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The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo
In his remarkable new book Joe Sacco returns to Bosnia, the setting for his first masterpiece, Safe Area Gorazde. In 2001 he went back to Sarajevo to meet up with his old 'fixer', an army veteran called Neven who, for the right price, could arrange anything for the visiting journalist. Sacco gradually realized that Neven's own story - a microcosm of the Balkan conflict itself - might be the most compelling of all. Through Neven, Sacco tells the story of the warlords and gangsters who ran the country during the war, but all the time he - and the reader - never know whether Neven is telling the truth.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
29 people are currently reading
3239 people want to read
About the author
Joe Sacco
69 books1,593 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 197 reviews
November 5, 2015
“In Sarajevo the pieces are back in place too. Never mind there’s no work or money…”
the shops are open… the trams are running… the café’s are housing the idle & spewing a relentless Eurobeat…
And with every few steps one relentless Eurobeat drowns out another, but all the relentless Eurobeats cannot drown out the silence, which is the most relentless thing of all…
When Joe Sacco - the journalist & cartoonist who is regarded as the creator of the ‘War Correspondence Comics’ genre – visited a post-war Sarajevo in 2001, the city was going through the motions of recovery after a brutal armed conflict. Joe was back in Sarajevo for continuing his research about the Bosnian war and the first thing he observes is the ‘shroud of silence’ that permeated every inch of a city that was cruelly violated; a silence, which was ever present, even among the harshest sounds of blaring music and chatter emanating from the survivors of the city.
In ‘The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo’, published in 2003, Joe Sacco, takes war correspondence and investigative journalism to an entirely new level, as he provides some glaring insights in to the history of Bosnian war through his splendid artwork and narrative. To make the experience more personal for the reader, Joe introduces ‘Neven’, a Sarajevan survivor of the war – who, like every other war victim or war survivor is a shell of the old self and who has lost everything that meant anything in life - and through this man’s accounts of death, destruction and the varying shades of the act of war that he has seen or participated in, presents the reader with a concise picture of the days leading to and after the armed conflict. Joe made acquaintance of ‘Neven’, who was known as ‘The Fixer’ in the streets, at the lobby of the Holiday Inn hotel during his first visit to Bosnia in 1995 during the time of ‘the great siege of Sarajevo’ - the longest siege of a city in the history of modern warfare, which lasted 1,425 days long in a period during 1992 to 1996.
‘Neven’ – a former paramilitary operative with connections and influence in the streets of Sarajevo - was often hired by news crews and reporters from global media as a guide in traveling across dangerous wartime areas in Bosnia, and Joe finds in him his first real friend in Sarajevo. In 2001, when Joe Sacco returns to Sarajevo, he finds it difficult to find sources who will open up to him to assist in his research, and we find him longing for ‘Neven’, who was not to be found anywhere. As Joe is searching for ‘Neven’ in Sarajevo, the reader is taken through a maze of cross connecting timelines, which jump between the past and present to illustrate three main sets of events related to the Bosnian war – the events that led to the war, the brutal days of the war and the aftermath of the war; thus building a concise history of an atrocious military conflict from the Twentieth Century.
Bosnian War through the eyes of ‘The Fixer’
’Neven’ a.k.a ‘The Fixer’
With an estimated figure of around 100,000 people getting killed, around 50,000 women getting raped and over two million people getting displaced, the Bosnian war is one of the most devastating conflicts that Europe has witnessed after WWII. And through ‘Neven’, Joe brings the enormity of this conflict to the reader.
From their first meeting in 1995, ‘Neven’ – who was in the ‘Yugoslav People’s Army’ or ‘Jugoslavenska Narodna Armija (JNA) ’ during the early 80s as a sniper and who was part of the paramilitary units during the early years of the Bosnian war - takes Joe under his wings and through their travels around locations in Sarajevo and through his reminiscences, we learn more about the war and ‘Neven’ as a person. Through his descriptions we see the dark clouds of an imminent war assembling over the skies of Bosnia during 1991 as Yugoslavia was slipping towards disintegration and the neighboring Croatia was in the midst of a merciless ethnic war with shocking reports of genocide and mass rapes.
During that time, Bosnia, which was the most ethnically mixed republic seemed comparatively peaceful to the outside but trouble was already brewing in the inner houses of ethno-political groups. Both the ‘Party of Democratic Action’ - Stranka demokratske akcije or SDA, which was founded as a "party of Muslim cultural-historic circle" – and the ‘Serb Democratic Party’ - Srpska Demokratska Stranka or SDS, which was formed with the aim of unifying the Bosnian Serb community and forming Serb Autonomous Regions - were forming their own paramilitary groups and the stage was getting set for a head-on collision between these major groups.
Neven who was born to a Muslim mother & a Serb father chose to join the ‘Green Berets’ militia of the SDA and fought under ‘Ismet "Ćelo" Bajramović’, a cult military figure from the days of the ‘siege of Sarajevo’. These paramilitary units were a strange combination as they were mostly comprised of adventure seekers and people with criminal background, but as they were necessary for the defense purposes the Bosnian government had no choice. Since the territorial defenses of Bosnia were in shambles, when the war began in 1992 with the rebel Serbs and when Sarajevo was under attack, armed ordinary citizens, police forces and the paramilitary Green Berets like ‘Neven’ played key roles in the defense of the city.
The descriptions of the death raining in the form of artillery shells and sniper fire from high positions held by the Serbian rebels on the inhabitants of Sarajevo and the blood chilling narratives of the days of the siege and the dark chapters of history like the looting, slaughter, racketeering, black marketing and ethnic cleansing that start as a ‘war within the war’ are all rendered by Joe through brilliant artwork and text.
Why ‘The Fixer’ shines as a Graphic non-fiction
The artwork by Joe Sacco with the crisp monochrome strokes and gray shades are quiet fascinating to watch and he packs quiet a lot of detail and emotion into each panel. The level of detailing that is put into the architectural drawings, landscapes, people and their expression are all the products of a skilled illustrator. The way in which he infuses the scars of war into these panels through the renderings of physical destruction and capturing the psychological wounds and dejection within the characters is applaudable.
