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It's Safe Area Gorazde meets This is...Spinal Tap as cartoon journalist Joe Sacco takes on Rock 'n' Roll.
The Gaza strip? No problem! Deepest Serbia? A cakewalk. Those were easy. But now the time has come to follow award-winning cartoon journalist Joe Sacco on one of the most dangerous beats (and we mean "beats" literally) of all... namely the world of rock 'n' roll.
The centerpiece of the book is "In the Company of Long Hair," the early '90s graphic novelette Sacco created on the subject of his raucous European tour with the punk band the Miracle Workers. Although already published in other Sacco collections, "Long Hair" appears here for the first time in an expanded version with an added 15-page section of his original sketches and notes, and a bound-in CD featuring songs from the Miracle Workers' live shows of the timeincluding a blasting version of the Iggy Pop classic "I Got a Right."
As for the rest of the book: In a series of hilarious and sharply observed vignettes, Sacco turns his pitiless pen on all strata of Rock 'n' Roll, from old rockers ("The Stones and Me," a diehard fan's lament, and its sequel, "Suffering for the Stones") to new (the abovementioned Miracle Workers); from salacious gossip ("Who's Sleeping With Who") to how-to ("Woodstock in your Own Home"), from portraits of typical rock creatures ("Record Producer," "The Musician Who Wanted to Save the World," "The Rock Journalist") to self-deprecating autobiographical stories ("Why I Let my Hair Grow" and "So You Want to Meet a Rock 'n' Roll Star.") None of these have been collected before, and several, done for German magazines and papers while Sacco was living in Berlin, have actually never been published at all in English and are being translated for this edition!
The book is rounded off with some more recent, serious works such as "The Rude Blues," a full-color strip about Mississippi bluesmen done for Details magazine in 1999, and a piece about Lightnin' Hopkins done in 2005 for the Oxford American...as well as a treasure trove of rock posters, record and CD covers, T-shirt designs, and other "assorted rubbish" from Sacco's European years, all wryly annotated by the author.
The Gaza strip? No problem! Deepest Serbia? A cakewalk. Those were easy. But now the time has come to follow award-winning cartoon journalist Joe Sacco on one of the most dangerous beats (and we mean "beats" literally) of all... namely the world of rock 'n' roll.
The centerpiece of the book is "In the Company of Long Hair," the early '90s graphic novelette Sacco created on the subject of his raucous European tour with the punk band the Miracle Workers. Although already published in other Sacco collections, "Long Hair" appears here for the first time in an expanded version with an added 15-page section of his original sketches and notes, and a bound-in CD featuring songs from the Miracle Workers' live shows of the timeincluding a blasting version of the Iggy Pop classic "I Got a Right."
As for the rest of the book: In a series of hilarious and sharply observed vignettes, Sacco turns his pitiless pen on all strata of Rock 'n' Roll, from old rockers ("The Stones and Me," a diehard fan's lament, and its sequel, "Suffering for the Stones") to new (the abovementioned Miracle Workers); from salacious gossip ("Who's Sleeping With Who") to how-to ("Woodstock in your Own Home"), from portraits of typical rock creatures ("Record Producer," "The Musician Who Wanted to Save the World," "The Rock Journalist") to self-deprecating autobiographical stories ("Why I Let my Hair Grow" and "So You Want to Meet a Rock 'n' Roll Star.") None of these have been collected before, and several, done for German magazines and papers while Sacco was living in Berlin, have actually never been published at all in English and are being translated for this edition!
The book is rounded off with some more recent, serious works such as "The Rude Blues," a full-color strip about Mississippi bluesmen done for Details magazine in 1999, and a piece about Lightnin' Hopkins done in 2005 for the Oxford American...as well as a treasure trove of rock posters, record and CD covers, T-shirt designs, and other "assorted rubbish" from Sacco's European years, all wryly annotated by the author.
120 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2006
1 person is currently reading
185 people want to read
About the author
Joe Sacco
69 books1,602 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 32 reviews
October 23, 2014
Collection of the works which evidence Joe's alterna-cred. The ones with more story than experimentation were my favorites, but not being part of this scene meant none of it got my blood going. I actually skipped most of the prose extra materials, which is unusual for me.
May 24, 2021
On suit Joe Sacco dans ses jeunes années comme illustrateur auprès de groupes rock. Clairement, ce n'est pas mon univers et je préfère grandement M.Sacco dans ses bd historiques.
