The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme

by Joe Sacco, Adam Hochschild (Contributor)

From “the heir to R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman” (Economist) comes a monumental, wordless depiction of the most infamous day of World War I.

Launched on July 1, 1916, the Battle of the Somme has come to epitomize the madness of the First World War. Almost 20,000 British soldiers were killed and another 40,000 were wounded that first day, and there were more than one million casualties by the time the offensive halted. In The Great War, acclaimed cartoon journalist Joe Sacco depicts the events of that day in an extraordinary, 24-foot- long panorama: from General Douglas Haig and the massive artillery positions behind the trench lines to the legions of soldiers going “over the top” and getting cut down in no-man’s-land, to the tens of thousands of wounded soldiers retreating and the dead being buried en masse. Printed on fine accordion-fold paper and packaged in a deluxe slipcase with a 16-page booklet, The Great War is a landmark in Sacco’s illustrious career and allows us to see the War to End All Wars as we’ve never seen it before.

Genres: History, Graphic Novels, Nonfiction, Comics, War, World War I, Art

54 pages, Hardcover

First published August 16, 2013

About the author

Joe Sacco was born in Malta on October 2, 1960. At the age of one, he moved with his family to Australia, where he spent his childhood until 1972, when they moved to Los Angeles. He began his journalism career working on the Sunset High School newspaper in Beaverton, Oregon. While journalism was his primary focus, this was also the period of time in which he developed his penchant for humor and satire. He graduated from Sunset High in 1978.

Sacco earned his B.A. in journalism from the University of Oregon in 1981 in three years. He was greatly frustrated with the journalist work that he found at the time, later saying, "[I couldn't find] a job writing very hard-hitting, interesting pieces that would really make some sort of difference." After being briefly employed by the journal of the National Notary Association, a job which he found "exceedingly, exceedingly boring," and several factories, he returned to Malta, his journalist hopes forgotten. "...I sort of decided to forget it and just go the other route, which was basically take my hobby, which has been cartooning, and see if I could make a living out of that," he later told the BBC.

He began working for a local publisher writing guidebooks. Returning to his fondness for comics, he wrote a Maltese romance comic named Imħabba Vera ("True Love"), one of the first art-comics in the Maltese language. "Because Malta has no history of comics, comics weren't considered something for kids," he told Village Voice. "In one case, for example, the girl got pregnant and she went to Holland for an abortion. Malta is a Catholic country where not even divorce is allowed. It was unusual, but it's not like anyone raised a stink about it, because they had no way of judging whether this was appropriate material for comics or not."

Eventually returning to the United States, by 1985 Sacco had founded a satirical, alternative comics magazine called Portland Permanent Press in Portland, Oregon. When the magazine folded fifteen months later, he took a job at The Comics Journal as the staff news writer. This job provided the opportunity for him to create another satire: the comic Centrifugal Bumble-Puppy, a name he took from an overly-complicated children's toy in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

But Sacco was more interested in travelling. In 1988, he left the U.S. again to travel across Europe, a trip which he chronicled in his autobiographical comic Yahoo. The trip lead him towards the ongoing Gulf War (his obsession with which he talks about in Yahoo #2), and in 1991 he found himself nearby to research the work he would eventually publish as Palestine.

The Gulf War segment of Yahoo drew Sacco into a study of Middle Eastern politics, and he traveled to Israel and the Palestinian territories to research his first long work. Palestine was a collection of short and long pieces, some depicting Sacco's travels and encounters with Palestinians (and several Israelis), and some dramatizing the stories he was told. It was serialized as a comic book from 1993 to 2001 and then published in several collections, the first of which won an American Book Award in 1996.

Sacco next travelled to Sarajevo and Goražde near the end of the Bosnian War, and produced a series of reports in the same style as Palestine: the comics Safe Area Goražde, The Fixer, and the stories collected in War's End; the financing for which was aided by his winning of the Guggenheim Fellowship in April 2001. Safe Area Goražde won the Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Novel in 2001.

He has also contributed short pieces of graphic reportage to a variety of magazines, on subjects ranging from war crimes to blues, and is a frequent illustrator of Harvey Pekar's American Splendor. Sacco currently lives in Portland.

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn’t really a graphic novel even though the local librarian fobbed it off on me as such during Graphic Novel Week at the local library. It’s a huge 24 foot long panorama of the first day of the battle of the Somme. The Somme, was one of the bloodiest battles in human history with more than 1,000,000 casualties and involved the British, French and German armies.

