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La guerra de Gaza
El maestro del periodismo gráfico se acerca al tema que mejor conoce, el conflicto árabe-israelí, con un libro urgente y necesario.
Joe Sacco es conocido principalmente por sus imbatibles crónicas gráficas sobre las injusticias que ha sufrido el pueblo palestino a lo largo de la Historia. Prosigue su misión en La guerra de Gaza, una serie de apuntes dibujados que narran cómo Israel está arrasando los territorios ocupados desde hace más de un año.
En origen, esta obra se publicó por entregas en la web de The Comics Journal con la intención de denunciar la inmoralidad de este conflicto y sus consecuencias funestas. Encontraremos aquí los rasgos distintivos habituales de Sacco, que mezcla de manera elocuente su estilo honesto con dosis variadas de compasión y humor negro. La guerra de Gaza es, en esencia, una crítica contundente al genocidio que está cometiendo Israel y, paralelamente, al papel cómplice de los Estados Unidos de América.
Joe Sacco es conocido principalmente por sus imbatibles crónicas gráficas sobre las injusticias que ha sufrido el pueblo palestino a lo largo de la Historia. Prosigue su misión en La guerra de Gaza, una serie de apuntes dibujados que narran cómo Israel está arrasando los territorios ocupados desde hace más de un año.
En origen, esta obra se publicó por entregas en la web de The Comics Journal con la intención de denunciar la inmoralidad de este conflicto y sus consecuencias funestas. Encontraremos aquí los rasgos distintivos habituales de Sacco, que mezcla de manera elocuente su estilo honesto con dosis variadas de compasión y humor negro. La guerra de Gaza es, en esencia, una crítica contundente al genocidio que está cometiendo Israel y, paralelamente, al papel cómplice de los Estados Unidos de América.
36 pages, Paperback
First published January 6, 2024
20 people are currently reading
1431 people want to read
About the author
Joe Sacco
69 books1,590 followersJoe 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 189 reviews
January 15, 2025
Oh how I wish I could have every American read this.
March 14, 2025
Devastating...I have to take time to take this all in. Joe Sacco is a master of 'ideological distillation' - what you get is going to burn going down; and it may not be to the taste of everyone. I believe that Gaza will be looked at as a major 'shift' in policy in the years to come - what this will mean on the stage of geopolitical strategy is yet to be fully understood.
Read
December 13, 2024LA GUERRA DE GAZA de Joe Sacco es un brevísimo cómic en el que el autor se lamenta del papel determinante que la política estadounidense está teniendo en el genocidio palestino que estamos viviendo en directo. Es un texto rabioso, esclarecedor y muy valiente.
January 3, 2025
I read it here in serial form: https://www.tcj.com/topic/the-war-on-...
August 19, 2025
Normally, I feel iffy reading books about Palestine that is written by non-Palestinians, but as soon as I saw the author mention “The Great March of Return” in the beginning of the comic I RELAXED and knew I wasn’t going to be let down 🙏
December 20, 2024
Joe Sacco has long chronicled the struggles of Palestinians with his journalistic comics Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza, both of which took accounts from people on the ground and presented them to a worldwide audience. Palestine in particular was striking work for featuring the accounts of a diverse collection of Palestinians over the Occupied Territories in the wake of the First Intifada - a time where a ground-level look into the life of those affected by the war wouldn't have been readily accessible. Perhaps the main criticism that could have been levied towards Sacco then was that the one-sided coverage made the work inherently more politically charged than a journalistic piece should have been, though it was something that didn't bother me then since "balanced" coverage of the situation has never truly existed anyways. Though Palestine was a comic that earnestly depicted the dire situation of the Palestinian people, there were moments of hope and levity to be found in Sacco's coverage. He would follow the seminal work that was Palestine with Footnotes in Gaza, which was less of an account of regular Palestinian people than it was a look at the historical context behind the situation in Gaza that existed back in 2009. Similarly critical of the Israeli occupation, though it was clear that Sacco's approach was more brusque and cynical - a decade of no improvement in the region would do that to anyone religiously following the situation. Footnotes was the product of growing frustration, though Sacco maintained a measured approach to the narration and the cartooning.
But since Footnotes, another fifteen years have passed. The situation in Gaza has only worsened with years under blockade, and following the October 7th attack, Israel began their deadliest war in the history of the conflict. Months into the Israeli campaign in Gaza, Sacco began serialization of the War on Gaza strip on The Comics Journal website. I followed most of the entries as they were released, and it was clear the approach for Sacco was going to be very different this time around. War on Gaza was not the work of a journalist trying to chronicle the situation, but rather a soapbox from which Sacco could direct blame for the situation to the incumbent American government. Some will perhaps find Sacco's approach off-putting, but if there's any cartoonist who gets to own the soapbox for this situation, it's Joe Sacco.
