Groundbreaking Graphic Novel On Gaza Rushed Back Into Print 20 Years On
If you want to better understand the full history of the current US/Israeli Genocide in Gaza Joe Sacco's amazing book is powerful source.
Joe Sacco’s “Palestine” is truly an amazing work of history and one of the groundbreaking books in the whole genre of graphic literature. — Mark Taylor
By David Barnett
The Guardian (12/10/23)
An acclaimed nonfiction graphic novel about Gaza, which pioneered the medium of “comics journalism”, has been rushed back into print after surging demand since the fresh outbreak of the conflict two months ago.
Palestine, by Joe Sacco, was originally released in comic book form by the American publisher Fantagraphics 30 years ago, then published as a single volume by the company, and by Jonathan Cape in the UK in 2003.
It was created by Sacco, a Maltese American journalist and cartoonist from Portland, Oregon, as a record of his own journeys around Gaza in 1991, and has since then won a clutch of awards and been included on university courses as a primer for the whole conflict. Edward Said, the Palestinian American academic and critic, said in his introduction to the book: “With the exception of one or two novelists and poets, no one has ever rendered this terrible state of affairs better than Joe Sacco.”
“That the book itself still has relevance is a sorry testament to the enduring tragedy of the Palestinians – though, in some ways, it’s also a tribute to their fortitude, their unwillingness to give in.
Gary Groth, the co-founder of Fantagraphics, said that after the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October and the subsequent bombing of Gaza demand for the book had soared.
He said, “We blew out of our inventory of several thousand copies quickly and are reprinting now. Retailers and wholesalers began ordering the book in far greater quantities than in the recent past, which indicates that every element down the chain – consumers and retailers – are expressing demand for it.”
Sacco, 63, told the Observer that when he first visited the region in 1991 he had decided to swap journalism for comics but found that his two talents collided ….