The unfolding panorama starts with Haig’s headquarters and scans every aspect of the battle from artillery to trench warfare to battle aid stations to the grave yards.

This would be an ideal teaching aid for home school parents, who have World War I as part of their curriculum. It would be appropriate for children of middle school age and up.

Read in conjunction with All Quiet on the Western Front, which in itself is a graphic rendering of the war, Joe Sacco’s boxed set gives a bird’s eye detailed view of every aspect of the front.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

July 1 addition: It's the 100 year anniversary of one of the most horrific military disasters of WWI, The Battle of the Somme, so I re-post my reviews of 2-3 of the best books on the subject:

This is a comics masterpiece, an artist and historic tour de force by Sacco, a comics journalist and the award-wiinnng author of works such as Palestine and Safe Area Goradze. There's no shortage of horrific war tragedies, of course, stories of Hiroshima, Auschwitz, Dresden and so on, and this is surely yet another I knew less about. This text or series of texts in Sacco's boxed package focuses on the Battle of the Somme, where the British incurred 30,000 causalities in the FIRST HOUR of the battle, which their military commanders were very confident they would win, of course, refusing to retreat regardless of casualties, as the good generals who always survive these things insist will also have been necessary. Before the end of the day more than 57,000 British soldiers were dead, the worst military loss in the history of the British military. A military disaster for the ages, among countless others, but a remarkable one. And do we learn from these things? Do the military brass figure out what went wrong so they can make sure Never Again? You tell me. I'm reminded of Mizuki's WWII memoir Onward to Our Noble Deaths, about a similar push forward by student military "leaders" he personally survived.

Sacco's stunning work is 24 pages of continuous panels that I see laid out before me on the floor extending through my dining and living rooms. My kids and I have looked at it from time to time today. And do walk around it carefully, if you lay it out, as it is a work of art, without question. And it is comics, as Sacco points out, depicting a narrative of the day without the typical use of gutters. Sacco said Norton Editor Matt Weiland had approached him about the project, inspired by Matteo Pericoli's wordless Manhattan Unfurled, a beautiful accordion-styled foldout of the city's skyline.

But Pericoli's work is not a narrative, Sacco points out, and as a comics artist he wanted to create a sequential narrative, so used the Bayeux Tapestry as a model, also capitalizing on medieval themes and approaches. It is meticulously researched and amazingly represented. It is a silent comic, though it is accompanied by his introduction and afterword explaining the panels, and a succinct and useful essay documenting and contextualizing the battle by Adam Hochschild in an adaptation of his book To End All Wars.

Sacco's work misses the human touch that Jacques Tardi's It Was the War of the Trenches has (or for that matter, any great novels of war like All Quite on the Western Front or Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage. Or the poetry of Owens and Sassoon). We don't get to know any of the soldiers as we do the two brothers in (the much slighter) Trenches by Scott Mills. We don't get to know contexts, so for that we have Hochschild's fine essay, though we never get individual stories, which is the province of literature, in many ways. But we do have this amazing representation, which is worth five stars and a place in art and comics history even without the intimate stories. It is history both writ large, with some scope and also small, with plenty of accurate detail. Breathtaking. A must read!

Here's a review of it:

Joe Sacco’s “The Great War” - The New Yorker - http://ow.ly/AWq41

Here's two students (not mine) reading it on the floor, so you can see the length of it:

http://imgur.com/fet67NZ

Here's some sample plates:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/A...

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an intellectual investment that should be savored and valued as an heirloom to be passed on to future generations. Joe Sacco's accordion-style depiction of the Battle of the Somme is inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry as updated for the 21st century.

The format is unique. The art is stunning. The scope is amazing. And the lesson is timeless. Combined with Adam Hochschild's essay on the significance of the battle (which was adapted from his incredible book, To End All Wars), Sacco's vision can be studied for hours.

One of the most impressive works of history I have ever had the honor to experience and always worth revisiting at least once a year. Check out a wonderful write up in the New Yorker to get a nice overview.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Sacco’s The Great War: July 1, 1916: The First Day of the Battle of the Somme isn’t a comic per se - it’s a staggering 24 foot long wordless panorama depicting the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Folded numerous times to fit into book format, it can be “read” like a book and looks a bit like an accordion in profile. It shows in jaw-dropping detail countless soldiers from the first page of a troubled General Douglas Haig well behind the lines to the gravediggers and dead bodies on the last.

