PALESTINE
Joe Sacco
Jonathan Cape/Random House Books
Here at Robot Fist, we're as passionate about our comics as we are about everything else. We want the very best for ourselves, and by extension for you, the reader. As far as comics go, we want to be excited or otherwise stimulated by what we read. And from the boundless punk energy of The Couriers
to the delicate romantic tension of Dumped, stimulation is exactly what we've got.
Palestine, as the name might suggest, is unlike any comic we've brought to you before. However, you can expect to be stimulated by this book. Just not in the way you might usually expect.
For one thing, Palestine isn't fiction. It's true-life. It's current affairs. It's
journalism.
The book recounts Joe Sacco's tour of the West Bank and Gaza Strip - you know, the bits you hear about on the news every day, if you're listening - between 1991 and 1992. Sacco moves between shantytowns and refugee camps with his colleagues and guides, just listening to people telling their stories.
As you might expect, most of the stories are of people being hurt by the occupation, or by Israeli settlers and soldiers. It's not the most balanced book in the world. But that's not really the point. When you see Palestine on the telly - when you see the refugee camps, or even when you hear the
word "Palestine" - it's usually to do with people being blown up or shot, or with peace processes breaking down. What you don't see is what happens next. You don't see the people. You don't see the families. You don't see
the rest of the story. And that's what Palestine is all about.
Sacco is equal parts draughtsman and cartoonist. Although it's clear that a lot of the art in Palestine is drawn from photographs Sacco and his colleagues took along the way, the greater part of the book is drawn from memory. And nothing seems to have escaped his notice. The minutest detail is meticulously rendered, whether it's the mud that passes for a road through a refugee camp or the lifetime's worth of wrinkles on an old man's face.
Sacco's greatest gift, as an artist, is his ability to capture the soul of his subject. He doesn't just draw expressions on his "characters'" faces: he brings out their emotions.
The effect is to see Palestine and the Palestinians (and by extension, many Israelis) entirely through Sacco's eyes. To be immersed as fully as you can be in their world. To learn a little of what it means to have been there, at that time. Some of the people Sacco meets are tired and beaten. Some can barely contain their fury, which sits behind their eyes, cold and hard. But some take what little hope they can, and cling onto it like a life preserver. By the end of the book, the point is driven home hard: these people aren't just words and pictures on a page: these people are real.
Palestine is an account of Sacco's time in the Holy Land, as much as it is a collection of other people's stories. To his credit, Sacco is honest enough a storyteller to admit when he's had enough of people and their tales of hardship, or when he's a little too eager to immerse himself in horror, for the sake of a juicy story, or a good picture for his comic. His ability to allow himself to be drawn in just far enough to hear the story, without losing his detachment, is what makes Palestine such powerful reading.
Palestine is a powerful piece of journalism - as powerful as any Western book on the subject. Perhaps more so: the format of the book, coupled with Sacco's keen eye and unflinching artistic skill, is bound to take many readers by surprise.
It might shock you. It might upset you. It may even open your eyes. But whatever effect it has on you, Palestine is a comicbook that everyone should read. It is a comicbook that will affect you. And in a medium too-often tarred with the brush of ephemera, it stakes a claim as a prime example of the inherent power of comics.
Review text (C) Matthew Craig
Originally published in the pop culture magazine Robot Fist