Palestine by Joe Sacco (No. 27)

Palestine (1993-1995)

by Joe Sacco

REVIEW BY CHRIS BRAYSHAW:

(from The 100 Best Comics of the Century!, The Comics Journal #210, 1999)

Joe Sacco began Palestine following his first trips to the Middle East in the early 1990s, but his series' real success lies in how seamlessly it extends a long tradition of pictorial journalism rooted in the work of graphic artists like William Hogarth (Beer Street and Gin Lane) and Francisco Goya (The Disasters of War). In these works, like Sacco's own, a blackly satirical exegesis of history is inescapable from the artist's own position as a witness. Consequently, Palestine is not only journalism, but autobiography as well, and some of the series finer moments come courtesy of Sacco's cartoon persona, whose journalistic project almost inevitably distances him from the Palestinians and Israelis he meets. Still, for all his (grossly exaggerated) cowardice, bad faith, and lusting after European hostel girls, you wind up liking Sacco, and the single-mindedness with which he pursues his project, even when it exposes him to the withering contempt of his hosts.

Sacco draws like a dream, and Palestine's other great strength is the way its narrative flow smoothly shifts gears with Sacco's storyline. Straight forward six panel grids abruptly flower into double-page spreads of rundown townships, or collapse into hundreds of tiny panels chronicling a brutal interrogation in a solitary cell. Sacco's a great caricaturist, and Palestine's accomplished figure drawing recalls the expressionistic excess of artists like Otto Dix, George Grosz and Ralph Steadman.

Sacco's literary and artistic talents are, perhaps, most perfectly realised in the Zero Zero short, Christmas With Karadzic, but compared to anything else in the current marketplace, Palestine sets a standard for comics journalism almost impossible to supersede. 

REVIEW BY ALAN MOORE:
In Joe Sacco's Palestine, the autobiographical comic book reaches beyond everyday trivia to embrace the travel documentary. Utilizing a masterful array of visual devices and employing consummate draftsmanship, Sacco details life in the Occupied Territories with sensitivity, insight, and a fine eye for moral ambiguities. Highly recommended.

REVIEW BY EDDIE CAMPBELL:
The trouble with first hand personal-account comics is that the authors generally do not go to much trouble to make their lives interesting enough. Enter Joe Sacco, to whom the above does not apply. Some mighty serious journalism going on here.

READ THIS COMIC:

Palestine is available from Fantagraphics Books and finer comic shops near you.

FURTHER READING:
Eye Witness in Gaza (The Guardian, 2003)