In one panoramic comic frame, Joe presents the cityscape featuring the Holiday Inn hotel with dark looming storm clouds in the backdrop; a rendering, which captures the wartime atmosphere with the imminent threat of violence in a clever manner. The Scars left by the war is observable in every panel he draws from the post-war timeframe.
One of the most shocking moments from the book was a single small panel illustrating a small group of soldiers in a landscape walking away from the reader’s point of view leaving behind them a victim of one of the most brutal acts of this war. The illustrator shows only a pair of legs with in the illustration peeking out from a corner of the comic frame, but the implications are instantly recognizable for anyone who is familiar with the ethno-religious warfare, which happened in Bosnia. It was a war, which saw a systematic implementation of ‘mass rapes’ or ‘genocidal rapes’ as an instrument of war. It is estimated that about fifty thousand women and girls had to go through these barbaric acts. Even after watching scores of documentaries dealing with this subject, this small frame from Sacco’s book evoked such a shock within me. No amount of words could have shocked the reader into senses in recognizing the psychological and physical trauma that these survivors and victims had to go through, as Joe has done through a few strokes of his pencil.
Through the character of ‘Neven’ and this narrative - which essentially is his story as well as the story of every one who was caught up in the cruel crushing wheels of the war machine - Joe Sacco brings some emotionally exhausting yet solid images of a post-war Bosnia in great detail. ‘The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo’ is a brilliant example of wartime journalism and is a brutally honest book, which I will recommend for reader’s who like history. This is graphic non-fiction at its best.
the shops are open… the trams are running… the café’s are housing the idle & spewing a relentless Eurobeat…
And with every few steps one relentless Eurobeat drowns out another, but all the relentless Eurobeats cannot drown out the silence, which is the most relentless thing of all…
When Joe Sacco - the journalist & cartoonist who is regarded as the creator of the ‘War Correspondence Comics’ genre – visited a post-war Sarajevo in 2001, the city was going through the motions of recovery after a brutal armed conflict. Joe was back in Sarajevo for continuing his research about the Bosnian war and the first thing he observes is the ‘shroud of silence’ that permeated every inch of a city that was cruelly violated; a silence, which was ever present, even among the harshest sounds of blaring music and chatter emanating from the survivors of the city.
In ‘The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo’, published in 2003, Joe Sacco, takes war correspondence and investigative journalism to an entirely new level, as he provides some glaring insights in to the history of Bosnian war through his splendid artwork and narrative. To make the experience more personal for the reader, Joe introduces ‘Neven’, a Sarajevan survivor of the war – who, like every other war victim or war survivor is a shell of the old self and who has lost everything that meant anything in life - and through this man’s accounts of death, destruction and the varying shades of the act of war that he has seen or participated in, presents the reader with a concise picture of the days leading to and after the armed conflict. Joe made acquaintance of ‘Neven’, who was known as ‘The Fixer’ in the streets, at the lobby of the Holiday Inn hotel during his first visit to Bosnia in 1995 during the time of ‘the great siege of Sarajevo’ - the longest siege of a city in the history of modern warfare, which lasted 1,425 days long in a period during 1992 to 1996.
‘Neven’ – a former paramilitary operative with connections and influence in the streets of Sarajevo - was often hired by news crews and reporters from global media as a guide in traveling across dangerous wartime areas in Bosnia, and Joe finds in him his first real friend in Sarajevo. In 2001, when Joe Sacco returns to Sarajevo, he finds it difficult to find sources who will open up to him to assist in his research, and we find him longing for ‘Neven’, who was not to be found anywhere. As Joe is searching for ‘Neven’ in Sarajevo, the reader is taken through a maze of cross connecting timelines, which jump between the past and present to illustrate three main sets of events related to the Bosnian war – the events that led to the war, the brutal days of the war and the aftermath of the war; thus building a concise history of an atrocious military conflict from the Twentieth Century.
Bosnian War through the eyes of ‘The Fixer’
“Do you know what is the only animal that kills for pleasure?
That creature is called Homo sapiens”
’Neven’ a.k.a ‘The Fixer’
With an estimated figure of around 100,000 people getting killed, around 50,000 women getting raped and over two million people getting displaced, the Bosnian war is one of the most devastating conflicts that Europe has witnessed after WWII. And through ‘Neven’, Joe brings the enormity of this conflict to the reader.
From their first meeting in 1995, ‘Neven’ – who was in the ‘Yugoslav People’s Army’ or ‘Jugoslavenska Narodna Armija (JNA) ’ during the early 80s as a sniper and who was part of the paramilitary units during the early years of the Bosnian war - takes Joe under his wings and through their travels around locations in Sarajevo and through his reminiscences, we learn more about the war and ‘Neven’ as a person. Through his descriptions we see the dark clouds of an imminent war assembling over the skies of Bosnia during 1991 as Yugoslavia was slipping towards disintegration and the neighboring Croatia was in the midst of a merciless ethnic war with shocking reports of genocide and mass rapes.
During that time, Bosnia, which was the most ethnically mixed republic seemed comparatively peaceful to the outside but trouble was already brewing in the inner houses of ethno-political groups. Both the ‘Party of Democratic Action’ - Stranka demokratske akcije or SDA, which was founded as a "party of Muslim cultural-historic circle" – and the ‘Serb Democratic Party’ - Srpska Demokratska Stranka or SDS, which was formed with the aim of unifying the Bosnian Serb community and forming Serb Autonomous Regions - were forming their own paramilitary groups and the stage was getting set for a head-on collision between these major groups.
“I am a nationalist in the sense that I love my nation. But I don’t hate anybody else.”
Neven who was born to a Muslim mother & a Serb father chose to join the ‘Green Berets’ militia of the SDA and fought under ‘Ismet "Ćelo" Bajramović’, a cult military figure from the days of the ‘siege of Sarajevo’. These paramilitary units were a strange combination as they were mostly comprised of adventure seekers and people with criminal background, but as they were necessary for the defense purposes the Bosnian government had no choice. Since the territorial defenses of Bosnia were in shambles, when the war began in 1992 with the rebel Serbs and when Sarajevo was under attack, armed ordinary citizens, police forces and the paramilitary Green Berets like ‘Neven’ played key roles in the defense of the city.
