War's End: Profiles from Bosnia, 1995-1996

by Joe Sacco

War cartoonist Joe Sacco visits the Bosnian conflict to uncover the stories that are often ignored or uncovered by traditional media.

How does an artist reconcile being forced to go to the front line of a brutal conflict that will change his life and homeland forever? What happens when a reporter finally comes face-to-face with an evil war criminal? Before his groundbreaking graphic novels Safe Area Gorazde and The Fixer , Palestinian author Joe Sacco created two short stories with characters from each side of the crossfire. Collected for the first time in War's Profiles from Bosnia 1995–1996 are the acclaimed Soba and Christmas with Karadzic . In Soba , Sacco captures the internal torment of the romanticized Sarajevo artist-warrior who captivated the Western media with his guitar and hard-partying ways. In Christmas with Karadzic , Sacco gives the reader an inside peek at the darkly humorous news process that doesn't make the headlines back home as he chases after one of the most hated and sought-after Bosnian Serb leaders and war criminals.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Nonfiction, History, Journalism, War, Politics

80 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2005

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

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Sacco has managed to capture the banality of evil in this raw GN - powerful and thought provoking. You feel as if you are there; witnessing the birth of something horrible. Rarely have I read a GN on war that captures all the nuanced pain that is just under the surface of daily life - highest recommendation.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This functions as a kind of sequel to Sacco's more substantial Safe Area Goradze, which is a detailed account of journalistic interviews with Muslim survivors there. War's End shares two stories that are sort of snapshots of the last year of the war, "Soba" and "Christmas with Karadzic". The former is about an artist and musician and Serbian soldier, Soba, the son of a Serb and Muslim parents. Sacco rents an apt from a Serbian woman in Sarajevo while he tries to get a sense of the scene, and it comes through in a series of images, or tableaux, parties, bars, women. Crazy lurching back to "normal" after genocide.

"Christmas with Karadzic" is an almost comic glimpse of a group of three journalists, including Sacco, who manage to attend church with and interview the war criminal Karadzic. One figures how to sell the tape, make a living from it. All of them owe getting the interview to a young woman who they find attractive and discuss more than the political situation. It sort of humanizes them and shows the very tenuous and compromised and complicated situation for journalists, and Sacco in particular. In both stories there is a stance numbness after all the slaughter, a kind of just "going on" that Sacco captures for himself and Soba and others.

The art is great as always from Sacco. There's images on the cover and throughout, unexplained, of hungry wild dogs that sort of underscores the psychic threat people were still experiencing then.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I plow through Sacco's work, I really appreciated this book, which is a bit shorter than some of his other work and feels more focused. I thought his depiction of Soba was so evocative, and of course his reflections on trying to capture his feelings (or lack thereof) when being in the presence of a war criminal were fascinating.

[Nallasivan V. · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is amazing how much Joe Sacco can communicate about people's experience of war in Bosnia in less than 60 pages.

[Adan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Joe Sacco's journalism is always pretty good; this one was great.

[Grégoire Maillard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cette oeuvre compile deux petites histoires : Noël avec Karadzic et Soba. Elles font suite à une des oeuvres majeures de Joe Sacco, Safe Area Gorazde, dans laquelle l’auteur retrace des évènements de guerre en Bosnie dans la fin des années 90.

Dans un contexte d’après-guerre, « Noël avec Karadzic » est le premier récit dans lequel Sacco suit ses amis journalistes à la recherche de Karadzic, un criminel de guerre Bosniaque.
Une scène assez parlante est celle où les journalistes essayent à tout prix de faire un enregistrement sonore de coup de feu pour leur reportage afin de pouvoir l’envoyer à leur rédaction. Il y a un côté parlant dans lequel le journaliste n’humanise pas réellement ce qui l’entoure (d’autres être humains qui vivent des coups de feu au pied de leur port au quotidien) mais plutôt un voyeurisme dans le malheur. On retrouve des scènes similaire dans l’oeuvre de Sacco dans ses reportages en Cisjordanie, ce qui laisse penser une experience universelle au journalisme de guerre.
Plus tard dans l’histoire, Sacco et sa bande finisse par trouver le criminel de guerre dans une église lors d’une cérémonie Noël. Il finisse par assister à la messe à ses côtés. Et il y a un réel choc de la part de l’auteur, qui se trouve face à un homme calme, tranquille, quiconque, tandis que cette même personne est responsable il n’y pa si longtemps de camps de concentration et de nettoyage éthnique. La banalité du mal en quelques pages.

