So this was powerful and heartbreaking but an excellent graphic novel. The way it pulled the reader into people’s stories brought the horror of war close to me. The collapse of the everyday life that is usually taken for granted, the deaths and disappearances on both sides, the families torn apart are just a few stories that will remain in my mind.

A truly painful book that is necessary, and a hopeful way of continuing to hear the story about Ukraine.

Copy provided via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

A collection of journalistic comics about Russia’s war in Ukraine, these drawings are painful, piercing and important in doing the work of witnessing. Although at times they felt fragmented, because of being collected over time as they were posted online, they make a powerful and important document of this very recent and terrible war. Testimonies and stories who would have otherwise been lost to time are now here to be remembered, the awfulness of military destruction and death made visible.

“EVERY WAR IS A DIRTY WAR. Nothing epic, no glory: only misery.”

Thanks to Net Galley & Fantagraphics for the e-arc!

A detailed and well illustrated account of what is happening currently. Taken directly from real sources, this book is a written anecdote of what happens during war.

Thank you Fantagraphics Books and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this.

Amazing visual storytelling with a clear and emotional purpose. This book is timely and well-designed.

Not the first and certainly not the last, this graphic novel-styled book illustrates the first stretches of the Putin invasion of Ukraine, although it actually opens in 2022, way after that start. Yes, this is savvy enough to accept the annexation of the Crimea as the beginning of it all, hence some heavy flashback sections early on, but elsewhere it runs through a calendar of the first days of the invasion that the Western media actually paid attention to.

All told, this is more of an illustrated collection of testimony – there is obviously illustration going on, but this is not a fluid, A-B graphic novel narrative, and a lot of the times the visuals are for reportage or giving of mood, as opposed to taking part in the story-telling like a true graphic novel would. That's not a fault, but this can be wordy as a result. And those words can only hit home – the children 'saved' so as to grow up to respect the Russia that raped and tortured and killed their parents; the struggle to survive in a place where all 'laws' of war are ignored, and civilian tower blocks, libraries and theatres are just pulverised.

It's a work that is notable and yet not – notable for the minor things, perhaps, such as only mentioning Zelenskyy just the once. Yes, this is designed to be a vox pop piece, but Kurkov's diaries of the same time, while a very different beast, mention the politicians behind all of this much more routinely. Ultimately it is a strong piece, but again, not actually that strong – in having no solutions, no unique content bar a few direct quotes and a slightly different spread of anecdotes to other books, and little that is actually enjoyable to read, it doesn't provide enough indications of it being a must-buy. I mean, I could say it's a three and a half star book you look at with no regret, but of course you do – regretting every incident on every page and every cause for its very existence.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Igort who lives in Italy began receiving messages from people he knew in Ukraine about what they were experiencing. As therapy for him and a testimony to what those folks were enduring Igort drew images and text that he posted on Facebook. This volume is a collection of those images from the early days of the war gathered in one volume and translated into English. Reading this volume provides a mosaic of the chaos of those days and brings home the suffering and loss happening in Ukraine.

Thanks Netgalley and Fantagraphics Books for the opportunity to read this title.

'How War Begins' in many ways takes off where 'The Ukrainian and Russian Notebooks', Igort's previous work on the Russo-Ukrainian war ends. Focused on the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the book also touches on the 2014 war. This book is largely told in anecdotes of the first days of the war, where many prominent events are illustrated, straight out of the news and viral videos. The anecdotes are the book's strength, as some of the 'background' information added tends to replicate Russiian narratives about the war, separatists and Ukrainian nationalist thugs, and Russians who did not want to fight. The Euromaidan revolution is mostly ignored. A lot of the book unfortunately tends to focus on the misery of war and less on Ukraine's resilience and the many millions of people who changed their entire lives to better protect the country. Still, this is a pro-Ukraine book, only that the author has not fully disentangled himself from Russian narratives. I imagine readers who are less familiar with the war will find this book illuminating, but none of the information war new to me. Artwork was well executed.

An incredibly important novel about a country that's been ignored for far too long.

One minor issue I had with it was that some of it was difficult to read. I don't meant tonally, I mean it was physically difficult to read.

A really compelling narrative look at the evolution of the war in Ukraine. REally enjoyed the firsthand accounts that supported some of the general "big picture" narratives we've been hearing about Russian tactics and war crimes in the news.

Very informative exploration of the human consequence of the Russia/Ukraine conflict. This book is a blend of prose and graphic novel, which means content wise, it is a lot more dense than other graphic novels. The illustrations are beautiful. There is an effective use of repetition with in the images in order to communicate just how disheartening and rote the conflict is. There a specific passage (where the image from the cover comes from) that I found particularly effecting, especially with its use of colour and shadow.

My main criticism is that I do not believe that this book took full advantage of the graphic novel format. There are certain parts where I felt the narrative would have moved smoother if they used in panel text instead of text between the images. There were other parts where I felt the prose over explained things that the images were sufficient in communicating.

Overall, I highly recommend this book if you are interested in learning more about this subject.

