“Mister? Mister? America . . . America man thinks Bosnia man primitive.
Journalist . . . Why you come? Money? I think—Srebrenica. I become angry. Very angry.
Six thousand killed Srebrenica. What you think, Mister? Mister?
You don’t write for Srebrenica.”
Joe Sacco, Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia 1992-5
I am realy interested in subject. Becouse I was there. What did you see, and felt mr Joe Sacco.
Joe Sacco collected eye-witness accounts of things that happened during the war in Bosnia in the nineties. Then he illustrated these stories with hand-drawn comic strips, not the funny kind. Sacco goes into great detail about atrocities, war crimes, incidents beyond horror. He has a lot of power, when he tells and draws. It’s not like you could have seen these images anywhere, unless you also were willing to go live in a war zone during armed conflict.
When you are afraid, it is difficult to find out the truth, and to even want to know the truth. And by afraid, I mean alive. I mean alive in America.