"Joe Sacco is one of a very small number of graphic novelists who have smashed through into the mainstream. His masterwork is Palestine, a collected volume of single-issue comic books he created in the 1990s, documenting the violence in Gaza. His technique is to embed as a journalist in a war zone and interview people on the street, telling their stories with pictures. Lessons on global politics emerge from ultra-local conflict and depictions of day-to-day life."
"Palestine propelled Sacco to fame, drawing comparisons with Maus, Art Spiegelman's two-volume saga about Polish Jews during the Holocaust with Nazis portrayed as cats, and Jews as mice. These works are sold prominently in bookshops, not in musty basements packed with racks of polyethylene-sheathed superhero comics. Alongside a couple of others, Maus and Palestine signalled that graphic novels, as they became known, could be serious works of fiction, nonfiction and journalism."
Joe Sacco is a graphic journalist who uses immersive reporting and drawn narratives to document communal violence and colonial legacies. Palestine, compiled from 1990s single-issue comics about Gaza, brought mainstream recognition and drew comparisons with Maus, proving graphic novels can be serious fiction, nonfiction and journalism. The book's reprint after the 7 October 2023 attacks underscored its continuing relevance. A newer work traces the aftermath of the 1947 Indian partition by focusing on the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots in rural Uttar Pradesh. The narrative links local, parochial conflicts to long-term historical forces produced by colonial misrule and poorly devised divisions.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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