Devastating and surreal. Hard to believe these atrocities are happening right now in our everyday world, how the whims of Putin and his "lightning war" can shatter and delete the lives of so many people. A heart breaking work of journalism and art that documents the first 100 days of a war happening in real-time.

If you are a fan of Quentin Tarantino, this graphic novel is definitely for you. Personally, I like some of his movies but I don't consider myself a fan. However, the graphic novel is interesting with details about his life before delving into the director who he is now.
The drawing art for this novel is fine, but it is not memorable or so I believe.
Thank u NetGalley and the publisher.

This is a very important book telling the stories of the people of Ukraine who have been impacted by the Russian invasion. This book gives historical context and it gives the reader a look into what has actually been happening in Ukraine in the last few years. It is accessible to people who might not know what has been going on, but I think it also gives some more detailed and specific accounts. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about the conflict in Ukraine right now.

It's more of a multi-format report than a real comic book, covering the time of the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in 2022. Through personal stories, we see the impact of the war on the hinterland, the bombed-out cities, the people fleeing, the deaths of innocent civilians. The volume itself draws parallels with the past, we see the situation in Georgia, the starvation of Ukrainian kulaks in the 1930s, but I read it alongside The Bronze Horseman and noticed a surprising similarity. Also, the saddest thing was that the Russians called the fighting anything but war. Reading it all at once it was concentrated, perhaps I should have split the episodes of each day better. The drawing itself is a sufficiently terrifying portrayal of reality, but I didn't like the style. Also, I missed the coherence between the episodes, as it just gets quickly into everybody's lives.

While clearly telling important stories, overall this graphic novel lacked cohesion. Certain passages were very informative while others were simply heartbreaking. I think with a little clearer organization and some additional non-'diary' passages to better unite the stories I would have liked it better. I definitely learned a lot and also wish to learn even more about various topics this touched on, most specifically the role of propaganda in war.

Igort's "How War Begins: Dispatches from the Ukrainian Invasion," translated from the Italian by Jamie Richards, is a series of short personal stories from the first 98 days of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, generally recounted to the author from locals, and presented with pencil-style illustrations. The book is of immediate topical appeal, but lacks the depth, both in terms of the backstories and the illustrations, of his earlier works of graphic journalism (i.e. The Russian and Ukrainian Notebooks).

The team that did the localisation decided to obscure the connection to Igort's earlier book, The Ukrainian Notebook, even though the Italian title is once again "Quaderni ucraini," which just seems like a missed opportunity in terms of marketing. It also inexplicably loses the subtitle "Diary of an Invasion" (Diario di un'invasione), despite that being the title of the recurring calendar illustration that divides the daily sections from each other.

Despite the strange choice of title for the translation, I'd say this is a worthwhile read for the topicality element, but unfortunately it also lacks the polish that's found in most of Igort's other work.

Igort is an Italian cartoonist of Russian descent, married to a Ukrainian. When Putin invaded Ukraine at the end of February 2022, Igort began to chronicle the stories of Ukrainians in real time, recording their testimonies via telephone or social media in real time. Story boards and illustrations quickly followed. Igort has interwoven past events, such as the Stalinist era starvation campaign against Ukrainians known as the Holodomor, or the more recent 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea. The result is a testament to the struggles of the Ukrainian people, who have stood up to the aggressive and militaristic expansionist Russian machine.

This was a difficult book to read. It hurt my heart. I know Ukrainian refugees here in Florida, and I struggled to understand how something like this could have happened. It is not my plight, but I share the sorrow, and empathize with the suffering of Ukraine. It is imperative that the world knows and understands and stands up to dictators, around the world, where ever and whom ever they may be.

I think this book is necessary but it could have been much better done. An editor could probably have helped, because it just seemed kind of disorganized and confusing. The stories were compelling and the illustrations were dark, but it was just difficult to follow.
In fact, there need to be more stories from places like Ukraine, because people need to understand the truth of what is happening. Thanks to NetGalley for making this available

This is an incredibly good concept for a graphic novel that I was looking forward to reading. It's also a very important story to be told. However, this title is messy and unorganized. Your mind is being pulled from one story to another. You get whiplash. Some of the pages with the illustrations are more difficult than they should be to read because they don't flow well. It is a constant back and forth from story to story that causes a high level of confusion to the reader. I don't believe how the title is set up was the best decision as the title progresses day to day during the war that was started in 2022. But context of how the war started somewhere around 2014 felt jammed in. The context is nice to have, however, it was not included in a sensical way. I honestly don't know how this could have been told in a more efficient way. But, the way it is told, just doesn't work at all. I did enjoy the illustrations. They felt unique and appropriate for the kind of story telling that was being executed.

Terrible reports of what is happening in Ukraine from the earliest days of the war. Some of these are harrowing. This will really make you feel for the people of Ukraine who just want to go on with their lives while Russia is bombing entire cities down to rubble. This is not a graphic novel. It's more of an illustrated book. The world would be a better place without Putin in it.