À lire pour les vrais fans de Joe Sacco.
À lire pour les vrais fans de Joe Sacco.
December 31, 2023
Je suis heureux que Sacco ait découvert/inventé le BD-journalisme. Parce que cette "pure" BD, du début de sa carrière, laisse présager que cela ne se serait pas bien passé s'il avait persisté.
Il nous propose ici des petites BD d'environ une page sur le Rock. Elles constituent un mélange entre l'hommage et la critique sociale. Sacco aime le rock et sa culture, même s'il les sait ridicules.
Sauf que tout ça passe au travers à peu près tous les lieux communs et clichés possibles et imaginables. Des trucs à la : "Les musiciens grunges aiment pas le succès, mais ils en profitent les hypocrites!" ou "les filles veulent nous faire écouter leur pop rose bonbon mais c'est pas viril."
Les musiciens sont tous des toxicomanes, les groupies sont des jolies nunuches. On nous montre une université du rock où les musiciens apprennent à arracher la tête des animaux pour faire scandale. Le glam/shock rock, c'est secrètement gay.
Tout ça avec humour, évidemment. Ça se veut subversif, mais c'est juste plutôt ennuyant.
Pour donner une idée du ton, voici un extrait de l'intro :
« J'éprouve une rancœur secrète à l'encontre de mes amis musiciens. Honnêtement, leur talent et leur célébrité me rendent malade. Bon, je suis peut-être un peu jaloux. Peut-être parce que je suis enchaîné à ma table à dessin pendant des mois, des années, tandis qu'ils sont toujours "en tournée" ou "en répète", et s'adonnent à des activités douteuses impliquant des drogues illicites et des filles mineures.»
Je le préfère en journaliste.
Il nous propose ici des petites BD d'environ une page sur le Rock. Elles constituent un mélange entre l'hommage et la critique sociale. Sacco aime le rock et sa culture, même s'il les sait ridicules.
Sauf que tout ça passe au travers à peu près tous les lieux communs et clichés possibles et imaginables. Des trucs à la : "Les musiciens grunges aiment pas le succès, mais ils en profitent les hypocrites!" ou "les filles veulent nous faire écouter leur pop rose bonbon mais c'est pas viril."
Les musiciens sont tous des toxicomanes, les groupies sont des jolies nunuches. On nous montre une université du rock où les musiciens apprennent à arracher la tête des animaux pour faire scandale. Le glam/shock rock, c'est secrètement gay.
Tout ça avec humour, évidemment. Ça se veut subversif, mais c'est juste plutôt ennuyant.
Pour donner une idée du ton, voici un extrait de l'intro :
« J'éprouve une rancœur secrète à l'encontre de mes amis musiciens. Honnêtement, leur talent et leur célébrité me rendent malade. Bon, je suis peut-être un peu jaloux. Peut-être parce que je suis enchaîné à ma table à dessin pendant des mois, des années, tandis qu'ils sont toujours "en tournée" ou "en répète", et s'adonnent à des activités douteuses impliquant des drogues illicites et des filles mineures.»
Je le préfère en journaliste.
December 27, 2020
This is a very fun book, specially for those into rock and all things surrounding it, like tours, attitudes, street-cred, roadies, t-shirt sales at concerts, internal band conflicts and more.
It is a compilation of different works, stories and drawing techniques put together with music being the glueing topic. The main story is based on true events, when, in the late 80's, Joe Sacco went to Europe on tour (not as a member) with the very marginally notorious band "The Miracle Workers"
The mood is informal and goofy, departing considerably from Joe Sacco's most famous serious journalistic works such as Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde (which are amazing Graphic Novels, by the way)
I had lots of fun reading and enjoying the drawings of this book!
It is a compilation of different works, stories and drawing techniques put together with music being the glueing topic. The main story is based on true events, when, in the late 80's, Joe Sacco went to Europe on tour (not as a member) with the very marginally notorious band "The Miracle Workers"
The mood is informal and goofy, departing considerably from Joe Sacco's most famous serious journalistic works such as Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde (which are amazing Graphic Novels, by the way)
I had lots of fun reading and enjoying the drawings of this book!
March 13, 2017
I have read, and I own, enough of Joe Sacco's work to safely call myself a fan. Before this book, however, I'd only been exposed to his "serious" work, mostly war journalism. Palestine was my first. The Great War was my latest.