The descriptions of the death raining in the form of artillery shells and sniper fire from high positions held by the Serbian rebels on the inhabitants of Sarajevo and the blood chilling narratives of the days of the siege and the dark chapters of history like the looting, slaughter, racketeering, black marketing and ethnic cleansing that start as a ‘war within the war’ are all rendered by Joe through brilliant artwork and text.
Why ‘The Fixer’ shines as a Graphic non-fiction
The artwork by Joe Sacco with the crisp monochrome strokes and gray shades are quiet fascinating to watch and he packs quiet a lot of detail and emotion into each panel. The level of detailing that is put into the architectural drawings, landscapes, people and their expression are all the products of a skilled illustrator. The way in which he infuses the scars of war into these panels through the renderings of physical destruction and capturing the psychological wounds and dejection within the characters is applaudable.
In one panoramic comic frame, Joe presents the cityscape featuring the Holiday Inn hotel with dark looming storm clouds in the backdrop; a rendering, which captures the wartime atmosphere with the imminent threat of violence in a clever manner. The Scars left by the war is observable in every panel he draws from the post-war timeframe.
One of the most shocking moments from the book was a single small panel illustrating a small group of soldiers in a landscape walking away from the reader’s point of view leaving behind them a victim of one of the most brutal acts of this war. The illustrator shows only a pair of legs with in the illustration peeking out from a corner of the comic frame, but the implications are instantly recognizable for anyone who is familiar with the ethno-religious warfare, which happened in Bosnia. It was a war, which saw a systematic implementation of ‘mass rapes’ or ‘genocidal rapes’ as an instrument of war. It is estimated that about fifty thousand women and girls had to go through these barbaric acts. Even after watching scores of documentaries dealing with this subject, this small frame from Sacco’s book evoked such a shock within me. No amount of words could have shocked the reader into senses in recognizing the psychological and physical trauma that these survivors and victims had to go through, as Joe has done through a few strokes of his pencil.
Through the character of ‘Neven’ and this narrative - which essentially is his story as well as the story of every one who was caught up in the cruel crushing wheels of the war machine - Joe Sacco brings some emotionally exhausting yet solid images of a post-war Bosnia in great detail. ‘The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo’ is a brilliant example of wartime journalism and is a brutally honest book, which I will recommend for reader’s who like history. This is graphic non-fiction at its best.
August 31, 2021
An interesting inside story about crime and war in Sarajevo 92-96. A quick, interesting read that does a very good job of capturing the common personality I've come across too many times in Sarajevo. My first Sacco and it was great!
April 5, 2018
The ending was not fulfilling - rather it was abrupt. I appreciate Joe Sacco's eccentric writing style. His work is sharp, clear-cut & straight forward as always. His raw black & white sketches with intrinsic details reflect the war-time mood so well. However, this piece of work is not anywhere near his "Palestine". Palestine's contents were far better, refined & Joe himself was very different in that piece of work.
In this book Joe takes us to the Bosnian war (1992-95) through the eye of a fixer. The fixers were in fact warfighters (truly speaking, they were some sort of war criminals too) who took break from fighting due to injury & earned their living by guiding foreign journalists to the war front. Joe's fixer used to be a sniper and a man of a powerful paramilitary group.
Before the war, Sarajevo, a city of Bosnia, used to be very tolerant of its multi-ethnic community consisting of Serbs, Muslims & Croats. During the war of 1992, many autonomous war lords from various factions rose to power with their own army (2000~4500 people in these army groups) & supporters. The government assimilated these autonomous paramilitary groups with its own army to conduct the war. However, when these warlords crossed their limits, got frequently involved in various war crimes & went beyond the control of the army, the government systematically eliminated them.
In this book Joe shows us the war from the fixer's point of view. It has the taste of fictional novels with a criminal protagonist. So, I feel the facts of the war were not as frank & thorough as they were in his work Palestine. However, the cool & hip tone of the book will keep you engaged in the story.
In this book Joe takes us to the Bosnian war (1992-95) through the eye of a fixer. The fixers were in fact warfighters (truly speaking, they were some sort of war criminals too) who took break from fighting due to injury & earned their living by guiding foreign journalists to the war front. Joe's fixer used to be a sniper and a man of a powerful paramilitary group.
Before the war, Sarajevo, a city of Bosnia, used to be very tolerant of its multi-ethnic community consisting of Serbs, Muslims & Croats. During the war of 1992, many autonomous war lords from various factions rose to power with their own army (2000~4500 people in these army groups) & supporters. The government assimilated these autonomous paramilitary groups with its own army to conduct the war. However, when these warlords crossed their limits, got frequently involved in various war crimes & went beyond the control of the army, the government systematically eliminated them.
In this book Joe shows us the war from the fixer's point of view. It has the taste of fictional novels with a criminal protagonist. So, I feel the facts of the war were not as frank & thorough as they were in his work Palestine. However, the cool & hip tone of the book will keep you engaged in the story.
April 10, 2019
Man muss sich schon sehr gut mit der (Kriegs-)Geschichte von Sarajevo (aber auch Bosnien) auskennen, um die Lektüre zu verstehen. Joe Sacco zeichnet intensiv und eindringlich, aber leider auch wieder nur aus einer rein männlichen Perspektive. Auf einer Seite sieht man immerhin am unteren Bildrand die beiden Füße einer offensichtlich auf dem Bauch liegenden (toten?) Frau, deren Unterhose um die Knöchel gewickelt sind. Das ist das sehr ärgerliche an solchen Kriegsaufzeichnungen. Man nimmt immer nur die Soldaten und Kämpfer und Wiederständler etc. wahr, aber niemals die Frauen, die in jedem Krieg aufgerieben werden - und das dann auch noch als Schande gilt - die, die verschont werden, alle anderen mitversorgen und danach noch das Land wieder aufbauen. Wo gibt es eigentlich Mahnmale und Denkmäler für diese Frauen? Neben den Mahnmalen und Denkmälern von gefallenen Soldaten? Wohl kaum.
March 5, 2020
Joe Sacco extracts the most delicate (and entertaining!) info from a war zone.
Being used to Sacco's art form and narration, picked this as a comfort read.... but this small book got dragged across several months for the lack of intent. The incidents felt repetitive in nature.
The most interesting part was - highly unreliable narrator!
Which added to the fun factor, but heavily inflicted on facts.
Overall didn't enjoy it as much as his other books.
Being used to Sacco's art form and narration, picked this as a comfort read.... but this small book got dragged across several months for the lack of intent. The incidents felt repetitive in nature.
The most interesting part was - highly unreliable narrator!
Which added to the fun factor, but heavily inflicted on facts.
Overall didn't enjoy it as much as his other books.
April 15, 2015
Joe Sacco is an enigma. He is unarguably a journalist, and a great one at that. Traveling to war zones and areas of turmoil to interview people and let them unspool their stories at a slow and even pace. But Sacco doesn't record them with a video camera or even photos he makes photo realistic pictures with just a twinge of Art Spiegelman's Raw in them, creating a sort of twisted reality that fits the usually horrific content of these people's stories.
And Fixer focuses only on a very small group of people and their relation to the Bosnian Crisis of the 90s. The titular character is a washed up soldier who shuttles journalists around for petty cahs and boasts of his time on the front. How much of it is true and how much bullshit to coax extra tips out of an uncomfortable journalist is a source of debate throughout the book, but Sacco treats them with respect and never looks down at his character. If the Fixer is flawed, he is a flawed person who lived through a horrible years-long conflict and that's still a person that Sacco is interested in, and you will be too by the end.
The other stories are just as gripping, with a rock musician, mine-clearer and a trip across the Balkans with some horny CBS Radio journalists on Christmas. If you've already read his fantastic 'Safe-Area Gorazde' then 'The Fixer' is the perfect way to learn more about an area of Europe that was changed forever in three short years.
And Fixer focuses only on a very small group of people and their relation to the Bosnian Crisis of the 90s. The titular character is a washed up soldier who shuttles journalists around for petty cahs and boasts of his time on the front. How much of it is true and how much bullshit to coax extra tips out of an uncomfortable journalist is a source of debate throughout the book, but Sacco treats them with respect and never looks down at his character. If the Fixer is flawed, he is a flawed person who lived through a horrible years-long conflict and that's still a person that Sacco is interested in, and you will be too by the end.
The other stories are just as gripping, with a rock musician, mine-clearer and a trip across the Balkans with some horny CBS Radio journalists on Christmas. If you've already read his fantastic 'Safe-Area Gorazde' then 'The Fixer' is the perfect way to learn more about an area of Europe that was changed forever in three short years.
June 26, 2008
This is the story of Nevin, a former soldier who fought for one of the warlords active in Sarajevo in the 90's. The story bounces back between Nevin's war years, and what his life is like after the war. Killing, boozing, shooting pool and dying are pretty much par for the course. This story is much more personal than Sacco's work in "Palestine" but still manages to convey much of the social and political situation of the times.
February 3, 2009
Wow the drawings in this book are amazing. So many tiny tiny lines.
February 27, 2021
Another good piece of journalism in comics form from Sacco. This one benefits a lot from its focus on one individual. It gives it more of a proper plot.
May 3, 2022
2.5 stars
December 18, 2022
Gruesome, confusing, horrifying. Yet it is hard to put dow. Sacco is amazing. Excellent text and illustrations. It leaves the reader with many questions as we see a “behind the scenes’ version of the Bosnian War.
I just read a brief bio about Sacco. He went to HS one town away from my town, and we both went to the same university although a decade apart. I love the local connection as it reminds us that the wrier/ artist is a real person! ‘Nuf said.
I just read a brief bio about Sacco. He went to HS one town away from my town, and we both went to the same university although a decade apart. I love the local connection as it reminds us that the wrier/ artist is a real person! ‘Nuf said.
October 23, 2019
A real story with dirty people among houses and tragedy of the '90 war
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October 9, 2021Read for the "Read the World" Challenge for: Bosnia and Herzegovina 🇧🇦
I hate to quantify other people's lives into star ratings. Regardless of the veracity of the memories shared in this comic, this is more or less about real life, so I'm choosing not to rate it. Just for my own personal feelings.
I have a lot of thoughts about this comic, but I'm not quite sure I'm qualified to speak any of them. I know incredibly little about the war portrayed in this story. I was born in 1996, so I never saw any of it on the news for myself, and even though I took honors and AP level history courses in high school, we always ran out of time in the semester around WWII - I barely even covered the Cold War in my classrooms, let alone this - so I'm afraid my ignorance affects my final judgements.
Regardless of the narrative contents, I really enjoyed the artwork. While not necessarily my preferred aesthetic, I would describe it as interesting but without the negative connotations of that description. It was dynamic, with great use of the frame, and it really leaned into the black and white, with fantastic shadow play.
I hate to quantify other people's lives into star ratings. Regardless of the veracity of the memories shared in this comic, this is more or less about real life, so I'm choosing not to rate it. Just for my own personal feelings.
I have a lot of thoughts about this comic, but I'm not quite sure I'm qualified to speak any of them. I know incredibly little about the war portrayed in this story. I was born in 1996, so I never saw any of it on the news for myself, and even though I took honors and AP level history courses in high school, we always ran out of time in the semester around WWII - I barely even covered the Cold War in my classrooms, let alone this - so I'm afraid my ignorance affects my final judgements.
Regardless of the narrative contents, I really enjoyed the artwork. While not necessarily my preferred aesthetic, I would describe it as interesting but without the negative connotations of that description. It was dynamic, with great use of the frame, and it really leaned into the black and white, with fantastic shadow play.
January 12, 2019
Trvalo mi asi mesiac, kým som tento komiks kúpil. Chodil som do galérie, vymýšľal, zima bola, nechcelo sa mi ísť, no nakoniec vošiel do mojej tašky. Prečo som ho tak dlho kupoval? Nebol som si istý, či ho už nemám. A mám. Ale to som zistil až neskôr, či mi to vadí? Troška áno, ale zas, kniha je kniha. Pustil som sa do nej.
V sobotu ráno som ju hneď schmatol a zavŕtal som do nej svoje okále. Sacca mám rád, čítal som všetko, čo som našiel: Gorazde, Palestína,... Všetky boli top. Milujem tento žáner novinárskeho komiksu. Sacca poznám zo Slovínska. Vždy som si ho kupoval po výplate, v Ljubljani. Chodil som do špeci kníhkupectva na Židovskej steze, doteraz si to živo pamätám. To kníhkupectvo mi ukázalo Sacca a ja som ho hltal ako pivá. (Dokonca mi ho raz i mama dala na vianoce!)
Dielko je všakovaké, taký bordelík. Čítal a pozeral som si to detailne a s vervou, no nebolo to ono, stále mi tam niečo nesedelo, akoby to bol taký zliepanec, že musíš niečo spraviť a spravíš to, no na základe blata. Kreslené a komponované to bolo fajn, veď Sacco. Dej a hĺbka boli rozporuplné. Na konci diela mi to celé pripadalo ako irónia na Bosniansku vojnu, na jej idiotskosť, na pomätenie rozumu a reality.
Asi to má hĺbku, ale mňa štípala a smrdela mi. Bola tam a keď nad tým tak rozmýšľaj, aj ju chápem a viem čítať, no emócie a intuícia mi hovoria: blé!
A teraz daj niekomu tú knihu - keď ju mám. V každom prípade som milerád, že je časťou našej knižnice.
V sobotu ráno som ju hneď schmatol a zavŕtal som do nej svoje okále. Sacca mám rád, čítal som všetko, čo som našiel: Gorazde, Palestína,... Všetky boli top. Milujem tento žáner novinárskeho komiksu. Sacca poznám zo Slovínska. Vždy som si ho kupoval po výplate, v Ljubljani. Chodil som do špeci kníhkupectva na Židovskej steze, doteraz si to živo pamätám. To kníhkupectvo mi ukázalo Sacca a ja som ho hltal ako pivá. (Dokonca mi ho raz i mama dala na vianoce!)
Dielko je všakovaké, taký bordelík. Čítal a pozeral som si to detailne a s vervou, no nebolo to ono, stále mi tam niečo nesedelo, akoby to bol taký zliepanec, že musíš niečo spraviť a spravíš to, no na základe blata. Kreslené a komponované to bolo fajn, veď Sacco. Dej a hĺbka boli rozporuplné. Na konci diela mi to celé pripadalo ako irónia na Bosniansku vojnu, na jej idiotskosť, na pomätenie rozumu a reality.
Asi to má hĺbku, ale mňa štípala a smrdela mi. Bola tam a keď nad tým tak rozmýšľaj, aj ju chápem a viem čítať, no emócie a intuícia mi hovoria: blé!
A teraz daj niekomu tú knihu - keď ju mám. V každom prípade som milerád, že je časťou našej knižnice.
February 9, 2015
This is a graphic novel, except that it is hard-covered, large-sized, and more jounalism than novel. The story is framed by a journalist/author who travels to Sarajevo in 2001. He remembers his earlier connection with the shadowy Neven - a fixer, who arranged contacts for the journalist during the final year of the Bosnian War in 1995. Neven, in turn, recalls his own stories of being a Serbian Sarajevan in an irregular Bosnian militia, fighting the Četniks. It is a fascinating look into the warlords and events that crept into the social vacuum that was created during the siege of Sarajevo, through the eyes of an unreliable source. The sense of duplicity and purposelessness of it all seems very realistic.
One thing I found frustrating about the book was the misspelling of many people and place names. The same thing happens commonly in English-language typesetting where č, š, ž, and ć are not available. Unfortunately, changing them to c, s, z, and c is not just the removal of "accent marks", but an actual change in spelling and pronunciation. Since this book is hand-lettered, I don't see any good excuse for it.
One thing I found frustrating about the book was the misspelling of many people and place names. The same thing happens commonly in English-language typesetting where č, š, ž, and ć are not available. Unfortunately, changing them to c, s, z, and c is not just the removal of "accent marks", but an actual change in spelling and pronunciation. Since this book is hand-lettered, I don't see any good excuse for it.
April 2, 2007
A fixer, in the parlance of the international press, is a local who "fixes" visiting journos with access. He provides them with translation and access - sometimes directly to the front lines of battle. In this case, however, what he fixes Joe Sacco with is his own sad story, and story of the shattered lives of some other figures in the Balkan war. As is customary, he weaves multiple stories into the major story line of the book, but in this case he jumps back and forth continuously, making it tough to follow.
Despite this, and the difficulty that this native English speaker has with keeping the various Balkan names straight, the power of the tale is impossible to deny.
Despite this, and the difficulty that this native English speaker has with keeping the various Balkan names straight, the power of the tale is impossible to deny.
December 9, 2020
Such a nice book that took me deep down Sarajevo and the conflicts, murders and blood that have been spilled there all seen from the eyes of Neven, Joe Sacco just as his amazing prier works did a very good job in reporting the state in which this city has been, I definitely recommand his work for people who want to dive in the history of conflicts around the world.
June 20, 2020
Its about a war
which was fought for
the city of Sarajevo.
The protagonist
shrouded in mist
is a Serb named Neven.
The drawings: sharp
and the story-line: stark
in this graphic novel.
No wonder the author
is well-known for other
comics that he wrote.
which was fought for
the city of Sarajevo.
The protagonist
shrouded in mist
is a Serb named Neven.
The drawings: sharp
and the story-line: stark
in this graphic novel.
No wonder the author
is well-known for other
comics that he wrote.
October 14, 2008
Joe Sacco playing at par. His method of presenting international events through individual perspectives is brilliant.
December 10, 2008
Realistically drawn and truthfully told. I didn't think there could be a journalistic graphic novel until I read this, but the reporting is way better than some of the shit I've read in the Globe.
July 31, 2011
I ordered Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde immediately after finishing this book.
November 22, 2018
3.5 stars
November 17, 2019
The Fixer is about Neven, a fixer from Sarajevo. Joe Sacco met him in his first trip to Sarajevo during the seige in the 90's. While the story is about Neven, it describes the situation in Sarajevo during the war.
So far, I had only heard of Sarajevo in the song "Bosnia" by the Cranberries, and I remember hearing about Bosnian war in the news when I was a child. I only knew that there was a war in Bosnia, why was it fought, who fought it and who won, were things that I never got to, or cared to learn, because these were events in a country far away. And unlike the Middle Eastern conflict, European conflicts of the 90's were short-lived in global news.
And so, this novel answered all my questions (a quick Wikipedia reference of Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Sarajevo also helped!). The story jumps to and fro, it starts with the present when Sacco revisits Sarajevo in the 2000's and goes back in the 90's to when he first met Neven, to further back about Neven's alleged exploits in the war.
While Neven's own stories and claims are depicted to be doubtful because of his reputation, the major incidents, the 3 main paramilitary leaders who played key roles in the war, are accurate and help the reader get an idea of the situation in Sarajevo during the war. There are no right sides. Neven is a Serb who joins forces to fight the Serbs. He claims he's killed many people as a sniper. Others tell Sacco that Neven is bluffing. That many personal combats of his never even happened. Neven narrates "the true story" behind many major incidents which neither Sacco nor we have any way of cross-checking. By the end of the war, Neven as well as the 3 key leaders receive mixed responses. While "the war left behind Neven, instead of the other way around", the other 3 leaders meet different treatments from the government, some good, some bad.
Just like we are confused about the truth in Neven's stories, he and everyone who fought in the war are left confused about the purpose of the war: Who won? Who lost? Was it fair? Where do their loyalties eventually lie? Even the final death count is unclear. The only thing that is an obvious fact is that Sarajevo burned, it's citizens were trapped in their own city, evicted from their homes or killed inside.
The story is not very clear and concise. It runs as a narration by Sacco about what Neven told him. Maybe it is deliberate, to tell things straight from the horse's mouth and hence preserve the confusion in the mind of a fighter.
I also loved the visuals in this novel. Sacco's work is beautiful, it's dark and intricate. It clearly depicts the bloodshed, the filth, the cruelty, terror, pain and other emotions in people's faces. The 2 full pages showing Sacco entering Sarajevo during the war, against a backdrop of burning skyscrapers and an overcast sky (by clouds or smoke?) was the visual highlight of this book.
To summarize, I appreciate books like these which bring stories from underrepresented global events.
So far, I had only heard of Sarajevo in the song "Bosnia" by the Cranberries, and I remember hearing about Bosnian war in the news when I was a child. I only knew that there was a war in Bosnia, why was it fought, who fought it and who won, were things that I never got to, or cared to learn, because these were events in a country far away. And unlike the Middle Eastern conflict, European conflicts of the 90's were short-lived in global news.
And so, this novel answered all my questions (a quick Wikipedia reference of Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Sarajevo also helped!). The story jumps to and fro, it starts with the present when Sacco revisits Sarajevo in the 2000's and goes back in the 90's to when he first met Neven, to further back about Neven's alleged exploits in the war.
While Neven's own stories and claims are depicted to be doubtful because of his reputation, the major incidents, the 3 main paramilitary leaders who played key roles in the war, are accurate and help the reader get an idea of the situation in Sarajevo during the war. There are no right sides. Neven is a Serb who joins forces to fight the Serbs. He claims he's killed many people as a sniper. Others tell Sacco that Neven is bluffing. That many personal combats of his never even happened. Neven narrates "the true story" behind many major incidents which neither Sacco nor we have any way of cross-checking. By the end of the war, Neven as well as the 3 key leaders receive mixed responses. While "the war left behind Neven, instead of the other way around", the other 3 leaders meet different treatments from the government, some good, some bad.
Just like we are confused about the truth in Neven's stories, he and everyone who fought in the war are left confused about the purpose of the war: Who won? Who lost? Was it fair? Where do their loyalties eventually lie? Even the final death count is unclear. The only thing that is an obvious fact is that Sarajevo burned, it's citizens were trapped in their own city, evicted from their homes or killed inside.
The story is not very clear and concise. It runs as a narration by Sacco about what Neven told him. Maybe it is deliberate, to tell things straight from the horse's mouth and hence preserve the confusion in the mind of a fighter.
I also loved the visuals in this novel. Sacco's work is beautiful, it's dark and intricate. It clearly depicts the bloodshed, the filth, the cruelty, terror, pain and other emotions in people's faces. The 2 full pages showing Sacco entering Sarajevo during the war, against a backdrop of burning skyscrapers and an overcast sky (by clouds or smoke?) was the visual highlight of this book.
To summarize, I appreciate books like these which bring stories from underrepresented global events.
November 23, 2020
min første Joe Sacco tegneserie. Joe sacco forteller og tegner fra eget liv om flere perioder hvor han tilbrakte tid i Sarajevo under, rett etter og etter Bosniakrigen (1992-95). Elsker utblødningene av rutene på sidene, måten han skaper romfølelse og bevegelse på gjennom sidearkitektur. Dette i seg selv er verdt full pott, men jeg synes tegneserien også lider av noen åpenbare svakheter, alle i bokens styrke og drivkraft: Hovedkarakteren Neven "the fixer". Det er gjennom hans historier fra bosniakrigen krigen både får et ansikt og blir levende, historiene blandes med historiske og journalistiske fakta og blir dermed til "objektive" fakta, noe vi både kan lære om og av. Men, Neven er en upolitlig forteller, hvor upolitlig vet vi ikke. Dette er, synes jeg, der boken er på sitt mest interessante. Hvem skriver krigshistorie? pressen? historikerne? Vinnerne? Eller taperne, slik som Neven? Krysspunktet mellom sannhet og fiksjon, dypdykket inn i karakteren Neven - dog dette skjer med en hvis berøringsangst; Neven er defansiv overfor Sacco, men dette burde ikke hindre ham i å utforske han enda dypere fra avstand, som forfatter, synes jeg - er spennende, men slik som Sacco sier selv på slutten av boken "that made me feel like I didn't know half of what Neven was about, that I'd barely traced the edges of his secrets.." forblir disse territoriene uutforsket.
March 13, 2023
Arriving in Sarajevo after the end of the Bosnian war, Joe Sacco stumbles upon a local "fixer" named Neven who guides foreign journalists through the fragmented postwar landscape and recounts his history of conflict living in the capital city during the war. Much like how "Footnotes in Gaza" acts as a companion piece to "Palestine", "The Fixer" deftly serves as a counterpart to "Safe Area Gorazde" broadening the personal and sociopolitical perspectives of the war told in that masterwork. This book does an excellent job illuminating the violent tension in Sarajevo fueled not only by the primary conflict but through the dependence of the government on various paramilitary organizations. Neven's history with these organizations and his personal perspective are explored intimately and build a wonderful ground-up presentation of the war rivaling the best of Sacco's fantastic bibliography. The art is also exemplary rendering the city and it's people in exquisite detail capturing both the small and large moments that define a city in slow recovery. What more can I say? Sacco is a unique treasure and this was one of my favorite works of his third only to "Safe Area Gorazde" and "Paying the Land". 8.5 / 10
February 1, 2023
I always wanted for Joe Sacco to analyze an event from the perspective of one person. In The Fixer he does exactly that with a flair of romanticism that I didn't know I needed. The usual consideration for truth is still present here, but it becomes even more grey and murky as it is not averaged by multiple accounts. This is great, brilliant. This guy can do no wrong.
August 17, 2013
More of a character study than a war investigation. Sacco almost relaxes into this microcosm as relief from the bigger picture he was faced with portraying in Safe Area Gorazde. Also, it further punctures, as so much of Sacco's work does, the idea of journalistic objectivity, and the story itself becomes about the people who bring you 'the story'. On one hand there's Joe, who looks like a bumbling and naive American reporter, and on the other hand there's Neven, a Bosnian ex-soldier who helps reporters get to where the action is, a 'fixer'. The book is so unsettling because it is so intimate, the story focuses almost entirely on Joe and Neven as the only characters, with the political recent history given more for context of why these two people are in this place, and what different motivations are keeping them there. At times, it is very close to the bone and difficult to read, in places it is actually funny. At its heart though is the complex unwinding of the black and white ideas both people held going into the situation and how they increasingly see so much more division, ambiguity, and shades of grey.
Neven defends Sarajevo because he identifies as Sarajevan, although an ethnic Serb. He believes in what the city preserved before the war, a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, cultured urban Bosnia. Joe's experience of visiting Gorazde also meant his experiences were of the brutality of the Serb-led forces against those who identified as Bosnian. Yet as Neven tells of his experiences, and Joe gives the context of the wider actions of the supposed defending forces of Sarajevo, a picture emerges of ethnic, religious, regional, political and moral divisions that make up a much more complicated mosaic that you might expect. For example, Joe's wider history talks about the war crimes committed by Sarajevo defence forces against the ethnic Serbs who stayed in Sarajevo. But the more cutting and intimate reality comes from Neven, who has his commander tell him, that despite his voluntary military service, his bravery, sacrifice and the fact he is wounded in the line of duty, that he is still not trusted because he is ethnically Serb. In fact he tells Neven that he wants to discharge him because, whenever Neven is sent out on a mission, he 'costs' him two other men – one to shoot Neven if he should defect to the Serbian side, and one to watch Neven's back in case anyone in his own forces tried to shoot him simply for being an ethnic Serb. It is an incredible betrayal.
The friendship between Joe and Neven also starts out from a point of naivety, and grows into something more complicated. At first the relationship is defined by Joe's sense of bewilderment in Bosnia and reliance on his fixer to protect and guide him. He pays large quantities of money for this service. Neven is a larger-than-life figure with much bluster and bravado about his exploits during the war. But as the story progresses, the genuine friendship that develops between the two comes to influence this working relationship, so that Joe becomes slightly more cynical about Neven's stories and less willing to part with his cash. For Neven's part, his hard man exterior falters in places, and he reveals his doubts and uncertainties about his actions during the war, and his sense of fear for the future. He is the one who begins to look lost in the new Bosnia.
The end of the book finds them as two old friends, more comfortable than before but also more realistic about who the other person actually is, and it finds Sarajevo in a complicated peace. Neven is less blustering, willing to admit that his health and conscience have suffered because of the war, but hopeful. He tells a story about going through a court case to claim his inheritance and losing despite overwhelming evidence. He admits that his Serb ethnicity might be the reason he was denied his claim, but he refuses to believe it “because if it had something to do with me being Serb, what the hell was I fighting for?” The book ends, not on an image of Bosnia, or Joe and Neven, with all the corners filed off, not prettified, but an image that is complicated, complex, but nonetheless hopeful. A really good read.
Neven defends Sarajevo because he identifies as Sarajevan, although an ethnic Serb. He believes in what the city preserved before the war, a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, cultured urban Bosnia. Joe's experience of visiting Gorazde also meant his experiences were of the brutality of the Serb-led forces against those who identified as Bosnian. Yet as Neven tells of his experiences, and Joe gives the context of the wider actions of the supposed defending forces of Sarajevo, a picture emerges of ethnic, religious, regional, political and moral divisions that make up a much more complicated mosaic that you might expect. For example, Joe's wider history talks about the war crimes committed by Sarajevo defence forces against the ethnic Serbs who stayed in Sarajevo. But the more cutting and intimate reality comes from Neven, who has his commander tell him, that despite his voluntary military service, his bravery, sacrifice and the fact he is wounded in the line of duty, that he is still not trusted because he is ethnically Serb. In fact he tells Neven that he wants to discharge him because, whenever Neven is sent out on a mission, he 'costs' him two other men – one to shoot Neven if he should defect to the Serbian side, and one to watch Neven's back in case anyone in his own forces tried to shoot him simply for being an ethnic Serb. It is an incredible betrayal.
The friendship between Joe and Neven also starts out from a point of naivety, and grows into something more complicated. At first the relationship is defined by Joe's sense of bewilderment in Bosnia and reliance on his fixer to protect and guide him. He pays large quantities of money for this service. Neven is a larger-than-life figure with much bluster and bravado about his exploits during the war. But as the story progresses, the genuine friendship that develops between the two comes to influence this working relationship, so that Joe becomes slightly more cynical about Neven's stories and less willing to part with his cash. For Neven's part, his hard man exterior falters in places, and he reveals his doubts and uncertainties about his actions during the war, and his sense of fear for the future. He is the one who begins to look lost in the new Bosnia.
The end of the book finds them as two old friends, more comfortable than before but also more realistic about who the other person actually is, and it finds Sarajevo in a complicated peace. Neven is less blustering, willing to admit that his health and conscience have suffered because of the war, but hopeful. He tells a story about going through a court case to claim his inheritance and losing despite overwhelming evidence. He admits that his Serb ethnicity might be the reason he was denied his claim, but he refuses to believe it “because if it had something to do with me being Serb, what the hell was I fighting for?” The book ends, not on an image of Bosnia, or Joe and Neven, with all the corners filed off, not prettified, but an image that is complicated, complex, but nonetheless hopeful. A really good read.
January 9, 2017
The Fixer was recommended to me years ago by my editor and almost three years later, I've discovered this journalistic gem that makes me chill at both J. Sacco's narrative and visual storytelling. His story's conduit is Neven, a former army veteran-turned fixer, who "fixes" access for foreign journalists looking for a stories to write and report in the 90s war-torn Bosnia.
If you're a journalist, chances are, you've bumped into characters like Neven at least once. The source (and fixer) who's fast-talking, knows everyone and has a lot of big stories of his own to tell. J. Sacco's graphic novel (can we categorise it at such?) balances the story between his own relationship with Neven as well as the war taking place in Bosnia. He covers this well, providing us background and facts of the key players of the war - its roots, effects and eventual fates to the nation.
However, like how we judge most fast-talkers in our life, J. Sacco examines Neven. Are his stories just exaggerations? In the 90s war-torn Bosnia, Neven makes a living out of foreign journalists with an eye for deep pockets. That too, is understandable. And J. Sacco humanises Neven, balancing his journalistic skepticism with an emphatic disposition for the person who eventually becomes his friend.
J. Sacco's art is amazingly drawn and does more than most journalists would with the visual work. Journalism's medium is endless and extends beyond both print and audio-visual - J. Sacco proves that. Now, I only need to search for Palestine, his first work.
p.s. - If you're a fan of visual journalism, check out Andy North's Sketchy Reports.
If you're a journalist, chances are, you've bumped into characters like Neven at least once. The source (and fixer) who's fast-talking, knows everyone and has a lot of big stories of his own to tell. J. Sacco's graphic novel (can we categorise it at such?) balances the story between his own relationship with Neven as well as the war taking place in Bosnia. He covers this well, providing us background and facts of the key players of the war - its roots, effects and eventual fates to the nation.
However, like how we judge most fast-talkers in our life, J. Sacco examines Neven. Are his stories just exaggerations? In the 90s war-torn Bosnia, Neven makes a living out of foreign journalists with an eye for deep pockets. That too, is understandable. And J. Sacco humanises Neven, balancing his journalistic skepticism with an emphatic disposition for the person who eventually becomes his friend.
J. Sacco's art is amazingly drawn and does more than most journalists would with the visual work. Journalism's medium is endless and extends beyond both print and audio-visual - J. Sacco proves that. Now, I only need to search for Palestine, his first work.
p.s. - If you're a fan of visual journalism, check out Andy North's Sketchy Reports.
Read
April 8, 2009http://nhw.livejournal.com/1141540.html[return][return]This is, in a sense, a sequel to Sacco's brilliant Safe Area Gorazde, but following just one person, Neven, a Sarajevo Serb, a former fighter on the Bosnian side in the war who Sacco got to know as his "fixer" when he first visited Sarajevo just after the war ended in 1995. (I first went there myself in early 1997, and the city of Sacco's book is definitely the one I knew.)[return][return]Anyone who has worked in that sort of environment knows the essential nature of the fixer. Sacco captures it well: but it's not just about Neven's murky past and dubious present, it's also about the dodgy wartime goings on between the "legitimate" government and its bully-boys (and one of the personalities featured in the book was in the news again recently, having apparently committed suicide earlier this month) and the inevitable resulting questions about who is right and who is wrong; and it's also about the effect that Sacco's observation has, not only on the people and situations he is observing, but on Sacco himself.[return][return]If there is a weakness in the book, it is perhaps that the casual reader might take Neven's experiences as in some way typical of the Bosnian (or any) war. Neven is a somewhat unusual character. But then again, we are all of us unusual characters, and perhaps Sacco is right to just take a single personality and follow him through the conflict, in his own words and as others reported him. Anyway, well worth reading.
March 29, 2014
This is Joe Sacco's fascinating look at the Yugoslavian conflict, the warlords who dominated Sarajevo, and the man from the title; Neven -- The Fixer. Half the book is Sacco looking for or hanging out with Neven, who misses no opportunity to drain Sacco's wallet, and the other half is Neven's stories of Sarajevo and Sacco's subsequent thoughts and research. Sacco's portrayal of Neven results in one of the most memorable characters I've read of in some time. Subtle, mysterious, broke and out of shape yet classy, respected yet mocked, perhaps a brutal killer, perhaps a brutal bull-shitter, a master of owing and finding money -- Neven is quite the guy.
This is a graphic novel, and Sacco's art is fairly gritty and realistic. People are portrayed as imperfect, and as something like mildly caricaturistic versions of themselves. Sacco manages to bring focus to each person's distinct physical qualities and personality while still keeping everyone in this uniformly caricaturistic state which blends them into the background enough to ensure that words, and the progression of the story, are at least as important. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Fixer is a fine example of its medium.
Given I had very limited knowledge of the Yugoslavian/Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian whatever-you-want-to-call-it conflict, I found Fixer very enlightening and useful for gaining a mental foothold on the whole situation and the kind of people this terrible war bred.
True Rating: 4.1 Stars
This is a graphic novel, and Sacco's art is fairly gritty and realistic. People are portrayed as imperfect, and as something like mildly caricaturistic versions of themselves. Sacco manages to bring focus to each person's distinct physical qualities and personality while still keeping everyone in this uniformly caricaturistic state which blends them into the background enough to ensure that words, and the progression of the story, are at least as important. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Fixer is a fine example of its medium.
Given I had very limited knowledge of the Yugoslavian/Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian whatever-you-want-to-call-it conflict, I found Fixer very enlightening and useful for gaining a mental foothold on the whole situation and the kind of people this terrible war bred.
True Rating: 4.1 Stars
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