Joe Sacco: Panels, Journalism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
TRANSLATED ARTICLES 122 Mónica Yoldi · Eme nº 5 · 2017 ISSN 2253-6337
JOE SACCO: PANELS, JOURNALISM AND THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
Mónica Yoldi BA and PhD in Fine Arts by the Universitat de Barcelona (University of Barcelona)
The article focuses on the work on Palestine The Novel of Nonel and Vovel by Oreet Ashery by journalist and cartoonist Joe Sacco. Mem- and Larissa Sansour that tells the story of two art- ber of the current denominated journalistic ists that have superpowers (alter egos of the two comic, Joe Sacco, through his direct, commit- authors of the comic) and fifty female ninjas who ted drawings, offers his particular view of the have the mission of saving Palestine. But in this Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He tries to avoid realm, the work of the comic artist and journalist preconceptions and common places. In this Joe Sacco (Malta, 1960) leads the trend of comic- text we analyse his main comic books, such as journalism that approaches reality to narrate, as a Palestine or Footnotes in Gaza. journalistic report, armed conflicts such as the one that is taking place between Palestine and Israel. Key words: Joe Sacco spent two months in Palestine be- Joe Sacco, journalistic comic, cartoons, Israeli- tween 1991 and 1992 “My interests in the Near Palestinian conflict, Palestine. East,” he remarks, “did not begin as a consequence of the war itself, but rather as a matter of social For some time now, contemporary comic has ap- justice. I grew up thinking the Palestinians were proached current events and narrates stories of terrorists and for many reasons. I mean, it is true, social and political interest. The so-called graphic they have committed terrorist acts but, what is the novel tackles aspects of real life that have little to context? What has led them to this? Then, in a giv- do with the fantasy and escape topics attributed en moment, I felt the need of understanding the to traditional comics. Art Spiegelman with his origin or the nature of the injustices that happen work Maus established a way of working graphic there. I felt I needed to see them with my own eyes narrative so that it told of personal, social and po- and do something about them”1. So in the middle litical difficulties through the panels of the story. of 1992 Joe Sacco began to write and draw Pales- Such direct and clear manner of narration cap- tine: in the Gaza Strip, work with which he won tures the reader’s interest with text and images. the American Book Award in 1996. In 2002, when An example of this are works such as Birmanian the Palestine conflict flares again, he receives the Chronicles by Guy Delisle, Fax from Sarajevo by prize to the best graphic novel in the Book Expo Joe Kubert; Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, Fun America. Palestine: in the Gaza Strip, initially seri- Home by Alison Bechdel, Waltz with Bashir by alised in nine comic books between 1993 and 1995 Ari Folman and David Polonsky or Poppies from and later gathered in a single volume, relates the Irak by Brigitte Findakly and Lewis Trondheim. In violent oppression Israel exerts on the Palestin- this context comics and graphic novels on Israel ian territories, centering on the first Intifada. Joe and Palestine are ever more frequent. Shrapnel Sacco says, “I do journalistic comics because it is by Rutu Modan, An American Jew lost in Israel the best manner of uniting my two passions: com- 1 by Sarah Glidden, Jumping the Wall by Maximi- ics and journalism. I don’t have a theory to explain BARROS, DIEGO E.: Joe Sacco: “Yo en- lien Le Roy, A Boy in Palestine by Naji al-Ali or this. I just have always been interested in current tiendo el periodismo como el primer es- Jerusalem, A Portrait of the Boaz Yakin Family by affairs and sometimes, things happen around calón de la historia”,