This is much different.
Most of the content in this book is collected from before Sacco had his breakout with Palestine. A little less than half of the book was illustrated while the writer was also working on Palestine. This was clearly his side project, by the way. The last few pages are more recent, but still somewhat obscure compared to his more well-known work. It was collected and published very soon after Palestine, but has never reached the notoriety of his war journalism.
By the cover and title, and a cursory glance through the pages, I'd expected this book to be nothing but punk rock debauchery. I was surprised, instead, to find a very personal, very honest portrait of Joe Sacco, including a challenging exploration of what it means to grow older as an artist and an idealist.
Music is the vehicle and the background for s story of Joe Sacco's transformation from a struggling young artist full of idealism and vigour into, by my judgment, a somewhat cynical, lonely, successful and clever middle-aged cartoonist and journalist. It's a vulnerable story, and a true one. At the end of the book I liked Joe Sacco less as a person, but far more as an artist. For his willingness to show himself in that way, I have a lot of respect.
I thought when I began this book that I would only recommend it to Sacco completists. Instead, I can say that I believe this is a work to be appreciated by anyone over thirty-five who has had their share of youthful adventure combined with the tensions of adulthood as it changes those adventures over time.
This is much different.
Most of the content in this book is collected from before Sacco had his breakout with Palestine. A little less than half of the book was illustrated while the writer was also working on Palestine. This was clearly his side project, by the way. The last few pages are more recent, but still somewhat obscure compared to his more well-known work. It was collected and published very soon after Palestine, but has never reached the notoriety of his war journalism.
By the cover and title, and a cursory glance through the pages, I'd expected this book to be nothing but punk rock debauchery. I was surprised, instead, to find a very personal, very honest portrait of Joe Sacco, including a challenging exploration of what it means to grow older as an artist and an idealist.
Music is the vehicle and the background for s story of Joe Sacco's transformation from a struggling young artist full of idealism and vigour into, by my judgment, a somewhat cynical, lonely, successful and clever middle-aged cartoonist and journalist. It's a vulnerable story, and a true one. At the end of the book I liked Joe Sacco less as a person, but far more as an artist. For his willingness to show himself in that way, I have a lot of respect.
I thought when I began this book that I would only recommend it to Sacco completists. Instead, I can say that I believe this is a work to be appreciated by anyone over thirty-five who has had their share of youthful adventure combined with the tensions of adulthood as it changes those adventures over time.
June 4, 2018
Colección de historias cortitas y entretenidas sobre el mundo del rock o de la música en general en los años 90. Tonillo machistorro. No tienen mucho que ver con el Sacco más periodístico y denso. Algunas me sonaban de haberlas leído en El Víbora. Lo mejor para mi gusto es la historia final sobre lo que llama "el blues chungo", donde sale R. L. Burnside. Lo demás, para pasar el rato.
July 13, 2018
Like BUMF, this is another experiment of Sacco, not in the path of Palestine or Gorazde. If you are looking for serious comics, this one is not one of them. This is a satiric one. I was not so connected with all the short stories he did, or the humor, but I like the decadent illustration he uses to show rock star s atmosphere. Not my favorite though.
December 13, 2021
Joe Sacco ha avuto fama e gloria con i suoi reportage a fumetti, poi ha iniziato a (ri)pubblicare tutto il suo archivio raschiando il fondo del barile. Queste tavole disegnate al seguito di un gruppo in tourneée o per una rivista musicale svizzera sono molto ben disegnate ma generalmente prive di interesse.
June 16, 2018
I love Joe Sacco's work, but this is more of a compilation of tidbits, some of which are very immature and none of which are terribly interesting in and of themselves. I appreciated the parts about Fat Possum records from my Mississippi days, but this is non-essential, even for Sacco fans.
February 25, 2024
God bless Joe Sacco- I felt such relief once I realized I hadn’t been the only teenage asshole. I actually used this title for my senior picture. Only I used the entire song title just for extra credit.
August 12, 2019
Me gusta el dibujo de Sacco, pero las anécdotas que cuenta en el cómic son bastante banales.
September 6, 2022
Locurón y desorden.
Read
September 29, 2023But I Don't Like It
October 23, 2023
Están más divertidas las ilustraciones que las historias.
November 18, 2014
ARGH!!!