Dans la seconde oeuvre « Soba », on suit une personnage du même nom qui est à la fois démineur pour l’armée bosniaque et artiste désabusé le reste du temps dans les bars et boites de Sarajevo. Le témoignage assez unique montre d’une certaine manière les dessous de la guerre, entre ce qui ont fui et ceux qui ont fait le choix de rester, ceux qui partent aux fronts et ceux qui ne reviennent jamais. Dans Soba il y a un héro assez tragique, dans le sens où, il n’existe que grâce à Sarajevo. S’il quitte Sarajevo, il n’est plus personne, et si Sarajevo tombe, il sera mort. S’en suit donc un combat pour cette ville qu’il aime et qui l’aime. Les chiens m’ont fait penser aux mêmes chiens décrits dans les oeuvres de Orhan Pamuk.

Dans les deux oeuvres, il est assez amusant de voir le style de l’auteur qui n’a pas encore totalement muri, les traits sont plus grossiers que dans les ouvrages qu’il publiera par la suite, peut être même un peu plus cartoon. Le contraste des couleurs pas toujours très bien maitrisé.

Un chouette bonus à l’oeuvre de Sacco mais qui reste anecdotique.

[Jurij Fedorov · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is no, Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995. That book was telling us about the war and events. About the suffering and genocides. About small battles and survival. Always new people to tell new stories. Maybe 30 people all in all from various towns.

This is a book with 2 stories. One is some overweight punk singer who was a soldier for a short while mainly digging up mines. The other story is a 6 min interview a friend did with Radovan Karadžić. We don't hear anything from the interview and it was worth $1000 when selling to one media channel as an exclusive deal. They see a hot Serb secretary. We only see her ass and legs. And that's a big conversation. They hate the French never explaining why. They hate the Bosnian Serb leadership yet freely interview them. We don't see the woman again and there is not too much to this story overall as the author doesn't even get to do the interview. It's still quite nice. We needed way more info on each person and how the leadership even worked.

The first story is weird. The singer is drawn as a creepy slob just drinking all day. And maybe that's the case? Yet it makes him seem like someone who ate very well during the war. The band is also weird why is half the chapter about his singing? Plenty of people are in bands. His military career is more engaging yet we only get a few panels on that. There is another soldier yet we don't even get his story. We just see him. So overall this lacks focus on info. The first chapter is frankly all over the place. The singer says he likes to sleep around yet we don't see him more than dance. Does he sleep around or just lie about his luck in this area? We never learn. The author is definitely not hooking up. Hence why he wouldn't even know much about what the other guys do either.

It's fine. I was engaged reading it, but it really needed waaaay more deep info about something. The war or reconstruction. We don't get a single story about a single building being fixed. Which frankly is a bit letdown. Take this for what it is a mini comic with 2 stories that make little sense and are historically totally irrelevant.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was sitting incongruously (and problematically!) among the children's picture books at my little local used bookstore. The dogs on the cover reminded me so much of Waltz with Bashir, but this book doesn't hit as hard as that movie did. I'm still happy to have had a chance to read it. Joe Sacco is a cartoonist-journalist famous for his graphic novels covering conflicts from Palestine to the First Nations. This is one of several books he wrote on the war in Bosnia, though this one is really only a couple of short stories, kind of brief character studies set in the grotesque violence in Sarajevo and its aftermath. The two stories cover a lot of what good war journalism does: war as addiction, PTSD, the shock of peace, the long slow-rolling tragedy of accumulating deaths, the banality of evil (this he illustrates by describing his first-hand observation of Radovan Karadzic at Christmas, a man responsible for stoking hate and violence, who seemed, upon meeting him, to just be a normal, boring, polite person). The book did have me thinking about the fantastic movie on the Bosnian war, No Man's Land. So good. I haven't read Sacco's other books, and will look for them, especially on Palestine, but this one does what too many do, centering men's and only men's experiences (including, disproportionately IMO, for two such short stories, men's crude objectification of women). That Sacco moves from war to war had me thinking about the brilliant Martha Gellhorn who reported on wars for half a century, doing everything Sacco did in terms of getting to the heart of war's ugly truths, but so much more, bringing in everyone war affected, old and young, women and men, the helping and the killing, the adrenalin and elation and the horror and terror and terrible grief. Perhaps Sacco's longer books do better at this. Will check them out.

[Francesc Gomez-Morales · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinarily honest. He manages to capture the essence of war through daily details, little adventures and personal battles of anonymous heroes.

[Andrew Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always love Joe Sacco's books. Poignant and insightful without ever being preachy. Beautifully drawn.

[Orbikong · Rating 4 out of 5]

First story was better structured than the second

[drown_like_its_1999 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second spinoff from my favorite Sacco work "Safe Area Gorazde" primarily follows an artist / soldier who is trying to figure out what to do with his life now that the Bosnian war has concluded in addition to wrapping up Sacco's time in the country. Sacco's interview driven work is always a breath of fresh air and this is no exception though I find this less engaging than his other Bosnian war focused work (or his bibliography in general). Still expertly captures a moment in time and also weaves some of Sacco's punk comic sensibilities into his wartime work which was interesting.