happening. I think comics are a great means to material. I am not objective, but I do try to be hon- present complex information2. Joe Sacco’s draw- est. That is why I enter the scene, it is my way of ings devoted to the Palestine-Israel conflict reveal stating clearly that I am a filter and a magnifying a desolating panorama. Even though the realism glass in the story4.” Joe Sacco takes between two of his illustrations sometimes make very hard im- and three years to complete a comic, and uses his ages, his stories are highly suggestive narrations appearances in the panels to do self-parody and in- to which we cannot be indifferent. troduce a lighter note and certain dose of humour The fact is that the work of this specific journal- in the story, such as when he draws himself tired of ist on the Palestine-Israel conflict is a testimony drinking so much tea. of the condition of those people dispossessed by It should be pointed out that Joe Sacco’s pan- colonial violence. His images, close to photo-jour- els refer so adequately to the complex situation nalism show difficult and dangerous situations, the Palestinians and Israelis are going through very hard lives, ridden by hidden conflicts of com- that they have captured the attention of person- plex solution. His work speaks of those excluded alities such as Edward Said, an American of Pal- and displaced, on how transitory and fragile is the estinian origin and author of relevant texts such life that, in this case, is forced upon the Palestin- as Orientalism, Gaza-Jerico, Pax Americana or ians. Joe Sacco’s drawings speak of the uprooting, Palestinian Chronicles, who defends Palestinian the difficulty of surviving day to day, the disori- self-government and human rights. Edward Said entation, the no-place, the absence of home, the tells that he discovered Joe Sacco’s work because displacement and how life is faced when living his younger son brought home the first number under occupation. His images bring to light what of Palestine. “I had before my eyes,” commented we nearly never see in communications media, Edward Said, “a comic of political and aesthetic since they picture and relate personal and specific content which was extraordinarily original, very stories. The detailed interviews Joe Sacco carries different from any of the other, many, and often out and documents introduce us to the problems dense and twisted debates that occupy the Pal- and experiences, in principle, unique, but that can estinians, Israelis and their sympathizers.”5. He actually be extrapolated to a great part of the Pal- was so interested in the story Sacco drew and told estinian population. that he wrote the introduction to Palestine: on Joe Sacco studied journalism at the University the Gaza Strip. Joe Sacco included an additional of Oregon and defines himself as an illustrator page in Palestine: on the Gaza Strip, telling how who does journalism, showing the most politi- the scholar influenced his work. In it we see that cal facet of the Palestine-Israel conflict. He calls Joe stayed in the apartment of Larry, an American himself a comic artist and considers himself to who teaches English in Gaza and that he found, be a very political person. For Sacco drawing is among the books in his host’s house Edward a subjective act, but he tries to be truthful and Said’s Orientalism which the artist began to read. rigorous in panels when he is telling the stories “I like Edward Said”, wrote Sacco in Palestine6. 2 BARROS, DIEGO E.: La paz no va a pa- of other people, always aware of journalistic eth- Sacco’s images reflect direct contact with the garme el alquiler: Joe Sacco
teristic aspects of a specific human group (in this to think,” says Sacco, “about my books as if they case, the Palestinians) and of their life and social had no end, as if it were only a new paragraph, conditions. But Joe Sacco is an ethnographer who and OK, something new will begin but the story takes sides. His view penetrates the conflict and continues”11. To the contrary, in Walter Benjamin, mixes in the day to day of the Palestinians and Is- the continuum of history would be broken by a raelis and openly criticizes the situation of oppres- number of specific events which would, in turn, sion that the Palestinian people suffer. form a part of history. However, Joe Sacco’s hon- Sacco is the champion of comic journalism and est images speak of a constant present, of hap- thus his chronicles and stories, even pretending to penings that do not change and continue hap- be objective, show his own point of view. Joe Sacco pening in the same way as they did decades ago, tells specific stories that