The War Artist

Cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco is in search of the truths distorted by conventional narratives

- Vineetha Mokkil

“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 relative 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 Introduction to Joe Sacco’s Palestine.

“I don’t worry about the consequences for myself in writing or drawing about Palestine,” says Joe Sacco, comic book artist and journalist. “I worry about the moral consequences of not doing so. I’m talking about my soul here…” The acclaimed Maltese-American is the author of several graphic novels, including Palestine, Footnotes in Gaza, Safe Area Gozarde, Notes from a Defeatist and The Fixer. Sacco often figures as a character in his own books, drawing himself as an ordinary man who bears witness to the lives of people in conflict zones. Sacco remains an unobtrusive presence, letting his characters and his drawings do the talking. He does not champion strident positions, but he is perfectly clear where he stands. Both his drawings and his text give readers room to imagine and come to their own conclusions. Whether in Palestine or Bosnia or India, Sacco is in search of stories ignored by the mainstream, the truths distorted by conventional narratives.

In a conversation with The Wire’s editor, Seema Chishti, during a recent visit to Delhi, the soft-spoken cartoonist said that he finds it overwhelming to process the images of the Gaza war flooding our TV screens. The war has been raging for a year. “We have to ask: what are Palestinians feeling?” Sacco reminded the packed auditorium at Jawahar Bhavan. “How long can they go on? How long can Western governments keep shying away from calling it a genocide?”