Written By: Joe Sacco
Published By: Fantagraphics Books
When reading a traditional novel, it can be challenging sometimes to glean the “correct” message from words alone, especially if the common style of writing has changed significantly over the previous 300 years. A weaker author might use imagery that is rather ambiguous for one reason or another and, depending on the reader, the author’s intention behind a set of carefully selected words might fail to connect even in the most pivotal of moments. For as language changes, the images intended for the reader’s head might blur as generation after generation evolves the human condition.
Using a graphical approach can evoke more specific feelings about the situation since the ambiguity is not as much of an issue. After all, if one picture is worth a thousand words, then what is a book of a thousand pictures worth? Within the pages of Safe Area Goražde there might be an answer.
The imagery provided by Safe Area Goražde is at once surprising and magnificent. Every single frame is layered with incredible detail as author Joe Sacco describes the things going on with each of the characters he encounters within the titular safe area.
Within this imagery, there seem to be a few things going on. First, there is the issue of relieving the reader’s imagination of all that hard work involved in imagining things. This is evident throughout the entire novel; as the narrative drifts from character to character there are usually short intermissions that show the reader the strife that has occurred to bring things full circle in the way they have, or even to pull the “camera” out so we can more easily glimpse the story in a larger context. A good example of this occurs on pages 14 and 15 when the journalists are being interviewed in the classroom. People are milling about as usual, and even though life is certainly hard for them, the scene is a poignant demonstration of the desire to live.
The graphical approach can also be all up in the reader’s face, immediately establishing a tone in a few pages whereas a regular novel may struggle to accomplish for many and more. In the case of Safe Area Goražde, author Joe Sacco goes a little bit further and applies his cartoonist skills in creating unique caricatures for many of the players, especially when humor or merriment is involved. This technique is established pretty early on in the party scene on page 8, where faces are exaggerated and contorted in comical ways. In later pages, such as the section on Brotherhood and Unity (20-23), the images are far more normalized in an obvious attempt to cancel out the overall comic effect and get serious for a little while.
The story that seems to emerge is that even though the plight of the Bosnians is not an especially good one, there is a sense that the survival instinct is emergent in the whole of the remaining population. It becomes clear that these folks are doing everything they can to survive in spite of the odds of endless persecution by the Serbs and still have the propensity to be humorous about it. It leaves one to wonder, “just how could they possibly do it?”
ThomFiles 