are very well documented. something that the artist exemplifies very well in Nothing is anonymous for him. There are names, his graphic novel Footnotes in Gaza. What Sacco personal stories, places, dates, etc. The comic artist, tells happened in 1956 but could well be happen- from his perspective as author, seems to adopt as ing today. The stories Joe Sacco reflects are the his the statement that art is perception and infor- result of violence and attacks. Sacco establishes mation, as artist Antoni Muntadas defends. the dialectic between past and present and is an Joe Sacco’s illustrations show his great knowl- example of the creative diversity typical of the edge of history. His interest in journalism has led end of the 20th century, characterised by ques- him to mix with Palestinians to investigate facts tioning totalitarian conceptions in respect to so- such as those he tells in Footnotes in Gaza, award- cial, philosophical and artistic discourse. ed the Ridenhour Book Prize in 2010 and that In this sense, Walter Mignolo, author of Local begins in 2001 when Harpers magazine commis- Histories/Global Design, maintains that moder- sioned Joe Sacco and the journalist Chris Hedges nity and its consequences cannot be approached a work on the Gaza Strip. only from the point of view of the West. The other, Joe Sacco had read Noam Chomski’s book The what is different, must be also considered to make Fateful Triangle on the great slaughter of civilians an accurate analysis of history. Thus, before the in Khan Younis in 1956 during the War of Sinai. The apparent bewilderment caused by the loss of cred- artist reconstructs what happened there in a type ibility in the historic naturalist discourse or in the of “retrofuturism” based on photographs of the ar- great stories to which Jean-François Lyotard12 re- chives of the UNRWA (United Nations Agency for ferred, from the mid seventies diversity and rela- Refugees of Palestine and Near East. The terrible tivism have imposed themselves in all realms. Joe part is that although Joe Sacco rescues and relates Sacco appears to follow these proposals and, in happenings occurred in 1956, what happened and an exercise of objectivity, includes testimonies of the images that serve to demonstrate it continue Jews in order to give a diverging point of view in being totally valid. The recent history of the Pal- his stories. Nowadays the proliferation of individ- estinian people seems to dwell in an interminable ualities is such that the concept of totality fades “eternal return.” Walter Benjamin pointed out that to give place to an off-centred and polysemic vi- 9 the past is shown to us through the remains and sion of which Joe Sacco’s work bears witness. In BARROS, DIEGO E.: Joe Sacco: “Yo en- vestiges of it that have reached us. For the author contemporary comics there are considerations on tiendo el periodismo como el primer es- of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Repro- politics, capitalism, gender, mass media or activ- calón de la historia”,
are frontiers in ideologies, in regions, in culture. The frontiers limits are no longer only the separa- tions between territories, they go further. Joe Sacco gives us a good example of what the frontiers sup- pose in Palestine or Israel each time he crosses the complex border passes to enter Gaza, tedious and intimidating checkpoints that remit to what was written by Balibar on the frontier. Bibliography: Joe Sacco composes a story centered on the Books: traditional script made up of an introduction, crux BALIBAR, ÉTIENNE: Violencias identidades y civilidad, Para and outcome. He gives voice to the Palestinians, una cultura política global, Barcelona, Gedisa, 2005. BENJAMIN, WALTER: Discursos Interrumpidos I, Madrid, Tau- lets them have the word and becomes an accurate rus, 1987. and committed narrator. He describes the impov- BENJAMIN, WALTER: El origen del drama barroco alemán, Ma- erished and improvised lives produced by the im- drid, Taurus, 1990. CASTRO-GÓMEZ, SANTIAGO: La Postcolonialidad explicada a posed exodus of a forceful migration. He shows los niños, Popayán, Universidad del Cuaca, 2005. an over-populated and indigent Gaza Strip full of FOSTER, HAL: El retorno de lo real. La vanguardia a finales de displaced persons. And, sadly, observation