In the past week, we had been talk on the comic reportage “Safe Area Gorazde” wrote by Joe Sacco. In general, the book is about the tragic stories happened on Bosnian Muslim in the UN designated Enclave, Gorazde, while during the war against Serbian Nationalists from 1992 to 1994. Joe Sacco was in a role of American Journalist, travelled to Gorazde fourth times through the UN “Blue Road” after conditions been stabilized in the town. He interviewed many civilians about the four years battle between Serbian Chetnik and Bosnian government(local Muslim forces). He considers the Bosnian Muslims are genuine victims of the war.

Despite further facts and figures, Joe Sacco unfold his mastered drawing techniques and colloquial languages use in the texts. Figures and scenes creates by Sacco are neatly present according to realism, every frame of pictures seem what actually happened. His drawing particularly focus on the details of people’s faces, to exaggerate their facial expression which successfully enhance readers emotional feelings. In contrast, Satrapi’s Persepolis also achieved similar effect by her “symmetric drawing” on crowds although she insists simplicity in drawing which portray less details on characters. Similar with Satrapi, Sacco also not afraid to display the violence and massacre scenes in the stories. The most impressive example for me is the narrate of the senior, Rasim. He told Sacoo about the story of how he survive through invasion in Gorazde. When Rasim sneak through the second bridge at night, he witnessed Serbs soldiers brutally slaughter Bosnian muslim. He then carefully walk through a ground where spill with blood, like a pond made up by human blood. These scenes shock me the most and I don’t know how much trauma will left in Rasim and other innocent people minds.

Persepolis and Safe Area Gorazde are both done in black and white but from my perspective of arts, I think Sacco did a better job in illustrating the details. Because in order to perform the  horrendous conditions of wars or conflicts, artists are require to re-presenting from aspect of realism, thus more details are given more accuracy to audiences. In addition, I like the way that Sacco organize the story which put readers in a role of witness. For example, he locates direct dialogues into bubble textboxes and his own descriptive sentences into square columns. To emphasis the words, he bold and enlarger the words and written in capital. Beyond these specific methods, most importantly, he divide the book into individual chapters and use first person to narrate the individuals stories. Instead of writing his own perspective towards Bosnian War, in most length of the book, he let his interviewees, Bosnian civilians telling their stores. I also recognize he is working hard on present the true whether by his animated drawing or subjective tales from victims. To maintain the realistic of the images of war, Sacco eliminate revealing his interpretation on subjects. Perhaps that’s why he intended to not drawing his eyes behind the glasses. People always say the eyes are the window of souls/minds. It’s so true that the eyes is crucial to express one’s feeling because it not only reflect the mood of characters but also output certain non-verbal expression. In the end, the book is successfully review the war by individual storytelling and vivid depict of the town. It is heartbreaking and mind blowing to go through the stories. Besides the despair mood throughout the comic, many victims had survive through this catastrophe, it shows both positive and negative sides of human nature.

Reference:

1. “Mehmed-pasa Sokolovic Bridge:A Monument to Genocide.” Visegrad Genocide Memories. 3 Dec. 2009. Web. 12. Nov. 2015.
2. Sacco, Joe. Safe Area Goražde. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2000. Print.