. 63 that I do like, for the most part. It's autobiographical, and simply illustrated, but there's something about the way Porcellino renders it that grabs me. A short bit about his drinking "career" and a story about various barbers he has frequented were interesting and enjoyable. I dunno, it seems autobio comics have a thin line to walk, both with art and writing. Make it interesting and fairly fast-paced, but don't give too many details; other people probably won't find every aspect of your life interesting. And art-wise, well, that's harder to say. Be clear with your intent; don't make people guess at what you're trying to convey. Who knows, I might be off base here, but this is what makes autobio comics interesting to me. Anyway, here's an example of Porcellino's work:



Jonathan Bennett was another guy from Best American Comics that I sort of liked, but not completely. This book reprints Torrential, which appears to be a minicomic of his. It's pretty good, a short story about coming home from a rainstorm and being annoyed by his neighbors. Short but sweet. Here's a panel I love, where he takes refuge from his neighbors' loud argument beneath a pile of couch pillows:



Another guy from Best American Comics: David Heatley! He has a short comic here called "Northern California", which is an adaptation of a dream he had. It's interesting, but I liked his "Portrait of My Dad" much better. That's all I have to say.

Gabrielle Bell (whose Lucky I recently reviewed) has a short comic here called "Cecil and Jordan in New York". It's not bad, but the most notable thing for me was the use of color, since I had only seen her work in black and white. It's a nice touch.



Oh, and I liked the surreal ending to this strip. She's one to watch.

I'm still trying to gain some appreciation for Kevin Huizenga, but the comic he has here (an excerpt from "The Sunset") isn't helping. It's got some crazy energy, but I have no idea what's going on or what it's supposed to mean.

"Black Cherry" by Michael Dougan is a short story about working at an ice cream parlor and dealing with the eccentric customers who frequent the establishment, specifically a weird guy who always orders a black cherry soda. It's interesting and evocative, ending on a sad, melancholy note. I'll have to look for more stuff by Dougan.

Okay, we're getting close to the end of the book, and here's the really good stuff! We've got six stories by R. Crumb, with two being written by Harvey Pekar. I haven't read a whole lot of Crumb's comics, but after this I really want to check more of his stuff out. We've got the wordless "A Short History of America" (which I almost won in poster form on Ebay once!), which is excellent. Then there's "Uncle Bob's Mid-Life Crisis", in which Crumb freaks out when a fan sends him a checklist of every work he's ever done. Very funny; here's a great panel where he tries to gain some peace through meditation:



It doesn't work though; all he can think about is sex. That comic is followed by "Jelly Roll Morton's Voodoo Curse", a story about an influential band leader from the 20's whose life is ruined by a voodoo curse which may or may not all be in his mind. Very interesting, with some great art; he's good at varying his style to suit the mood of the story. Here's a panel I love of Morton's first wife pausing while talking about his death:



God, I love that drawing. In fact, I'm going to name it my current favorite comics panel. The next story is a hilarious rant called "Where Has It Gone, All the Beautiful Music of Our Grandparents?" In typical old-guy fashion, Crumb rails against the terrible music produced today (that is, in the early 80's when he drew this). He even gives a history of folk music, from the caveman days to the early 20th century. He seems to think that recording killed music, even though he loves listening to old records. It's a hilarious story; I love his exaggerated, cartoony illustrations. Here he is telling us what's what:



"Lunch with Carmella" is a Pekar-written story in which Harv tells a coworker about a crazy lady that used to work there. It's a funny, low-key tale (does Pekar ever tell any other kind?). Finally, Pekar writes "Hypothetical Quandary", in which he imagines getting rich and being able to quit his job and write comics full-time. Check out this really cool panel:



Man, Crumb can draw. I changed my mind; this is my current favorite panel.

Okay, we're in the home stretch. Next, we've got an excerpt from Soba by Joe Sacco. I love Sacco; he's the preeminent comics journalist of our time. This is one of his stories from the Bosnia/Serbia/Yugoslavia conflict, and judging from this excerpt, it's excellent. The titular character is a planter of land mines by day, and a hard partier by night. This story follows him and a fellow soldier as they hit the nightclubs to dance, drink, and pick up women. I love the sense of energy that Sacco brings to the proceedings; these people feel like they could die any day, so they're trying to live as much as they can while they've got the time.



I haven't read nearly enough of Sacco's work; the only full-length comic of his I've read is The Fixer (which was excellent). I really need to check out Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde.

Next, we've got "The Ethel Catherwood Story" by David Collier, from his book Portraits From Life (which I might have to pick up if I get the chance). The story is an interview with Joe Griffiths, the man who discovered and trained the titular athlete, a Canadian high-jumper in the 20's. It's a fascinating story about Griffiths reading a story about Catherwood in the paper and realizing that she had tied the world record for the women's high jump. So he traveled to meet her and convinced her to compete in the national competition. She ended up going to the 1928 Olympics, winning the gold medal, becoming an international celebrity, and marrying a millionaire from San Francisco. It's a fascinating story, and Collier really captures the people with his art while still adding some cartoonish expressiveness. Check out this scene from when Griffiths first meets Catherwood:



I won't go into too much detail on the last two artists, because they're two of my favorites and I'll probably do some sort of retrospective for each of them sometime in the future. First, we have several stories by Chris Ware, who I think is possibly the greatest cartoonist ever. There's an amazing story about Scott Joplin, the "King of Ragtime"; an excerpt from Jimmy Corrigan; "Thrilling Adventure Stories", in which Ware draws a superhero story but fills in the captions and word balloons with his own remembrances of childhood; and an excerpt from Building Stories (which I think will be in the next issue of Acme Novelty Library). Great stuff.

Finally, we've got "Gynecology" by Daniel Clowes. It's about a young, misanthropic artist named Epps. Not my favorite of his works (that would be Ghost World or Ice Haven), but it's interesting. At least you get some classic Clowes scenes, like this one:



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So, that's it for this book. It's an excellent anthology, presenting a good view of alternative comics. Unfortunately, I only like about 50% of the comics within, but that's an anthology for you. Quite a few of the comics are twenty years old or more (there's even an extensive excerpt from Maus), but I guess we have the Best American series to keep us up with newer stuff. Overall, I would recommend it, but keep in mind that I read it for free (thanks, Sarah!).
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Whew! Okay, that's enough for me for today. I might be back tomorrow with more of my usual schtick, if I have the energy.