Safe Area Gorazde

Author and illustrator, Joe Sacco's a pretty cool dude. Joe's worn many hats throughout the course of his life: traveler of the world, writer of words, illustrator of comics. He's been writing and illustrating nonfiction stories for years, which includes but is not limited to Palestine, Oregon, and The Fixer. In addition to his work, he'd done illustrations a number of times for the American Splendor before the late Harvey Pekar passed. Joe had a different kind of childhood from you and I because he grew up in the rather primitive nation of Malta. Malta's a small island in the mediterranean southeast of Sicily. It's way smaller then Sicily but it's a country with a heritage and language all it's own. I didn't Google that, I'm 50% Maltese. He grew up and experienced the world, including Gorazde, an eastern Bosnian city. He was 39 at the time of publication of the story. He's 51 now and lives in Portland. This is the review of Safe Area Gorazde. Let's go. 

Safe Area Gorazde is part of a massively refreshing genre sometimes known as graphic journalism, which reminds the world that putting pictures and words together is incredibly effective, and not just for tights-and-capes stories. Fans of texts like Persepolis and Maus are sure to enjoy it. It allows the reader to immersively experience another culture. 

Joe Sacco's writing is simple. It's mostly first person narration, which is essentially what just about all of non-fiction writing is except this has pictures. "The Bosnian Serb military commander, General Ratko Mladie, cut off routes into Sarajevo and took hostage scores of U.N. personnel throughout Bosnia." It's alright that this wording is simplisitc because the visual style of storytelling allows him to just show us the settings and events as they unfold. It results in a reading experience that's fast paced and easily perceivable. Joe's illustrations of course come with the quintessential comic convention of speech bubbles which allow for quick snippets of dialogue and quotes. Overall, Joe's use of the medium is massively effective. Nice job, Joe. 

In Safe Area Gorazde, Joe combines the interviews of a number of Bosniaks as they deal with the political crisis with the Serbians. Joe remains objective and recounts their stories, though he interjects throughout the course of the book with moments of his own opinions and experiences. 

Overall, Joe Sacco: good guy, good writer. You don't do this kind of thing for twenty years without knowing what your doing. Joe's been doing this kind of thing for over 24 years, starting in 1988 at the age of 28. He's got 8 collections, all in a similar vein, illustrated journalism dealing with political issues. Check them out. Check him out. Read Safe Area Gorazde.