Joe Sacco + Defeatism

     Joe Sacco's recent successes with the books "Palestine" (2001) and "Safe Area Gorazde" (2000) have encouraged his publisher to re-release some earlier works of his, now collected in "Notes From a Defeatist" (2003). The latest book contains a variety of material from Sacco's early career as a cartoonist/ comics journalist/ graphic artist, mainly from the 1980's when he was finding his literary and visual "voice" as a storyteller.

     The title of this "early greatest hits" is clearly a nod to Dostoyevsky's cult novel, "Notes From the Underground." The front-cover image of a lobotomized, traumatized, pulverized victim certainly confirms the impression that this will be a book featuring a central character, like Dostoyevsky's narrator, who has lapsed into a catatonic state of passivity because of his surrounding circumstances. In other words, the book's cover suggests that this will be another trendy treatment of a trendy post-modern malaise: angst, inactivity, helplessness.

     But Sacco is not only a literalist (pictures speak 1,000 words, after all), he is also a sharp wit and an ironist. Far from being an apology for defeatism, this book is in fact a rallying-cry for commitment, for making ethical and political choices grounded in compassion and empathy. Those choices are not easy to make, the book makes clear. For if they were easy, then this might simply be a work of propaganda charting simple, pat, formulaic "truths." Instead, the reader watches Sacco grapple with issues and dilemmas that are, sometimes literally, deadly serious: terminating a relationship, selling out to a commercial sponsor, accompanying a rock group on a European tour, or recounting his mother's experiences of aerial bombardment during World War II.

     In the book's climactic section, "How I Loved the War," Sacco reveals an honest ambivalence about the First Gulf War in 1991: on the one hand, he is seduced by the TV coverage ("Bombs going through doors! I was giggly! And down air shafts! Crazy, man!" [178]), but on the other hand, he is sickened by the slaughter and waste of humanity caused by war ("bombs make mush, bombs make mush, bombs make mush, you gotta chant it every few seconds" [179]). There is no easy resolution to the dilemma. That does not mean to say, however, that the reader is supended in a state of hesitation and uncertainty at the end.

     Significantly, right after the First Gulf War, Sacco made the decision to see for himself what life was reallly like for Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories. He spent the winter of 1991-92 shuttling between Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. The resulting book, "Palestine," would become his most politically-charged work to date.  It would also make him an international celebrity. Fortunately, his fame has not diminished his conscience.