Di Joe Sacco ho letto Reportages e Goražde. Area protetta e mi erano piaciuti parecchio. Non vedo l'ora di mettere le mani su La grande guerra. Fine premessa.
Questo non mi è piaciuto per niente. Ci sono degli sprazzi interessanti qua e là, ma in generale non mi ha colpito. E credo sia meglio analizzare separatamente le parti che compongono questa raccolta.
1. Lato A: On the road: ★
L'idea di partenza non è male, vale a dire seguire un gruppaccio punk in giro per l'Europa e documentare ciò che succede. Ma la realizzazione è troppo "artistica" e la leggibilità finisce per soffrirne. Inoltre, la vita da rockstar, fatta di droghe e sesso libero, mi ha sempre lasciato molto perplessa.
2. Lato B: Gli anni della Svizzera: ★★
Queste sono tavole che Sacco ha realizzato per una rivista svizzera quando ancora era agli arbori della sua carriera. Alcune sono carine, altre così così, però, alla fin fine, questa parte è la migliore della raccolta. Ci sono delle rasoiate tremende a volte, contro il mondo della musica.
3. Lato C: Artefatti: ★
I manifesti che Sacco ha realizzato per presentare concerti di band di lingua inglese a Berlino sono BRUTTI!!! Non credo sarei andata ad un concerto sponsorizzato da poster del genere.
1. Lato D: Sono un uomo ormai: ★★
Queste sono tavole più recenti. Carine quelle sui Rolling Stones, un po' meno quelle sui bluesmen del Mississippi.
Per concludere: Una delusione.
Di Joe Sacco ho letto Reportages e Goražde. Area protetta e mi erano piaciuti parecchio. Non vedo l'ora di mettere le mani su La grande guerra. Fine premessa.
Questo non mi è piaciuto per niente. Ci sono degli sprazzi interessanti qua e là, ma in generale non mi ha colpito. E credo sia meglio analizzare separatamente le parti che compongono questa raccolta.
1. Lato A: On the road: ★
L'idea di partenza non è male, vale a dire seguire un gruppaccio punk in giro per l'Europa e documentare ciò che succede. Ma la realizzazione è troppo "artistica" e la leggibilità finisce per soffrirne. Inoltre, la vita da rockstar, fatta di droghe e sesso libero, mi ha sempre lasciato molto perplessa.
2. Lato B: Gli anni della Svizzera: ★★
Queste sono tavole che Sacco ha realizzato per una rivista svizzera quando ancora era agli arbori della sua carriera. Alcune sono carine, altre così così, però, alla fin fine, questa parte è la migliore della raccolta. Ci sono delle rasoiate tremende a volte, contro il mondo della musica.
3. Lato C: Artefatti: ★
I manifesti che Sacco ha realizzato per presentare concerti di band di lingua inglese a Berlino sono BRUTTI!!! Non credo sarei andata ad un concerto sponsorizzato da poster del genere.
1. Lato D: Sono un uomo ormai: ★★
Queste sono tavole più recenti. Carine quelle sui Rolling Stones, un po' meno quelle sui bluesmen del Mississippi.
Per concludere: Una delusione.
January 22, 2008
A compendium of old comic strips, band posters, T shirt designs etc. from before Sacco's "saving the world phase". Accompanied by wry asides about how crap some of his earlier work is (it isn't crap, although it isn't berilliant either) - sample: "I drew this and then solemnly decided I would never draw another maggot coming out of an eye socket again." I'm not a Crumb fan, and I get a bit drearified by Crumbalike drawing. But then, I guess in some ways I only want to read comics that look like Daniel Clowes/Charles Burns drew em. I kind of wished that he'd drawn everything in the style of the pencil sketches in the middle, and I would love one of his Berlin band posters. Nearly gave it 4 stars, but it's a bit too much of a mixed bag to.
September 7, 2020
But I like it (2006)
"Penso che i Rolling Stones abbiano significato così tanto per me a livello personale che non potevo condividerli con un mucchio di semplici 'possessori di biglietto', gente che probabilmente conosceva gli Stones tramite qualche scadente rifacimento di hit che rispondeva meglio ai riff più orecchiabili... [...]