[maha · Rating 3 out of 5]

يمتاز جو ساكو بأسلوبه التوثيقي الصحفي "الشخصي"
subjective
في تصويره لأماكن الحروب من وجهات نظر أبطال عاديين لا مثاليين..

يصور حالة البطل الرئيسي البائسة قبل حرب البوسنة، وبعد انتهائها.. وعدم تأقلمه على الحياة الطبيعية بعدها
الصور التي رسمها جو ساكو عن حياتهم مختلفة تماما عن الصور التي رسمتها الخطب التي كنا نسمعها عما يحدث في بوسنة لاخواننا المسلمين.. أخواننا الذين غضبنا من اجلهم وجمعنا التبرعات من أجلهم، كانوا شقرا يرقصون في المراقص ويشربون ويذهبون لجلب البنات. باختصار، كان حالهم يشبه حال أي دولة شرق أوروبية
جعلني هذا أستوعب كم أن قا��ل القصة وواقع المستمعين يلعب دورا كبيرا في تشكيل الصورة في الأذهان

انهيت القراءة سريعا، فأغلب المقاطع كانت كأنهم عالقون في هذه المدينة مع ذكريات الحرب، الأذرع والأجساد التي تمزقت، وتركتها مدينة الزومبيز الذي ما زالوا احياء بعد الحرب،

ولأنها مدينة صغيرة، فهي أشبه ببحيرة صغيرة، يمكن للسمكة أن تصبح كبيرة بها.. بعكس صديقته التي هربت قبل الحرب واصبحت لا شيء (طبيبة) لأنها كانت السمكة الصغيرة في المحيط

النهاية، كانت بذهابهم الى الكنيسة التي يذهب اليها رئيس الصرب
Karadžić
هذا الشخص المطالب لأنه مجرم حرب، حاول البطل أن يشعر نحوه بكره، بغضب، ولكنه لم يشعر بشيء.. وتسائل هل هذا هو المجرم الذي قام بالمذابح ومعسكرات التعذيب والاغتصاب؟ لم يبدو عليه ذلك البتة. كان وجهه هادئ اثناء تعبده في الكنيسة

أدركت وقتها شيئا قرأته من كتاب أيان هيرسي علي، عندما قدمت الى هولندا أول مرة فرأت بين اللاجئين اناس شقرا لا يختلفون شكلا عن الاوروبيين، كانوا يدعونهم "المسلمين".. أدركت حينها أن الدين عند هؤلاء الناس لا يختلف عن العرق، وان الدين في الأخير يصبح مسألة هوية متوارثة، أكثر منها قناعة متقبلة

الحرب كما يقول جون هايت
Jon Haidt
تغير قناعات الناس .. أعرف هذا من صديقتي التي كانت تتغنى بالوسطية الدينية في الغربة، وغيرتها احداث البحرين فأججت عندها سعلة الطائفية الدينية ضد الآخر..

خلاصة القصة هي أنك لا تعود كما كنت بعد الحرب.. ولذا من الجيد أن الأجيال التالية تولد بدون ذاكرة ، لتستطيع الاستمرار

[G · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the past year or two I've become a big fan of graphic memoirs, and had high hopes for this meticulously-drawn two part memoir of the author's time in Bosnia at the end of the war, which I picked up at the Drawn & Quarterly booth at ComicCon. The first part of the book tells the story of the artist Soba, who is in the process of being discharged from the army and is struggling with moving to civilian life and returning to his art and music after horrifying war experiences. The second part describes a Christmastime trip that the author and two fellow journalists undertake to interview Radovan Karadzic.

In short, the author has some fascinating stories to tell and is clearly talented, but the are conveyed with an emotional flatness that makes it a struggle to take much out of the narratives. Yes, perhaps it's intentional, conveying in a way words can't how necessary it is to dull emotions and live in a different reality during wartime, but the bleakness bordered on monotony. A few moments provide glimpses of the absurdity of the Bosnian genocide: we learn offhand that Soba is the child of a Serbian father and a Bosnian Muslim mother, while the author lives with a Serbian family loyal to the Bosnian cause. These occasional offhand remarks are more insightful than the main narrative of the book.

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The more of Joe Sacco's work I read, the more convinced I am that his work is the ultimate expression of the subjective New Journalism movement of the 60's and 70's. There is no possible way to hide the author's hand here Sacco's opinion is felt in every line, in the layout, the lettering. There is no obscuring the presence of the author.