War on Gaza is even more blunt than Footnotes ever was. Sacco is unflinching in his criticism of Israeli PM Netanyahu, but even that critique pales in what Sacco lays at the feet of President Biden. The American support for Israel is what Sacco is laying aim at here, something that wasn't in his crosshairs to the same extent in previous works. Sacco's resentments don't end with the Biden Administration alone, but rather with the complacency and privilege through which many view the situation. Democracy itself isn't a shield behind which civility lies, and Sacco says as much during a section describing the Athenian conquest of the island state of Melos: "Democracy presented no barrier to atrocity."
This is easily Sacco's most provocative and politically charged work yet. The artwork is unrestrained in the biting criticism - the cover alone speaks for itself. Those who are expecting another journalistic masterpiece will be taken aback by Sacco's unrestrained approach, but it nonetheless works as a scathing portrayal of a situation that has been relentlessly hopeless for decades now.
But since Footnotes, another fifteen years have passed. The situation in Gaza has only worsened with years under blockade, and following the October 7th attack, Israel began their deadliest war in the history of the conflict. Months into the Israeli campaign in Gaza, Sacco began serialization of the War on Gaza strip on The Comics Journal website. I followed most of the entries as they were released, and it was clear the approach for Sacco was going to be very different this time around. War on Gaza was not the work of a journalist trying to chronicle the situation, but rather a soapbox from which Sacco could direct blame for the situation to the incumbent American government. Some will perhaps find Sacco's approach off-putting, but if there's any cartoonist who gets to own the soapbox for this situation, it's Joe Sacco.
War on Gaza is even more blunt than Footnotes ever was. Sacco is unflinching in his criticism of Israeli PM Netanyahu, but even that critique pales in what Sacco lays at the feet of President Biden. The American support for Israel is what Sacco is laying aim at here, something that wasn't in his crosshairs to the same extent in previous works. Sacco's resentments don't end with the Biden Administration alone, but rather with the complacency and privilege through which many view the situation. Democracy itself isn't a shield behind which civility lies, and Sacco says as much during a section describing the Athenian conquest of the island state of Melos: "Democracy presented no barrier to atrocity."
This is easily Sacco's most provocative and politically charged work yet. The artwork is unrestrained in the biting criticism - the cover alone speaks for itself. Those who are expecting another journalistic masterpiece will be taken aback by Sacco's unrestrained approach, but it nonetheless works as a scathing portrayal of a situation that has been relentlessly hopeless for decades now.
June 4, 2025
Gah. Thinking about the war in Gaza just fills me with disgust and makes me mad at everyone, from those fighting it to those unable or unwilling to make it stop.
Joe Sacco -- who has made other graphic novels about Palestine -- vents, rants, and raises some points for consideration. Even when I don't agree with him, I can relate to his feelings of rage and powerlessness.
Joe Sacco -- who has made other graphic novels about Palestine -- vents, rants, and raises some points for consideration. Even when I don't agree with him, I can relate to his feelings of rage and powerlessness.
December 14, 2024
“A partir de ese momento, el certificado de nacimiento y el de defunción se fusionaban en un solo documento”
August 20, 2025
“because only a poet can conjure up an inferno fitting for those who incited and armed a genocide, and Gaza’s dead must surely know that the only justice they can count on will remain in the province of fiction”
October 8, 2025
Absolutely fantastic how much Sacco puts in so few pages. In a biting and devastating way we are confronted with the genocide that Israel has been committing since 2023. Sacco really nails the narrative and the drawings here and makes reading this a memorable experience.
Also fuck Joe Biden
Also fuck Joe Biden
Read
January 18, 2025"How about a kickstarter to bring Dante Alighieri back to life?
Because only a poet can conjure up an inferno fitting for those who incited and armed a genocide, and Gaza's dead must surely know that the only justice they can count on will remain in the province of fiction."
Because only a poet can conjure up an inferno fitting for those who incited and armed a genocide, and Gaza's dead must surely know that the only justice they can count on will remain in the province of fiction."
Read
January 27, 2025“And so oppression abroad and repression at home orbit each other in an ever-tightening circle, and will achieve singularity when the last self-hating Jewish student is strangled with the entrails of the last child in Gaza.”
Nothing more to add, Joe Sacco says it all himself.
Nothing more to add, Joe Sacco says it all himself.
May 24, 2025
5 stars for the sentiment (politics) and the cartooning. What is left to say on this topic? If you think there is any nuance to it, you’re an idiot and a psychopath.
May 24, 2025
2024. 32 pages. Dewey 956.9405 Sa16w
Gives Genocide Joe Biden his due for supplying the weapons and supporting the murderers.
Gives Genocide Joe Biden his due for supplying the weapons and supporting the murderers.
June 2, 2025
"Is it genocide or is it self-defense?"
"Let's make everyone happy and say it is both."
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
"Let's make everyone happy and say it is both."
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
May 29, 2025
I read Joe Sacco’s full comic book series “Palestine” which was published between 1993-2001, so I knew I had to read his latest issue. This was published in 2024, so we receive his perspective about the current genocide. I own this and will lend it to anyone who’d like to read it, it’s very short. However, please keep in mind that Sacco is a Maltese-American journalist and not a Palestinian. Palestinian perspectives are the most important to share, but I also find Sacco’s comics very profound. I wanted to share a few of Sacco’s powerful quotes:
“One thing this…taught us is that ‘Never Again’ is a registered trademark, licensed only under certain conditions.”
“We now live in a world where saying you want to stop a genocide is hate speech, while slandering those who want to stop it is paid speech.”
“Democracies can be quite adept at excluding one or another…group.”
“One thing this…taught us is that ‘Never Again’ is a registered trademark, licensed only under certain conditions.”
“We now live in a world where saying you want to stop a genocide is hate speech, while slandering those who want to stop it is paid speech.”
“Democracies can be quite adept at excluding one or another…group.”
March 13, 2025
Un breve manifiesto sobre las recientes masacres en Gaza. Sacco es capaz de conectar con el lector y hacer que empatice con las víctimas sin caer en el sensacionalismo ni recrearse en los horrores.
September 25, 2025
"Civilizar siempre ha sido la carga por defecto de Occidente y la matanza, la herramienta que más luce de su caja. Los estadounidenses tuvieron su Destino Manifiesto, los franceses su Argelia, los británicos su Kenia, los australianos su Tasmania y los alemanes... Y ahora todos juntos tienen Gaza"
Tremendo.
Tremendo.
September 15, 2024
Criant de vérité
January 7, 2025
Democracy for Me but Not for Thee! This catch phrase sums up Sacco’s take on the stark, enduring complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has been pivotal in shaping my—albeit basic—understanding of this issue. His original Palestine graphic novel transported me to Rafah, immersing me in its harsh realities in a way few works have.
In this latest installment, Sacco’s plea is clear: a call for empathy, mercy, understanding, and please, just a shred of humanity, could we? Enough with the atrocities already. And I can’t say I disagree. While the heavy subject matter makes it a draining read, Sacco’s raw honesty and masterful storytelling force us to confront what we might rather ignore. Thanks for taking me back to this difficult place, Joe, even if this trip left me utterly gutted.
In this latest installment, Sacco’s plea is clear: a call for empathy, mercy, understanding, and please, just a shred of humanity, could we? Enough with the atrocities already. And I can’t say I disagree. While the heavy subject matter makes it a draining read, Sacco’s raw honesty and masterful storytelling force us to confront what we might rather ignore. Thanks for taking me back to this difficult place, Joe, even if this trip left me utterly gutted.
January 31, 2025
The hardest-hitting book from Sacco to date, and I still got the sense that he was holding back.
September 25, 2025
Gazan sota on Joe Saccon tyylille ominainen pamflettimuotoinen kuvateos, joka nostaa esiin kansanmurhan julmuuden korostamalla Yhdysvaltojen roolia koko sopassa. sanoisin, että aika fiksu veto taiteilijalta, jonka oma tausta tekee amerikkalaisista erityisen kohderyhmän hänen sarjakuvilleen.
Saatuani tän käsiini petyin rehellisesti sanoen tän pituuteen, sillä olin odottanut jotain "Palestiinan" kaltaista. toki on ymmärrettävää, ettei tässä tarinankerronta voi kulkea samaa ajatusta mukailleen, koska Sacco ei ymmärrettävästi ole käynyt tätä koostaessaan Palestiinassa tekemässä kenttätyötä.
suosittelen tätä kaikille riippumatta siitä kiinnostaako sarjakuvat teitä normaalisti. kansanmurhan raskaus on tarpeeksi suuri syy sille, miksi tää pitäisi lukea. herätteleepähän ainakin ajatuksia.
