"Palestine" is a vivid graphic depiction of life in the Palestinian territories during the early 1990s. In a series of personal stories, Joe Sacco illustrates the struggles, hardships, and resilience of the Palestinian people amidst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sacco is not only a comic artist but also a journalost, and his work showcases the impact of war, displacement, and occupation. This is only a sample but I will seek out the whole book to read.

My Thoughts:
Palestine and Israel is a complicated history of walls and war. Perhaps the easiest way to understand what is going on now is to look at what went on before. This is not a current graphic novel, but this is Joe Sacco's graphic novel from the early 1990s when Joe Sacco spent two months in Gaza. I imagine that the images in here are similar to the images in real like. The suffering is the same, just one generation later.

This will help young adults understand politics, but what they will really understand is the power of images as a tool for reporting history, even if they are drawn images. This is war correspondence at its most powerful.

The Palestinian plight in these current times are more emotionally wrenching because of this graphic non-fiction. We live in a complex world. Sacco depicts it well even if this is almost 30 years old.

From the Publisher:
In late 1991 and early 1992, at the time of the first Intifada, Joe Sacco spent two months with the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, travelling and taking notes. Upon returning to the United States, he started writing and drawing Palestine, which combines the techniques of eyewitness reportage with the medium of comic-book storytelling to explore this complex, emotionally weighty situation. He captures the heart of the Palestinian experience in image after unforgettable image, with great insight and remarkable humour. The nine-issue comics series won a 1996 American Book Award. It is now published for the first time in one volume, befitting its status as one of the great classics of graphic non-fiction.

Publication Information:
Author/Illustrator: Joe Sacco
Publisher: Jonathan Cape (November 2009)
Paperback: 266 pages
ISBN 13: 978-0224069823

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.
I love Joe Sacco's work but had never seen this one before. Technically it is about the First Intifada in the 80s, but pretty much every single thing is at least as relevant today as it was then, and even more poignant, as at least then we all thought Palestinians would eventually end up with their own country. This is heartbreaking and a good way to explore how we got where we are today, in a time of even more agony and death.
Very important.

I'm giving it three stars because I didn't like to illustration style. The history is insanely impactful and heartbreaking. Even when I think I've heard everything there is about Palestine, I find out more.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher Fantagraphics Books for an advanced copy of this graphic history and work of journalism that looks at the people of Palestine and Israel, a work that was published almost thirty years ago, but is still prevalent in these more than troubled times.

For a time in the 1990's I was away from comics. At the time, and probably not, I didn't have the funds to buy them. Combined with the fact that I was tired of storylines featuring the Death of..., or the Breaking of..., or the Corporate Cross-over of. This lasted awhile, and it was chance conversation with a customer at the record store that got me to at least look in a comics store. I had always thought that comic companies had left so much on the table by not using the graphic medium for more than big guys, big gals fighting things. Fantagraphics Books were a publisher I had heard of, and I think I read some stuff, but what they were publishing seemed so real. And one of those people published was Joe Sacco. Sacco used comic ideas to tell not just a story, but history, and the lives of people he would encounter. Using all the tricks that made comics work, but to teach as well as entertain. I have read almost everything, but Palestine is the one that think was his best, and one I think of quite a lot, especially recently. Palestine is a portrait of a time and an era, now reduced to rubble, and even that rubble reduced to powder, but a story that still has impact even with the events of 2023-2024.

Joe Sacco was a journalist without a job, traveling around Europe and America trying to find a place for himself, and a steady gig. A job at Fantagraphics, working on the The Comics Journal honed his skills in writing, and renewed an interest in art, leading him to start his own comic with the company. Sacco soon started traveling again, and started to look at the history of the Middle East as the first Gulf War was getting started. Sacco soon spent time in Palestine, Gaza and Israel interviewing normal people on both sides, and trying to get a handle on a situation that seemed to have no handle, nor a solution. Sacco talks to everyone, which is funny as the comic is written and drawn in such a way as to make Sacco look like a dumb misanthrope bumbling around. Sacco interview merchants, taxi drivers, kids who try to scam him, refugees, workers, and politicians, a real snapshot of a time when many things were thought possible,and the future seemed brighter.

Sacco acts the bumbler, but is a very skillful interlocutor and writer. Sacco lets the subjects speak, even when the speaking might be incendiary, cruel or wrong.The layout is quite good, a mix of history, and well at the time were modern takes on the situation. The art is both cartoony, and yet expertly rendered. I can't imagine this book in a different style. One learns quite a bit, and one learns that the people of Palestine are people. With hopes, dreams and desires, and a want to live. The worse part of this book is wondering who is still alive, the merchants, the taxi cab drivers, the mothers with babies, and all of the children. The would be adults now, with children of their own, if not grandchildren.

A really important graphic novel, being reintroduced to the world, with a new introduction. Quite a lot of time has passed since I first read this. And unfortunately a lot of people here might have passed. Joe Sacco has done some other excellent work, I hight recommend everything he had done. Palestine might be his best.