His reportage is deft, sensitive, and detailed. He finds aspects of the Bosnian conflict left out of traditional reporting and highlights the characters on the margins in Soba. Christmas with Karadzic is a story about the practice of journalism. Both are excellent short pieces and worth reading by anyone with even a passing interest in comics or journalism.

[Franco Olcese · Rating 4 out of 5]

As usual, Joe Sacco have done a great work. For sure, it is not his best piece, but I enjoyed a lot. He tells the story of Soba, an artist that participated in the war in Bosnia. Sacco tries to describe Soba's mind trough his stories, and some side friends; and how them was shaped by war, not in a traumatic way, but embracing it (not in a psychopath way). I like the letter Sacco show at the end of the book, to see how Soba saw the war afterwards, when he came back to his artist's life.

Second story was less interesting for me (when they look for Karadzic), but I enjoyed the drawing more than the first one.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A too-short - but still powerful - coda for his time in the Balkans, this thin book takes us through the stories of a few of the people that Sacco met while working in the area as they come to terms with the end of the war. They're all fascinating characters, but with the U.S. involved in two current wars it feels like a chronicle of a strange and distant time. Considering that this book was just published, it would have been nice to include little something about what the characters are up to today.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Trying to remind myself that 3 stars = I LIKED it, nothing more or less. And this would be a 3.5). Read in conjunction with Sacco's other Bosnia works, the two stories in "War's End" are as expressive and disturbing as one would expect. The first story examines Soba, an artist/musician from Sarajevo who removes landmines for four years during the urban war. The second story is shorter, looking at a few journalists trying to get a scoop on Radovan Karadzic's attendance at an Orthodox Christmas service in January 1996, not long after the Dayton Accords.

[Becki Iverson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Anyone who follows my reviews knows that I'm a big Joe Sacco fan, and I was really looking forward to "War's End" to learn more about the Bosnian conflict, about which I know little. I found it disappointing in that respect, however. I'm sure if I do more Sacco research I'll find a book that better explains the conflict, but this really just discusses a couple of persons of interest as they transition from the end of the war to building an uneasy life in peace. It's still a well made book, but just didn't focus on the information I was looking for.

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

As usual, Joe Sacco's work puts a human face onto horrible conflict and tragedy. His unique brand of journalism (that is, graphic journalism) is powerful and insightful. This book is a relatively short work containing Joe's stories of meeting two particular real-life characters whose stories illustrate parts of the conflict in Bosnia. Unlike Safe Area Gorazde, it does not contain interludes of illustrated history lessons that place the stories into the larger historical/geopolitical context. For that reason, I think of it as sort of an addendum to Safe Area Gorazde.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this over the course of a short flight. I liked it alot-- I thought his renderings of the landscapes and people of Bosnia/Yugoslavia were really sincere-feeling, if that makes sense-- it had a real authenticity to it. I would've liked more explanation of the historical context at the beginning of this book-- that happens kinda towards the middle.
I look forward to reading Sacco's book Palestine, which is the work he is most well-known for.

[Rachel D · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is more or less a sequel to "Safe Area Gorazde". Both this and "Gorazde" have been called examples of "New Journalism", whatever that is. It's not an easy read because of the subject matter - the Bosnian war - but it's a must-read if you want to understand what happened during that time. "Christmas with Karadzic" is not to be missed!
Bosnom behar probeharao...

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started with "Gorazde" to get a fuller history or the Bosnian War, moved on to "The Fixer", and finished the trilogy with this. It may just be the order I chose, but it seems like each book got more personal, the characters more compelling. The profile of the artist forced to fight in the war here in "War's End" positively is haunting.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two short stories based on Sacco's time in Bosnia. The first is a profile of an artist from Sarajevo who spent the war disarming Serbian land mines. The second is a story of 3 journalists' quest for an interview with Karadzic. Sacco recently said that his goal is to show the truth, warts and all. He does that in these two stories. There are a lot of warts.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another amazing book from Joe Sacco, and just in time for the Interpol capture of Karadzic. If you don't know the first thing about the recent Balkan Wars, or even if you're an expert, read this book. Also be sure to check in the back for the URL to Shoba's personal website.

[mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strongly drawn, grim, yet sometimes funny, novellas from the point of view of participants in the Bosnian War.

[Call Me Ishmael · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the style of “Persepolis”.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is composed of two short pieces from Sacco’s time in Bosnia, about a Sarajevan war hero, and attempts to meet with the leader of Bosnian Serb forces during the fighting in Bosnia.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Admittedly, this genre isn't my preferred interest when it comes to graphic novels, but it was an informative story and the artwork reminded me of those old underground "zines"

[René · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soba