Palestine

Joe Sacco, Edward W. Said Press Reviews

A political and aesthetic work of extraordinary originality, quite unlike any other in the long, often turgid and hopelessly twisted debates that have occupied Palestinians, Israelis, and their respective supporters... With the exception of one or two novelists and poets, no one has ever rendered this terrible state of affairs better than Joe Sacco -- Edward Said

The bar is set extremely high when it comes to graphic books and the Middle East: one thinks of Joe Sacco's Palestine Observer Palestine is a unique take on the Isreali/Palestinian conflict... The illustrator/reporter provides a unique perspective: there is an intimacy to Sacco's interviews that cannot be translated into photography and text. His drawings make his subjects relatable to in a way that I think is difficult to achieve with a photograph. Bleeding Cool

Palestine is utterly compelling, and as affecting as the work of any war photographer or poet. -- Annie Forbes Varsity 

This collection of Joe Sacco's nine-issue comic series, based on his personal investigation of the plight of the Palestinians, is chilling in its power. In 1991 and 1992, when Sacco visited the West Bank and the Gaza strip to research his material, he came armed with the cynical professionalism typical of modern reportage. But what he found there moved him to take sides, and produce work comparable in power to Art Spiegelmann's seminal graphic novel Maus. The magic of the comic illustrator's medium lies in the immediacy of the framed pictorial narrative. In the hands of artists like Sacco, the words and pictures combine to project ideas with an apparent honesty unlike any other medium, and his black-and-white sketches invest the human tragedy with a depth of emotion that even the best photojournalism cannot achieve. The series has been collected and published for the first time as a single volume. It has already won a 1996 American Book Award so its pedigree is eminently vouched for. In the current state of international affairs, when it seems the eyes of the world are focused on the issues raised by the Middle East and the manipulations of the great political powers, you will not find a better depiction of life in the occupied territories. (Kirkus UK)