Ma per quanto riguardava il mio rapporto con i Rolling Stones, il concerto era del tutto secondario. Io e gli Stones siamo troppo oltre perché una cosa del genere si intrometta... Dovevo solo accettare che devono avere anche altre storie, quelle stupide avventure negli stadi... So che a casa, nell'intimità del mio impianto stereo, sono miei e solo miei..." pag. 125
"Penso che i Rolling Stones abbiano significato così tanto per me a livello personale che non potevo condividerli con un mucchio di semplici 'possessori di biglietto', gente che probabilmente conosceva gli Stones tramite qualche scadente rifacimento di hit che rispondeva meglio ai riff più orecchiabili... [...]
Ma per quanto riguardava il mio rapporto con i Rolling Stones, il concerto era del tutto secondario. Io e gli Stones siamo troppo oltre perché una cosa del genere si intrometta... Dovevo solo accettare che devono avere anche altre storie, quelle stupide avventure negli stadi... So che a casa, nell'intimità del mio impianto stereo, sono miei e solo miei..." pag. 125
July 25, 2016
A real difference from his other work on Palestine, Bosnia, and Chechnya, and definitely not as engaging. There are still some interesting moments, especially the later comics drawn for a Swiss magazine, strange since he almost disavows them in the introduction to the section. The comics while on tour with The Miracle Workers did nothing for me, maybe because I really wasn't ever too heavily into the music scene (any music scene at all). They were overly furious and other than leaving the impression that being on tour is frenetic, I got nothing from them.
August 8, 2007
Sacco's scathing take on the bullshit surrounding the 90's alternative rock explosion is probably justified but he sounds like a moralistic toddler throughout this collection. Somehow Mudhoney is cast aside disingenous but an undying love for the Voodoo Lounge Rolling Stones tour gets a pass?! Nostalgia Alert! Also, his undying negativity was harshing my buzz*
*this buzz is not narcotically induced
*this buzz is not narcotically induced
January 29, 2012
Hilarious and wonderfully drawn collection of Joe Sacco tour posters, record covers and comics documenting his European travels with 80s psychedelic punk band The Miracle Workers, his love of The Rolling Stones, and Fat Possum's 90s blues roster. At this point in his career, Sacco's writing is a bit scatterbrained, but is still obviously good. The accompanying visuals are definitely the highlight of this collection, though.
February 11, 2008
Joe Sacco's music pieces are funny and well drawn but lack the genius of his reportage has. More akin to the bitter funnies of early Clowes and Bagge. The story about the Fat Possum tour is a nice blend of his serious and funny styles and is the strongest piece. He zeroes in on the sadness, scars, and capacity for violence of the men who sing the blues.
November 9, 2009
I love Joe Sacco's art style, it's right up my alley. The intense detail and page layouts are excellent. Unfortunately, his storytelling is boring. I skipped through a lot of panels because of extreme yawn. Joe Sacco would be good to get himself a writer. I never thought tales of rock n roll could be so boring. Two stars only for the art.
July 30, 2007
I'm really, really glad Sacco grew a social conscience and hightailed it to the world's war-torn regions. His incisive cultural critique needed a worthier target than proto-grunge bands and their nose-ringed sycophants.
June 2, 2008
This is not my favorite of Sacco's works, but it is a great way to fill out one's understanding of his repertoire's process of development through the years. Most humorous of his work I have read thusfar.
March 26, 2009
sacco is so good. if you're not into his art, sorry. i dig his writing and creativiy. the cd of the miracle workers wasn't bad either. sacco is hilarious at times, and very real with his observations. sacco also did the artwork for fat possum label, which in my opinion is the best blues label.
August 19, 2009
I actually prefer Sacco talking about band tours to war zones. His satire about values in the rock world are very clever: "My boyfriend is a junkie!" "Oh, yeah? Well, my boyfriend is a dead junkie!" And how to make your indoor Woodstock.
June 12, 2014
Although I'm not a big fan of Sacco just for the tour diary with the Miracle Workers it deserves the 3-stars. The declaration of love to the Rolling Stones was more so-so. In fact I cannot stand the post-Brian Jones Stones no matter what the Chesterfield Kings think.
April 14, 2016
European Punk tour, Rolling Stones and Blues, - three main subjects of the book. Looks like very personal for the author. Very nice edition including "Miracle workers" CD. The book can be a nice gift for Joe Sacco fans.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 30, 2008
really cool but really hard to read all the way through because of so many teeny tiny bubbles of writing everywhere
June 24, 2012
sacco's other books are so much better, don't bother reading this one.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews