Sacco uses words and illustrations to document stories: He\u2019s a self-described comics journalist. He has combined both forms to great effect in numerous works of graphic nonfiction, including Palestine and Safe Area Gora\u017ede, that tell of overseas conflicts. One monumental wordless work, The Great War, depicts the first day of the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Sacco returns to the subject of the Mideast in his latest book, a slim overview of Israel\u2019s recent invasion of Gaza. The urgency of the project is evident in a short introduction in which he writes of beginning it after a friend in Gaza pleaded with him to \u201cplz raise the voice up against these crimes.\u201d Sacco\u2019s answer: \u201cSo here, my friend, for whatever it\u2019s worth, I \u2018raise the voice up.\u2019\u201d That he does. The book is an impassioned polemic against Israel\u2019s devastating response to the raid of Oct. 7, 2023, in which more than 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered by Hamas fighters. \u201cThe scale of the deaths of Israeli civilians left me horrified,\u201d Sacco writes. So, too, did Israel\u2019s retaliation, which has killed tens of thousands of people. \u201cI was only theoretically prepared for the worst,\u201d he continues. \u201cThe reality of the assault on Gaza\u2026was almost beyond my comprehension.\u201d Unlike Sacco\u2019s earlier works that feature on-the-ground reporting\u2014the testimony of ordinary citizens imbuing the pages with power\u2014this book is more of a visual op-ed, his scathing critique of the U.S. and Israel accompanied by caricatures of President Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and biblical-style language: \u201cThe way was greased for the Righteous Rampage that smote the People of Darkness.\u201d Elsewhere, he writes, \u201cAmerica had just invented Kinder, Gentler Genocide. The patent is pending.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sacco uses words and illustrations to document stories: He\u2019s a self-described comics journalist. He has combined both forms to great effect in numerous works of graphic nonfiction, including Palestine and Safe Area Gora\u017ede, that tell of overseas conflicts. One monumental wordless work, The Great War, depicts the first day of the 1916 Battle of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}