Joe Sacco’s New Book ‘Journalism’ Illustrates War, Displacement, and Disenfranchisement

By ⋅ June 20, 2012 ⋅ Post a comment
From chapter titled "The Caucasus" p. 29 in Journalism (Illustration Courtesy of Joe Sacco)

From chapter titled "The Caucasus" p. 29 in Journalism (Illustration Courtesy of Joe Sacco)

In his latest book, “Journalism,” cartoon reporter Joe Sacco brings together a collection of his short form reportage from the past decade.

It’s a series of visual stories that look at people at the margins of society, those just hanging on, like Chechyans displaced by the violence back home, Sub-Saharan Africans unwelcomed by residents of Malta, and the experience of Dalits (formerly known as “untouchables”) in a rural Indian town that adheres closely to caste politics.

Marco Werman talks to Joe Sacco about what cartoons bring to journalism.


Discussion

2 comments for “Joe Sacco’s New Book ‘Journalism’ Illustrates War, Displacement, and Disenfranchisement”

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6L6FTDBJYFKOHEZCN6BO6ZEGQ dorn

    Marco Werman’s peon of praise for Joe Sacco today (Wed 20 June) was undeserved.

    At least Sacco admitted that he is not objective and gives the viewpoint of those with whom he sympathizes. In particular, his “Footnotes on Gaza” is a virulent piece of propaganda. It ignores the fact that the Gaza debacle goes back to Egyptian actions after 1948; that Israel was responding to rocket fire from Gaza, and would like nothing better than to be left alone in peace; that successive generations of Palestinian (and other Arab) leaders have rejected coexistence, aiming to destroy Israel.

    It ignores the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab lands, while punting Arab refugees. It failed to contrast how Israel uplifted Jewish refugees, with 64 years of cynical Arab manipulation of Arab refugees – all the more cynical as the Arab world started the wars.

    Sacco is not a cartoonist even in the usual sense, but a one-sided propagandist.

    • r2t

      I believe the term cycle of violence is accurate. For any terrible act by some group, just go back a few days, weeks or years and there is a terrible act by another. Entropy in societies accelerated by terrible events is very difficult to undo, as we have seen in just a few short years past in Iraq and Afghanistan.
      And it seems that Israel attacked Egypt first in 1956 and also 1967, though after years of provocative actions by many parties. And who is this “the Arab World”??

      Were the armed zionists defending themselves when they blew up the King David Hotel and other British stations in Palestine?
      If there is a Jewish right of return, why not one for Palestinians?
      What’s fair for one must be fair for the other.
      Why is eretz Israel sacred?
      Why are the “uplifted immigrants” put into illegal settlements?
      Why are water rights for Israelis but not Palestinians?
      Why does Israel slowly ethnically cleanse East Jerusalem neighborhoods of non-Jewish owners and residents?

      Anyone pointing out poor treatment of Palestinians is always called a propagandist.