Saturday, December 4, 2010

Comic Book Journalism, the works of Joe Sacco and Matt Bors


There is a notion that comic books are kid stuff. It permeated the literary world up until the beginning of the 21st Century when writers like Daniel Clowes, F.C. Ware (an Omaha Native!) and Ivan Brunetti all began to show the world that "graphic novels" were as true a literary form as any novel ever could be.

But what about the comic form as a medium for journalism? Preposterous you say? "Comics are relegated to the political cartoon section and thats it!"
There are two authors I think prove that good journalism can exist in comic book form. One is far greater than the other but we'll start with the lesser one, Matt Bors, just because I have a lot to say about the other, the infallible Joe Sacco.

Matt Bors is primarily an internet political cartoonist, updating his strip "idiot box" fairly often with left-wing stabs at the tea party, network news and even Obama for not doing more to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but his trip to Afghanistan for a month is where his comic really shines. Through simple quotes from real people set to even simpler portraits one gets the feel for the Afghan people as they really are. Much more than you would if they were just in the photo above the wordy article on the cover of the Washington Post.

(His entire trip can be seen here just keep clicking Next to see them all)

The real king of comic book journalism is Joe Sacco, though, he's been at it for years and has illustrated the pain and suffering of some of the world's most forgotten people. The first book I read of his, that introduced me to the whole comic journalism concept, was Safe Area Gorazde, a chilling book filled with first hand accounts of the terrible Bosnian War of the early 90s. The interviews are conducted by Sacco and illustrated by him also. He also fills in footnotes where ever stories clash or where official documents contradict people's statements.

The stories often take on a journal type as we follow Sacco either trying to fend of the Bosnian teens begging him to bring them Levi Jeans or in his books on Palestine, trying to track down people who would admit to having taken part in the Fedayeen of the early 60s. His books will empty out your soul and wring it out to dry but I'm always glad I've read them and I'm sure you would be too.

His style is photorealism and seeing the horrors of the Bosnian War illustrated makes a conflict that barely even mentioned in most public schools come to life in an all too jarring way. Sacco's book take events and portray them solely as the people who lived them described them and if that's not journalism then I don't know what is.

For a sample of Sacco's work click here, here or here