Tag: Joe Sacco

Fantagraphics will publish ‘Requiem for Gaza’ by Chris Hedges + Joe Sacco

The graphic novel draws on interviews with 29 Palestinian families displaced from Gaza.

Fantagraphics has announced Requiem for Gaza, a new work of investigative graphic journalism by writer Chris Hedges and cartoonist Joe Sacco, that they’ll publish in October.

The two creators previously worked together on Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which chronicled what life in poverty in different parts of the United States was like, and was published in 2012.

Requiem for Gaza pulls from the duo’s time talking to families who had recently fled Gaza. In the spring of last year, Hedges, a former Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times, and Sacco, author of Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza, traveled to Cairo where they interviewed 29 Palestinian families. The resulting book chronicles the families’ experiences of displacement, loss and survival, detailing the horrors they faced, like forced evacuations, targeted killings, failed ceasefires, exile and the deprivation of living without adequate food, water or shelter.

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Three Count | MODOK, Gaza, David Lynch’s Superboy

Here are three things to celebrate, read and savor this week.

Three Count spotlights, as the title suggests, three things from comics today. It’ll be three things with links, no more, no less. One hell of a drug.

To Celebrate: March’s Most Magnificent Mental Organism Makes a Return

The calendars have turned, and with them comes the triumphant return of Marvel’s most cerebral celebration: March MODOK Madness! Thanks to the tireless efforts of dynamic duo Pedro Delgado and Brendan Tobin, this beloved showcase of oversized-cranium creativity is back for another year of artistic homage to everyone’s favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing.

They are, of course, more than 20 days into this year’s effort, which means you have that much more MODOK art to click over to and enjoy. Here’s a sample of what to expect, by each of them:

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Sunday Comics | Joe Sacco’s ‘The War on Gaza’

Check out recent online comics by Joe Latham, Jordan Bolton, Tonci Zonjic and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best and most interesting comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

One of cartoonist Joe Sacco’s earliest works was Palestine, a nonfiction graphic novel about the two months he spent in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in the early 1990s. During that time, he interviewed hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis about their daily lives and the ongoing plight of the Palestinians.

The current conflict between Israel and Hamas has brought renewed interest in Palestine and Sacco’s work in general, and as a result, his publisher has announced not only a reissue of the original graphic novel, but also a series of webcomics that are currently running on The Comics Journal website.

“The demand for Palestine has skyrocketed following the horrific events of Oct. 7 and Israel’s brutal response, indicating a yearning for understanding from readers all over the world,” said Gary Groth, president and co-founder of Fantagraphics. “We hope that the reissue of Palestine and the new series of graphic commentary ‘The War on Gaza’ will help awaken the world to the plight of the Palestinian people and illuminate the political context of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Sadly, as Amira Hass makes clear in her new Afterword, Joe Sacco’s deeply empathetic account of the Gazan people is even more relevant today than at any time since its original publication.”

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Quick Hits | Massachusetts police officer searched an 8th grade classroom for a copy of ‘Gender Queer’

Plus: News on IDW, Fantagraphics, Joe Sacco, Jim Lee, Chris Gooch and more.

In a chilling chapter in the ongoing culture war against LGBTQ+ books and graphic novels, several sources reported that a plain-clothes police officer searched an eighth grade classroom for a copy of the graphic novel Gender Queer in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

The officer notified the school he was coming and was accompanied by the principal as he searched for the memoir by Maia Kobabe, which has topped the most banned book list for the last couple years. The search reportedly took place after school hours and was the result of a single complaint by a community member.

“Police going into schools and searching for books is the sort of thing you hear about in communist China and Russia. What are we doing?” Ruth A. Bourquin, senior and managing attorney for the ACLU of Massachusetts, told the Berkshire Eagle.

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Comics Lowdown | BOOM! asks for CBLDF’s FCBD anthology to be destroyed

Plus: News on 2019 comics sales, Joe Sacco, Cavan Scott, Grant Morrison, Mexican horror comics and more.

Following the controversy that has come to light recently about the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and its former executive director, BOOM! Studios has asked for a Free Comic Book Day anthology they organized for the CBLDF to be destroyed, according to a report by Newsarama’s Chris Arrant.

A CBLDF Free Comic Book Day anthology has been assembled by numerous publishers over the years, and then published by the CBLDF for the annual event. This year’s event, of course, was cancelled in May due to the pandemic, but the comics are still being distributed to comic shops to be given out from July through September.

“In light of recent events surrounding the CBLDF, Boom! Studios asked that this year’s planned FCBD issue from the CBLDF not be distributed,” BOOM! told Newsarama. “Unfortunately, the issue was shipped out to retailers early in error (without being billed). We’ve requested the CBLDF and Diamond to ask retailers to destroy the copies they received, and a destruction notice should be sent to retailers shortly.”

CBLDF president Christina Merkler told the outlet that they respect BOOM!’s wishes and will leave it up to retailers whether they want to distribute the free comic.

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Comics Lowdown: Mohammed Cartoons Conspirator Extradited

One more conspirator in the Lars Vilks case heads to court. Also: Comics about the news, Bruce Tinsley mollifies a fan, and the July BookScan numbers.

Ali Charaf Damache will be arraigned in Philadelphia on August 28 on conspiracy charges related to the attempt to kill a cartoonist who drew the Prophet Mohammed as a dog. Prosecutors allege that Damache conspired with two women (one of whom styled herself “Jihad Jane”) and a high school student to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks. Although the group never carried out their plans, the co-conspirators have already been sentenced to prison terms. Damache, who is 52, was indicted in 2011 but only recently extradited from Algeria to the U.S.

Monstress #7 (Image Comics)

Hot Books: ICv2 has the BookScan graphic novels chart for July, and it’s definitely eclectic. The number one book is Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too: A Book, and no, those aren’t typos; check out the @jomnysun Twitter account for more. The next four books are like a modern graphic novels bingo card: Monstress, vol. 2; March, Book One; The Ancient Magus’s Bride, vol. 7; and Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up. Viz has eight titles on the top 20; Marvel has one (a Star Wars title) and DC has the perennial best-sellers Watchmen and The Killing Joke.

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