Hello everyone, hope you all have had a great week! For this week’s blog, I’ll be talking about Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Goražde. Like Persepolis, this book is in the style of a comic book, or graphic novel. It talks about a United Nations enclave during the Bosnian War, which lasted from 1992-1995, in the city of Goražde. This city had experienced some horrendous crimes against it (even horrendous isn’t a strong enough adjective) and investigative reporter Joe Sacco took it upon himself to learn about the lives of these people, spend time interacting them, and get to know them better in order to tell their tale.

However, despite sharing the same genre as Satrapi’s book, Sacco’s book pulls no punches when retelling the gruesome story of these people. While Persepolis used imagery and certain symbols to represent death and violence, such as imagining a cut up person like this: http://satrapism.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/kic0000013.jpg.

Gorazde presents violence without holding back, like this: http://www.giraffedays.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Gorazde-panel1-751×1024.jpg.

Very clear difference in the two. I aim to compare the two and analyze their strengths and weaknesses.

For Goražde, by presenting a realistic and dark form of storytelling, it is better able to present the issues and problems the people there have faced. The reader isn’t fooled on the situation there, it’s horrible and the book makes a clear objective to point this out. Downplaying these people’s stories would be severely disrespecting them and for this reason, Sacco drew their stories as he heard them. Herein lays a key difference between the two: Persepolis was written by a survivor, Safe Area Goraždewas written about the survivors. Because Satrapi lived through these ordeals, she expresses how hard it is to draw or write about certain experiences. This is one of the reasons why she draws in her certain style. Sacco, however, isn’t plagued by these memories, thus allowing him to draw the more gruesome images without bringing up trauma. This realistic style can put off people. I personally know how difficult to read some of the pages are, and I know many people who would put the book away because of it. Persepolis doesn’t suffer that problem, because although the book’s style might seem childish and simple, it leaves the horror to the imagination of the reader; all while still being readable.

I highly recommend this book to you guys. But be warned, it is no Persepolis and in many pages you will lose faith in humanity (literally). But you’ll emerge a more knowledgeable person and will be aware of the worst humans can offer, but also the best. Safe Area Goraždeis a story about survival, and there is hope to be found in the book.

That’s all I have for today, thanks for reading and I hope you guys have a good week!