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THE OBSERVER
by Aleksandar Zograf
Joe Sacco
Clouds from beyond the borders
Catalogue of the Exhibitions
Joe Sacco - comics author and journalist
1 febbraio- 2 marzo 2002
Museo d'Arte della Città - Loggetta Lombardesca, Ravenna
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Joe Sacco is one of the cartoonists who shaped the comics scene
in the 90s. His best-known stories reflected the reality of the
trouble spots in our world - from the Middle East to the Balkans,
and his "almost
journalistic" approach was relatively new in the world of
comics. Harvey Kurtzman did his exceptionally well-researched war
comics in the very early 50s, but there was a big gap between his
efforts and the emergence of comics like Maus by Art Spiegelman,
Many thought that modern comics needed to rely less on fantasy,
and that in many respects this medium had simply lost touch with
reality and connection with the real problems of our time.
 Anyway,
Sacco seemed to be someone searching for a different approach .
He traveled to the problematic areas and returned with the testimonies
of people who told him about their experiences during those turbulent
times. Beside this, Sacco tried to depict the historical background
and political climate of these countries, which was, of course,
quite different from the stuff regularly found in comic books.
And it was also very often different from the information delivered
through the mainstream media. This was the reason why Sacco's name
was known to a wider audience interested in the reality that his
comics reflected, not just to comics aficionados. If you combine
this with the fact that Joe Sacco has a clear way of storytelling,
and that his drawing style is fine rendered, it is understandable
and justified that he was one of the cartoonists everybody was
talking about in the 90s.
One of the most recent and most prized
pieces by Sacco is "Safe
area Gorazde"- the story about a small town in Bosnia, a Muslim
enclave surrounded by Serbian territory, during the Yugoslavian
civil war in the first half of the 90s. This comic portrays the
destiny of people who lived far away from media attention and who
had to face unspeakable hardships in the midst of bloody conflict.
It was probably just one of the hundreds of small hells that existed
in the Balkans during the war which tore a country once called
Yugoslavia into many separate national states. There was probably
a need for hundreds of Joe Saccos to tell all these stories from
the different sides of the conflict, but the only Joe Sacco existing
in this universe did the best that he could do. He found one of
the most extremely grave cases, such as Gorazde really was, and
made it the focus of his interest.
Well, you might ask, how come
that these stories were not discovered and related by somebody
living out there in the Balkans?
I can say that Joe Sacco's works
on the Yugoslavian civil war were generally more methodical, systematic
and readable then most of
the works by artist or journalist from the Balkans who tried to
deal with the same topics. Of course,since Sacco's books were created
for a Western audience, he HAD to work in his methodical,systematic
way in order to make the context of the story understandable to
readers who needed an introduction to the extremely complex historical
and political background.
But it seems almost as if there was a
need for someone who could observe this situation "from the
outside,", someone systematic
and reasonable and from the West. It's not that people from the
West were always good at analyzing the situation in Yugoslavia.
In fact, most of them were really drowning in over-simplification
and black and white views. The actions of Western nations were,
moreover, in most cases, making things worse in the Balkans, and
they basically succeeded only in multiplying the misery, even when
they were sure that they were on a God-sent mission to help. So
when I mentioned the cool-headed observer from the West, I was
thinking about the neutral, analytic mind that you would expect
to come from the sophisticated civilization which created this
thing called the "Age of Reason". It turned out that
there were just a few observers of this kind, and Sacco was one
of them. At least he seemed like somebody who was trying really
hard. What more could you expect?
Mind you, it's not easy to speak
of these things. There were many different developments after 1991
when the crisis in the Balkans
began. After reading "Safe area Gorazde",one could feel
bitter and disgusted. Why did it have to be that way? Why were these
people fighting in such a bestial way? Why couldn't they resolve
the situation peacefully like some other nations did?
These were
the questions that some of us in the Balkans asked ourselves repeatedly,
and I am still not sure if, after all this time, we know the answers.I
remember that each side involved in the conflict had their own
tragic stories to tell, and that each of them remembered only the
bad things that somebody else has done to them. The very dissolution
of Yugoslavia seemed to be like opening Pandora's box - and more
then one hand participated in this act. But once it was done, we
mostly just stood appalled - watching as the hardly imaginable
ghosts and nightmares paraded in front of our eyes. It's not hard
to admit
- we were stupefied, and we didn't really know what to do.
But,
by reading Sacco's "Safe Area Gorazde",and his descriptions
of "civilian" life that exists in a small town despite
all the turmoil of war,you can see another aspect of life in the
Balkans. Sacco depicted his Bosnian friends as people who enjoyed
having fun at the local bar and getting together. Not better or
worse then others,just kind of normal. They are Muslims, and in
this book
Sacco does not speak at length about their Serbian or Croat counterparts.
This is understandable because this is the story of "Safe
area Gorazde". But you can imagine that - very likely - they
are not that different from the others, the Serbs and Croats. It's
not
difficult to come to the conclusion that the inhabitants of Gorazde
are just like those of a town of a similar size in any other part
of the world.
Still, as the war went on, former friends and neighbors
of different nationalities became enemies and began to see each
other as strangers,
as "different". This great leap of perception is one
of the keys to the mechanism of the spiral of violence that unstoppably
propels itself in the outbreak of war.
As someone of Serbian nationality, and if I can take the liberty
to speak about it, I'll say that Joe Sacco's book was also an interesting
read because it speaks of the atrocities committed by Bosnian Serbs.
I can't judge the authenticity of each of the stories illustrated,
but I think that it's very important to present them and speak
about what happened. I honestly wish that "Safe area Gorazde" was
published in Serbia. I simply don't believe that it's fair to speak
about the bad things that others have done to your nation if you
don't bring to light all the bad things that your nation has done
to others. Anyway, it's very dangerous to suppress atrocities,
not to bring them to the attention of the public for debate. Serbs
should know this very well, as they were themselves the victims
of the unspeakable mass killings during World War II. But for decades
this fact was largely swept under the carpet by officials in what
used to be called Yugoslavia. This led to frustrations and eventually
was misused by manipulative politicians. And then, how confused,
how helpless were we when the ugly demon came out of the darkest
pits of the human soul.
These are all really big issues, and it's
very important to comprehend that they could be communicated
in the form of comics, such as
in Joe Sacco's work. Comics, as a medium, have a potential which
in our society is still largely overlooked, Maybe artists like
Joe Sacco can help us to realize that picture stories can be
used in many different and innovative ways. Some of these are yet
to
be discovered.
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