of Joe siglo, Madrid, Akal Contemporáneo, 2001. Sacco’s panels on Palestine submerges us in a sort LYOTARD, JEAN FRANÇOIS: La condición postmoderna, Bar- celona, Ediciones del Drac, 1984. of “eternal return” since Sacco’s illustrations could MIGNOLO, WALTER: Historias locales/diseños globales. Colo- have been drawn during the last months. The con- nialidad, conocimientos subalternos y pensamiento fronterizo, flictive situation that the Gaza Strip lives does not Madrid, Akal, 2003. SACCO, JOE: Notas al pie de Gaza, Barcelona, Reservoir Books, vary, history repeats itself through decades and 2010. the fragile houses continue being destroyed by SACCO, JOE: Palestina: en la franja de Gaza, Barcelona, Planeta Israeli tanks. de Agostini, 2007. (3ª edición). Joe Sacco’s publications have been banned by SACCO, JOE: Reportajes. Barcelona, Reservoir Books, 2012. SACCO, JOE: Apuntes de un derrotista, Barcelona, Planeta Ago- certain book stores in North America for their stini, 2006. open criticism to Israeli authorities. The conflict SACCO, JOE: Yonqui de la guerra, Barcelona, ECC, 2015. between Arabs and Jews seems to live a sad eter- SACCO, JOE: Días de destrucción, días de revuelta, Barcelona, Planeta Agostini, 2015. nal present whose solution seems neither easy nor SACCO, JOE: La gran guerra, Barcelona, Reservoir Books, 2014. near. In a way, Sacco’s panels on Palestine, despite SACCO, JOE: Bumf. Barcelona, Reservoir Books, 2015. having been drawn more than a decade ago, are SAID, EDWARD: Orientalismo, Barcelona, Libertarias, 1990. fully valid. Sacco’s comics, far from being only VV.AA. : Antisemitismo: el intolerable chantaje: Israel-Palestina, ¿una cuestión francesa? Buenos Aires, entertainment make the reader take sides on de- Editorial Canaán, 2009. termined conflictive situations in places all over VV. AA. : Modernidad y postmodernidad, Madrid, Alianza Edito- the planet. Bosnia, Iran, Chechenia or Hebron are rial, 1988. VV. AA. : En torno a la Postmodernidad, Barcelona, Anthropos, the subject matter in volumes such as: Safe Area 1990. Gorazde, The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo, el web- cómic War’s End: Profiles from Bosnia. Articles: In November 2012 the General Assembly of the ALTARES, GUILLERMO: “Retorno al pasado”, El País, October Mónica Yoldi. BA and PhD in 25th, 2009. United Nations granted the Palestine Territories KOCH, TOMMASO: “Un lápiz para dibujar la voz de los olvida- Fine Arts by the Universidad de the condition of “non-member observing state”. dos”, El País, May 30th, 2012. Barcelona (University of Barce- In December 2014 the European Parliament sup- MAGÍ, LUCÍA: “Noticias dibujadas”, El País, April 24th, 2010. lona). She has a degree in Hu- MAGÍ, LUCÍA: “No soy objetivo pero sí honesto”, El País, October manities by the Universidad de ported the recognition of the Palestinian state. 25th, 2009. But more than 4.5 million Palestinians live in a OBIOLS, ISABEL: “Joe Sacco vuelve a Bosnia con un nuevo re- La Rioja (University of La Rio- complex present where Israeli settlements con- portaje en forma de historieta”, El País, May 7th, 2004. ja). Since 2010, main lecturer of tinue and the peace process, paralysed since 2014 VIDAL, JAUME: “Un cómic refleja con óptica periodística el con- Graphic Design in the School of flicto palestino”, El País, April nd2 , 2002. does not seem to advance. VIDAL-FOLCH, IGNACIO: “La guerra y los tebeos”, El País, May Design of La Rioja. She has pu- Joe Sacco who is also the author of works such 3rd, 2001. blished numerous articles on art as The Great War July 1, 1916: The First Day of the VALENZUELA, JAVIER: “Sangre siempre fresca en Gaza”, El and design in specialised maga- th País, April 24 , 2010. zines, like Artico, Dardo-Maga- Battle of the Somme which speaks of the battle of VICENT, MAURICIO: “Viñetas de la cruda realidad”, El País, Somme during World War I, and the satiric comic January 14th, 2012. zine, Goya or Beis. As an artist, Bumf, presents specific realities in his stories, per- her work has been exhibited in a sonal stories and experiences of the people who Electronic documents: number of collective and indivi- BARROS, DIEGO E. : Joe Sacco: “Yo entiendo el periodismo como speak of their past and their day-to-day. A before el primer escalón de la historia”,