The Battle of the Somme remains one of the worst battles in human history with over a million dead between July and November 1916. Sacco shows the first day from the Allied perspective which saw a staggering total of 57,000 British soldiers dead or wounded by day’s end, making it the worst loss in British military history. In comparison, the Germans lost an estimated 8,000.

How could such a catastrophe occur? Ineffective bombing. After a week of Allied bombing, the British expected to go in with their 120,000 troops and storm through the lines but, as soon as they entered no man’s land, they realised how much the bombs had missed the Germans’ lines when they saw line after line of barbed wire and machine gun nests intact.

In the style of the Bayeux tapestry 1000 years ago which depicted the Battle of Hastings, Sacco’s panoramic view of the battle takes in everything from the soldiers on their way to the front, arriving and eating breakfast, getting prepared and heading into the trenches, to the distant bombings getting closer, to the trenches themselves, and the beginnings of the attack which sees explosions and bullets tearing apart soldiers in the most horrific ways. It builds in pitch, starting slowly to becoming more and more frenzied until the final cold silence.

It’s such an impressive accomplishment by Sacco, especially when you look closely and see how he’s drawn every single soldier on the page - their faces, their correct uniforms and weapons - and amidst the grandiose scenes of bloodshed, moments captured: the sobbing expressions of stretcher bearers carrying dying soldiers, men cowering behind trenches, the lone survivor in no man’s land frozen in place as he looks around him to where his comrades were. There are so many in the panorama that you find yourself studying every inch of the page as you go. It’s simply a visually breathtaking, stunning and deeply moving work - a career highlight for sure by this incredible cartoonist.

Accompanying the panorama is a short introduction by Sacco (which leaves out how long it took him to create, a detail I would’ve liked to have known) and an illuminating essay by historian Adam Hochschild for context and perspective. There’s also a breakdown of the 24 plates, pointing out and explaining specific scenes.

Though Sacco is best known for his superb comics journalism like Footnotes in Gaza and Palestine, The Great War is not a comic but is an astonishing work of art not to be missed.

[Dimitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

"More coffins. The brass must be planning a big offensive."
"How nice of them. *indicates teenage recruits climbing down a truck* They even send us the stuff to fill'em with."

Polish veteran Kat's dry observation in All Quiet On the Western Front runs through my head as I walk past the mural in the new Thiepval museum. It's simply a drawing in an inconspicuous bande dessinée style that lends little individual traits to faces. It is more defined than a blurry photograph, but still distant. Colour, sound and movement are the spectator's to add.

Columns of infantry march to the sound of the guns, past the machinery of war that is to get them across No Man's Land alive, the 60-pounder guns rising up like giant dragons. Final moments of relaxation. The overcrowded communication trenches, struggling with the weight of wire-cutters and grenades as an officer's bullhorn shouts in their ear.

The slim figurines climbing out between their own sides' belt of barbed wire, bayonet manly held high as they disappear behind a curtain of towering explosions. They re-appear, stumbling along or on stretchers. The stark lines of the forward hospital try to capture something of the screams and the stench. Fresh graves are dug, canvas-shrouded lumps beside them.

Columns of infantry march to the sound of the guns, past the machinery of war that is to get them across No Man's Land alive, the 60-pounder guns rising up like giant dragons...

... the sun on my shoulders, I feel the sweaty discomfort of woollen trousers and readjust the weight of my rifle.

[Álvaro Velasco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me recuerda a la película 1917. Como siempre con Sacco, un gran documento.

[Reet Champion · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Battle of the Somme resulted in devastating losses with more than 1,000,000 casualties and mistakes made by those in command only helped to achieve that number. Many people died in the battle leaving behind bereaved family members. In the aftermath there were, as can be expected, bodies that were unidentified; they now lie in marked graves but unnamed. Their deaths were felt long after the battle had ended, never forgotten, even if their remains were never identified. As we fast approach the 100th anniversary of World War I the memory of everyone who had a part in the war is keenly felt.

Joe Sacco’s and Adam Hochschild’s The Great War is a simple but touching work. They humanize the statistics and bring to life a subject one might say has been “beat to death”. The simple illustrations can turn one’s stomach sour with the view of dismembered limbs scattered about the battlefield while comrades lay to the side dead or dying. It isn’t a pleasant read as the inconceivable numbers and accounts of World War I come together to create this work. Yet at the same time it’s fascinating. The “big picture” was picked apart to create individual slides so we have a glimpse of not so much strategy and battle but of the poor souls who were doing the battling. The prose of Mr. Hochschild’s was easy to follow along with and riveting; it has prompted me to read his book To End All Wars. A job well done to the creators.

DISCLAIMER: In accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising” we would like to note that we have not received compensation for our book review of “The Great War”.

reetchampionbookreviews.wordpress.com

[Mieczyslaw Kasprzyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

The reportage of Joe Sacco has had quite an impact on me; it's down-to-earth and presented in a very interesting way to digest. I know there are people out there who scoff at "comics" but they really haven't acquired the skill to read them like a storyboard, they haven't read stuff like Sacco. So it was with great interest that I got hold of "The Great War; July 1, 1916 The First Day of the Battle of the Somme".
I was actually slightly surprised that it really IS a panorama - how unusual and yet how obvious! There is a long tradition of warfare being depicted through panorama; Kossak and Styka's "Raclawice Panorama", Roubaud's "Borodino" or Grekov's "Stalingrad". It is so natural to scroll the scene and watch the events unfold.
And so it is with Sacco; we watch Haig strolling through his peaceful garden outside his chateau and then the build-up of the troops, the marching into the trenches, shelling, the walk to death... explosions throw bodies into the air or tear them apart, the wounded are carried back to the field hospitals and the dead are buried as more soldiers march to the front.
It is so well done in simple black and white (no colour). There are no real dramatics... it just unfolds, almost pleasantly, unfeelingly, with the coldness of nature and history.

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to spot this book (brand new) in the window of Aardvark on the same day I was finishing a book about the poets of World War I. Sacco's construction unfolds in a series of 24 panels, each a mass of exact detail capturing the confusion and destruction of the first day of battle (a visualization that recalls the Bayeux Tapestry). The first panel shows General Haig striding through the garden of the Château de Beaurepaire and the last shows dead soldiers being shoveled into a mass grave. Adam Hoschchild provides the accompanying essay (adapted from To End All Wars) and quotes an epitaph from a wooden sign carved by survivors:

The Devonshires held this trench
The Devonshires hold it still

It's not really a graphic novel – there's not a single word of dialog – it's more a meditation. The sorrow is in the detail.

[Richard Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much to say and not a word written. As you can see in this photograph of CHC fraternity engrossed in their reading of Joe Sacco's book, The Great War, down the corridor of the SE&H, this is a book with a difference.
[ http://imgur.com/fet67NZ ]

In the spirit of the Bayeaux Tapestry, Joe Sacco, one of the great graphic novelists of the current era, has created a new work that is simply breathless in scope and scale. A six metre long illustrated panorama in which the detail requires many viewings to appreciate [you can read The Economist's review here: http://www.economist.com/news/books-a... ]

An account of the first day of the Battle of Somme, July 1, 1916. Sacco invites us to participate in the events, beginning with the musings of General Haig in the morning and then on through the catastrophic destruction of the British Fourth Army, where nearly 60,000 men were killed on the first day.

It is very hard to define exactly what this particular publication actually is. Art? Literature? Both? Sacco encourages appropriate reflection on the tragedy of the industrialized war that was the Great War. It also allows me to reflect, as an educator on the nature of history, how we tell the stories and nuances of the past and even raises questions as to the nature of literacy and what it means to be 'literate'.

Certainly, you do 'read' the story, but not a word is written. To give you a sense of the detail of the panorama depicted, some of the 24 plates are shown here: [ http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/A... ]

The included essay by Adam Hochschild is also worth pulling out as an addendum.

Beautifully presented in a hard case cover, this is one book that is a treasure for the depth of opportunity to engage with the story within.

The publishers have produced a video where Sacco talks about his experiences and the research he undertook whilst writing / drawing this panorama and is well worth taking the 5 minutes or so out of your day to view: http://vimeo.com/76336385

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm torn on whether to give this 4 or 5 stars. On the one hand, this format is a fascinating way to present a huge event like day one of the Somme. On the other hand, it doesn't quite feel like. enough. How can you condense such a day into a wordless representation? How can any drawing, even this long accordion-shaped panorama, adequately convey the magnitude of it? It reads like an outline, or a collection of stick figures, which can't describe the personal stories and tragedy to go along with the sheer numbers. I want to rate this higher because it seems like it should be Profound, but it just doesn't get all the way there for me.

[Nikki Stafford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel a little guilty putting a wordless comic in my list of books I've read this year, but I'm including it anyway for the extraordinary achievement this is. The Great War follows the first day of the Battle of the Somme from sun-up to sun-down to nighttime to the next morning. The whole book opens into one giant panel that you have to unfold across the room to truly take in its magnificence (I had to do it in a locked room to keep my cats out) and it's not entirely wordless: it comes with a booklet that actually takes you through the full mural, pointing out details throughout and explaining how the day unfolded. This is groundbreaking material.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genius in conception and execution. Rich in thought and detail. It's not just a panoramic picture, it's a story in time that a sweep of the eye can take in at a glance, but that rewards the longer contemplation.

(Conveniently, this complete my 2013 goodreads challenge. And for those who say graphic novels aren't books, too bad. It looks like a book, smells like a book, and even has an companion annotated essay, which I read.)

Follow me on Twitter: @Dr_A_Taubman

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

The influence of the Bayeux Tapestry is apparent. Quite an astonishing feat. The children lost interest when I wouldn't let them colour it in.

[Kirsti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This entire book is one gigantic line drawing, and it comes in a slipcover that contains a booklet that is one gigantic caption. I have never seen anything like it.

[Dakota Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really cool experiment that mostly hits the mark. Inside the box is an unfolding panorama of the Battle of the Somme illustrated by Joe Sacco. We see the British soldiers setting up for battle, the battle itself, and the aftermath as you pan across the numerous panels. If you have enough space, you can unfurl the whole thing and try to take it all in at once.

(I went to a real panorama in Lucerne, Switzerland this past fall and it was absolutely stunning - more museums should feature panoramas. Basically the original theme park attraction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbak...)

There's an accompanying booklet in which Sacco explains why he created the piece and a short essay about the battle. Not being British, I didn't realize what a huge tragedy the Battle of the Somme was! Truly shocking. Sacco's artwork does a good(?) job of reflecting the brutality of the battle.

I might have appreciated more insight into the art and the history, but for a unique idea, The Great War satisfies.

[Johanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Sacco is a brilliant journalist and artist. His illustrations are so complex, so detailed, that they deserve hours of viewing. This book on WWI’s Battle of the Somme has an insert with an essay by Adam Hochschild describing the intricate planning that went into preparing for the battle, and the complete and total debacle once the battle began. More than 20,000 British soldiers died just on the first day.

The book is a 24’ accordion panel showing the progress from the days before the battle up to the end of the first day. There is no commentary on the drawing itself but Sacco includes a diagram in the insert explaining what we see. There are so many small details that I wish I could talk to him and have him explain everything.

This is a remarkable piece of work by a master journalist and artist.

[vahid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good historical artbook. The essay on the back by Adam Hochshild is well-written and informative as well. The only problem with a dialogue-less book like this is that you lose Sacco's sense of humor.

[William Razavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Closing out the year with something I genuinely loved.
This is a two part volume because the work itself is this huge panorama that you literally have to unfold and which tells the story of the first day of the Battle of the Somme (1 July 1916) in the First World War.
Sacco (whose other work is equally brilliant and heartbreaking) compares his method with the Bayeux Tapestry and that's one reason why I think this book merits being called a "graphic novel" because it really does have a narrative that (literally) unfolds as you "read" it from left to right and chronologically go from morning to morning and from all the preparations for the massive onslaught to the horrors of the disaster. The way this book can unfold to fill a room is part of the way that the book expresses the monumental nature of an offensive that resulted in 21,000 British (and about 8,000 Germans) dying on that first day. It's a scale of horror that's otherwise hard to comprehend.
The art is accompanied by small version with author's annotations that walk you through what is being represented in the work, and by an excerpt by Adam Hochschild from his longer historical work where he talks about the Somme and relates tragic anecdotes about whole communities being decimated by the losses from this one day. One day.
So yeah, read the notes and the essay, then "read" the work itself.

[Rahmadiyanti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saat beli nggak terlalu ngeh kalau bentuk bukunya folded, seperti akordion. Unik dan menarik banget! Jadi ada dua buku dalam satu paket:
1. Panorama komik tanpa kata (wordless comic), terdiri dari 24 plate (halaman) gambar tentang hari pertama The Battle of Somme.
2. Buku pendamping yang terdapat pengantar dari sang komikus sendiri, artikel dari Adam Jochschild yang menjelaskan tentang The Great War, serta anotasi dari komikus mengenai 24 plate komik.

Dua cara saya membaca "buku" ini:
1. Menyimak komik tanpa kata, meresapi goresan Sacco. Terus lanjut baca buku pendamping.
2. Membuka komik panorama, taruh di sisi atas, dan membuka buku pendamping di bagian anotasi yang menjelaskan maksud dari gambar tiap plate.

Seperti karya-karya Joe Sacco yang lain, juara lah goresannya. Detail, hingga penggambaran tentara warga Inggris asal Punjab/India dengan turban khas ala Sikh, yang juga turut serta dalam perang ini. Juga penggambaran begitu banyaknya tentara diterjunkan, hingga medan laga sangat padat, sampai-sampai saat malam sebelum hari H, sebagian tentara tidur berdiri di parit-parit pertahanan.

Perang memang mengerikan. Dalam satu hari perang antara Inggris dan Jerman ini, 57.000 tentara Inggris tewas. Dan banyak yang tewas adalah anak-anak muda yang baru pertama ikut perang. Kehilangan militer terbesar dalam sejarah Inggris.

Namun, tak ada yang lebih mengerikan ketika Israel menjajah Palestina, mengebom rumah, sekolah, rumah sakit, toko buku, gedung pemerintahan... membantai ratusan ribu warga Palestina, membuat jutaan warga Palestina mengungsi. Menjadikan Jalur Gaza sebagai "penjara terbesar" di dunia dengan hampir dua juta orang memadati area seluas 300an km2. Penjajahan yang disponsori Inggris, lalu dilanggengkan oleh Amerika Serikat. Maaf, nebeng isu Palestina 😊

Alhamdulillah, Joe Sacco adalah kartunis dan jurnalis yang sejak lama peduli dengan isu-isu kemanusiaan. Dia telah menerbitkan dua komik tentang Palestina: Palestina dan Catatan Kaki dari Gaza. Tabik untukmu, Om Joe!

[Mark]

[A version of this review was published, in German, in the Swiss comics journal STRAPAZIN.]

A bit more than a decade ago, I had the opportunity to conduct a lengthy interview with Joe Sacco (INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMIC ART, Vol 4, No 2 Fall 2002), during which the cartoonist admitted that he had long had a fascination with war history and narratives. Growing up in Australia, Sacco was on occasion able to get his hands on comics such as SGT. ROCK (USA) and BATTLE (UK), and he explained that they led him as an adult to deeper reading into the history of war, especially The First World War: “the war to end all wars.”

While Sacco has often dealt with war, political strife, and armed conflict in his comics, starting in his early series YAHOO, and of course most notably in award-winning books such as PALESTINE and SAFE AREA GORAZDE, his focus until recently has been squarely on the late 20th Century. With his newest book, THE GREAT WR: JULY 1st, 1916: THE FIRST DAY OF THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME, he finally turns his cartoonist’s gaze to the great and tragic European conflicts that have long interested him, and the result is a pretty remarkable comic.

Except, much as Sacco isn’t really a cartoonist (he finds that term limiting, and would likely call himself a “journalist” first), THE GREAT WAR isn’t really a comic—though that’s not to say it’s not a wonderful example of graphic storytelling. Rather, it is a completely wordless “panorama,” an accordion-like book that, if folded out to its full length, would be more than 24 feet long. Through this panorama Sacco depicts, synchronically, the first day of the unimaginably horrific Battle of the Somme, from General Haig pacing outside his chateau on page one, through bodies being stacked up and piled in graves on page twenty-four.

And in the middle is the battle, drawn in almost dreamily impressionistic explosions and quiet carnage spread across the page, as if the senseless battle had been frozen in time forever. The middle pages are the heart of the book, a sprawling landscape of fantastically detailed drawings of soldiers, military gear, wagons, trenches, barbed wire, cannon, trains, horses, and, above all, bodies living, dead, and soon to be dead—after all, there are still more soldiers namelessly lost in the soil of those French fields of the Western Front than are buried in marked graves.

THE GREAT WAR takes its cue from the Bayeux Tapestry, and if it is not a comic it is nevertheless a stunning piece of graphic storytelling: beautiful, horrifying, poetic, meditative, and deeply sad. While this book brilliantly captures a brief, historical moment in time, it also asks a question that is still painfully relevant today: why do humans marshal such resources and technology just to kill each other? As Sacco notes in the accompanying essay, the Somme represented “the point where the common man could have no more illusions about the nature of modern warfare.” Today, those illusions are long forgotten.

A beautiful book that will reward multiple readings, joined with an essay from historian Adam Hochschild, and boxed in a handsome slipcase, THE GREAT WAR is not just an inventive reimaging of the graphic novel, it’s also a fantastic work of art.

[Bryan Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

A staggering and very short work, Sacco's "Great War" is a panorama of the Battle of the Somme's first day. This single sheet folds out for yards, and contains Sacco's customarily excellent drawing.

There is no coloring. There is no text on the fold-out, but a helpful supplemental pamphlet offers more information: a thoughtful sketch of the Somme by day 1, and a breakdown of individual panels.

The work combines movement in space and time. From left to right it moves from the British forces' back areas to the trenches, across no man's land and back again, concluding with the rear once more. That same horizontal progress also tracks in time, covering a bit more than 24 hours. Powerfully, it begins with general Haig at prayer, then concludes with a group of graves.

Your eye can traverse the whole, but prefers to dwell on individual scenes: troops bunching up in trenches before dawn, the terrible explosions of German shells raining down, the vast stockpiling of material before the attack. You might also feel your attention drawn to small details, like a lit dugout gleaming furtively at night, or a soldier toppling over yards from trenches.

"Great War" is a powerful, effective document that will repay reviewing.

[Loops Wuadaloops · Rating 5 out of 5]

Conocí la obra, y a Joe Sacco, en el #hayfestival del año pasado, un tipo súper accesible.

Al parecer una de sus obras más famosa es “Palestina” , también es una especie de novela gráfica, pero que según me entero, el término correcto es “cómic underground con tono periodístico” porque lo qué hace es reflejar con ilustraciones la situación de los territorios en guerra.

Este libro es algo sobre la misma línea, pero de la Batalla del Somme. Yo la verdad soy pésima para eso y no entiendo nada, pero afortunadamente para gente como yo, muy acertadamente agregó un librito de “notas del autor” donde explica todo lo referente a esta batalla, así como lo que representa cada una de las 24 láminas que conforman el libro, ya que no tiene palabras, son solo ilustraciones.

A mi, más que el tema, me encanta la mecánica del libro, porque es acordeón y nos desplaza por un momento de lo acostumbrado y además porque soy fetichista y todo eso. Lo edita @reservoirbooks_ pero creo que lo compré en el stand de Sexto Piso 🤨 a un precio ganga 👌🏼

Si les gusta el tema bélico, pienso que sí debería estar en su colección.

[cameron · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't really a book.
The pages are attached to each other and about 20 panels or more fold outward. It is, in fact, a detailed, huge, panoramic ink drawing of the first day of the Battle of the Somme. from no man's land and active explosions to going over the top, to death and injury, to supply lines, guns, medics, gas, trenches, hospitals and the huge number of people and equipment needed to operate this theater. I've read a lot about this war but nothing quite gives the impact this drawing does. It also comes with a small booklet describing the battle and is boxed. My grandchildren, 10 and older, and my children were shocked. Great investment. Also, I just read the Paris underground has reproduced this drawing on the walls.

[Nick Nguyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressive achievement in terms of scale, ambition and execution. The first day of the Battle of the Somme is depicted across a 24 foot long panorama that Sacco uses as a canvas to marry his intense sense of detail
with a condensed handling of narrative time and space inspired by the
Bayeux tapestry. Sacco's use of deep focus here is less about highlighting individual battlefield horrors and more about filling the reader's peripheral vision to contemplate the massive scale of industrialized death. I thought he pulled it off quite well.

Also included is a 16 page booklet that features helpful author's notes and annotations, which helped enrich my reading experience.

[John Acy Reinhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

The power of this medium is clearly displayed in Sacco's wordless panorama of the first day of the battle of the Somme. Powerful. Sobering. Shocking. Plaudits to Sacco for a significant and valuable contribution to history and the graphic arts.

[Charity P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just...speechless. Beautiful.

[Virginia Walter · Rating 5 out of 5]

The panoramic black and white art is an astonishing visualization of that horrific battle. Adam Hochschild's essay is an impressive accompaniment. This is a profound anti-war statement.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Amazing panels, excellent footnotes and annotations. Audacious probably best describes this single-panel drawing published in book form.

[Homerun2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning and unique.