Saatuani tän käsiini petyin rehellisesti sanoen tän pituuteen, sillä olin odottanut jotain "Palestiinan" kaltaista. toki on ymmärrettävää, ettei tässä tarinankerronta voi kulkea samaa ajatusta mukailleen, koska Sacco ei ymmärrettävästi ole käynyt tätä koostaessaan Palestiinassa tekemässä kenttätyötä.
suosittelen tätä kaikille riippumatta siitä kiinnostaako sarjakuvat teitä normaalisti. kansanmurhan raskaus on tarpeeksi suuri syy sille, miksi tää pitäisi lukea. herätteleepähän ainakin ajatuksia.
October 31, 2025
I started reading Joe Sacco a long time ago.
He has never been more relevant than right now. Glad he decided to release this, but it definitely is more of a recounting of what I already know this time round. A reminder that no amount of repetition will normalize inhumanity for me.
Read Joe Sacco kids.
He has never been more relevant than right now. Glad he decided to release this, but it definitely is more of a recounting of what I already know this time round. A reminder that no amount of repetition will normalize inhumanity for me.
Read Joe Sacco kids.
January 19, 2025
"Was the Enlightenment buried in the rubble of Gaza or was the rubble the Enlightenment's logical conclusion?"
What a profound statement. On the latter half, specially -- the Enlightenment, despite its rhetoric of humanism, was deeply entangled with colonialism, imperialism, and racial hierarchies. In other words, the very powers that championed ideals of moral progress often used them to justify oppression and violence. And here we are.
Then there's the last image.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts Joe. And thank you to Fantagraphics for not giving a fuck.
What a profound statement. On the latter half, specially -- the Enlightenment, despite its rhetoric of humanism, was deeply entangled with colonialism, imperialism, and racial hierarchies. In other words, the very powers that championed ideals of moral progress often used them to justify oppression and violence. And here we are.
Then there's the last image.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts Joe. And thank you to Fantagraphics for not giving a fuck.
August 3, 2025
War on Gaza was disappointing. Joe Sacco's previous books were grounded on good journalism, while this one is just ranting against the U.S. and Israel, unburden from any commitment to a balanced/nuanced reality, which crowned Sacco's previous books. My impression is that Sacco deliberately gives up journalism in order to become a walking loudspeaker. Nuance becomes nuisance. Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, implicitly assuming that no protests against Israel on U.S. campi had any trace of antisemitism are examples of a very superficial narrative. The question is: perhaps social activism pro civil lives in Gaza cannot advance without some measure of superficiality, desperation, and frankly antisemitism. But if that is true, what makes Sacco's book worth reading at all? His book adds nothing beyond the random social media exclamation point.
December 22, 2024
"One might fairly ask, Was the Enlightenment buried in the rubble of Gaza or was the rubble the Enlightenment's logical conclusion?"
For the risk of triteness of a comic or any form of "entertainment" to come out of the ongoing genocide, (esp. by a non-Palestinian), I found this to be surprisingly brilliant. Short, furious, succinct and clear, with visuals both insightful and harrowing, I would seriously recommend it to anyone either willing to spend half an hour contemplating the unfathomable; or maybe who needs a kick up the arse to see the blindingly obvious.
For the risk of triteness of a comic or any form of "entertainment" to come out of the ongoing genocide, (esp. by a non-Palestinian), I found this to be surprisingly brilliant. Short, furious, succinct and clear, with visuals both insightful and harrowing, I would seriously recommend it to anyone either willing to spend half an hour contemplating the unfathomable; or maybe who needs a kick up the arse to see the blindingly obvious.
March 26, 2025
Sacco extrapolates as the fine cartoonist he is upon the sad stories in Gaza in 2024. This is more varied in art than the reporting in his earlier Palestine (1990s). Grimmer, too.
Thanks to Fantagraphics for publishing and Fulton County Public Library for the loan.
Thanks to Fantagraphics for publishing and Fulton County Public Library for the loan.
February 21, 2025
4+
Det sägs ju att man inte bör träffa sina hjältar, men Joe Sacco är ett undantag. När han var i Umeå för två år sedan fick jag chansen att sitta och prata med honom och en mer ödmjuk och vänlig person är svår att tänka sig. Det visade sig att vi var i Gaza nästan samtidigt i början av 2000-talet och kunde jämföra upplevelser därifrån, men vi tvingades konstaterade att det var länge sedan och att allt blivit värre sen dess.
Detta var innan 7 oktober, innan det folkmord som följde. I inledningen av sin nya bok beskriver Sacco hur han närmast paralyserades av vad som skedde, hur han teoretiskt kunde förstå vad som skulle hända men i praktiken inte kunde hantera det. Det är känslor jag själv känner igen allt för väl.
Lyckligtvis släppte paralyseringen och som någon som skildrat Palestina tidigare började Sacco publicera kortare serier om det som skedde online och det är dessa som nu samlats i ett tunt album. Som alltid är det fantatsiskt tecknat och skarpt skildrat, och inte helt oväntat också med mer ilska än vad han annars brukar tillåta sig i sin seriejournalism.
Mycket fokus ligger på USAs agerande, som hur "Genocide" Joe fortsatte att kräkas upp lögner om halshuggna bebisar även efter att det visat sig vara ett rent påhitt, hur amerikanska skattepengar finansierar de bomber som mördat palestinska barn eller hur studentprotester slagits ner.
Det är svårt att inte önska sig mer än de 32 sidor som boken sträcker sig över, men det är också vad som gjort att den kunnat komma ut så fort. Vill man ha mer finns en samtecknad serie på The Guardians hemsida mellan Sacco och Art Spiegelman som också är mycket läsvärd.
Sacco bevisar återigen att man kan vara en hjälte i serievärlden även utan mantel, och jag är oerhört tacksam över att den här boken getts ut. Tillsammans med hans tidigare böcker om Palestina är det en startpunkt så väl som någon för den som vill förstå Palestinas frihetskamp.
Det sägs ju att man inte bör träffa sina hjältar, men Joe Sacco är ett undantag. När han var i Umeå för två år sedan fick jag chansen att sitta och prata med honom och en mer ödmjuk och vänlig person är svår att tänka sig. Det visade sig att vi var i Gaza nästan samtidigt i början av 2000-talet och kunde jämföra upplevelser därifrån, men vi tvingades konstaterade att det var länge sedan och att allt blivit värre sen dess.
Detta var innan 7 oktober, innan det folkmord som följde. I inledningen av sin nya bok beskriver Sacco hur han närmast paralyserades av vad som skedde, hur han teoretiskt kunde förstå vad som skulle hända men i praktiken inte kunde hantera det. Det är känslor jag själv känner igen allt för väl.
Lyckligtvis släppte paralyseringen och som någon som skildrat Palestina tidigare började Sacco publicera kortare serier om det som skedde online och det är dessa som nu samlats i ett tunt album. Som alltid är det fantatsiskt tecknat och skarpt skildrat, och inte helt oväntat också med mer ilska än vad han annars brukar tillåta sig i sin seriejournalism.
Mycket fokus ligger på USAs agerande, som hur "Genocide" Joe fortsatte att kräkas upp lögner om halshuggna bebisar även efter att det visat sig vara ett rent påhitt, hur amerikanska skattepengar finansierar de bomber som mördat palestinska barn eller hur studentprotester slagits ner.
Det är svårt att inte önska sig mer än de 32 sidor som boken sträcker sig över, men det är också vad som gjort att den kunnat komma ut så fort. Vill man ha mer finns en samtecknad serie på The Guardians hemsida mellan Sacco och Art Spiegelman som också är mycket läsvärd.
Sacco bevisar återigen att man kan vara en hjälte i serievärlden även utan mantel, och jag är oerhört tacksam över att den här boken getts ut. Tillsammans med hans tidigare böcker om Palestina är det en startpunkt så väl som någon för den som vill förstå Palestinas frihetskamp.
January 7, 2025
The next time some political analyst talks about the 2024 election I just want to shove a copy of this directly into their eyeballs.
Is that enough of an endorsement for this very short but very necessary book?
I've been giving Sacco's Palestine a re-read (there's a new 2024 edition out of it with new foreward and afterword material) and War on Gaza is admittedly less subtle it's because the moral and ethical issue has itself become about as subtle as, say, a 2000lb bomb paid for by your taxes.
We are at a moment when the problems before us should be cartoonishly easy for us to understand and yet, it's of some comfort to see someone else also picking up the burden of expressing that rage against the moral debt of our "civilization."
Sacco even invokes Thucydides (see, kids, there's a reason you should read the Melian dialogue) for the idea that democracy is not a good in and of itself if the will of the people is to commit genocide.
Is that enough of an endorsement for this very short but very necessary book?
I've been giving Sacco's Palestine a re-read (there's a new 2024 edition out of it with new foreward and afterword material) and War on Gaza is admittedly less subtle it's because the moral and ethical issue has itself become about as subtle as, say, a 2000lb bomb paid for by your taxes.
We are at a moment when the problems before us should be cartoonishly easy for us to understand and yet, it's of some comfort to see someone else also picking up the burden of expressing that rage against the moral debt of our "civilization."
Sacco even invokes Thucydides (see, kids, there's a reason you should read the Melian dialogue) for the idea that democracy is not a good in and of itself if the will of the people is to commit genocide.
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