There's very few times that I have nothing at all good to say about a comic book or graphic novel. Yet as I sit here trying to figure out something, even a morsel of redeeming value within Palestine by Joe Sacco, I find myself at a loss. Right from the start this text showed it's horrific nature. Now, I'm not opposed to thick blocks of text, in fact I love Hickman who is known for a dense comic/text relationship, yet Sacco fails where Hickman is masterful. I believe the reason to be two part. The first aspect is in the layout itself. Sacco either separates the text almost 100% from the pictures (pg 41-50 being an example) or he overlaps a high amount of text blocks over the panels in such a way as to be highly distracting to the actual content within. In the first case, I may have been able to justify a page or two at the most of complete separation but Sacco creates TEN pages where the panels are secondary to the separate text. It feels as though the comic transition to a book that is illustrated. The second case creates an issue with me being able to connect with the story itself in a way that I normally would with a comic book. This leads to another issue. I didn't care about what was being told. Partly due to the aforementioned portion but also with the way the whole story unfolds. On page 120 I have deja vu of the first chapter's demonstration. It's different but at the same time it's too similar. I feel that the story is highly repetitive. I got to end and thought to myself "I swear if he get's into another taxi..."
About the only interesting portion of Palestine that can be mentioned is the purely superficial aspect with the section REWIND on 208 where the panel transition goes from highly disorganized and random to what we would see as a normal panel lay out on 212. If Sacco had presented a more interesting story I may have taken the time to consider why he made this choice, but unfortunately by that point my interested had died several times. With that, I wish I had more poignant things to say about Palestine but alas I can only find the joy with which selling this book back at the end of the semester will bring.
To each his own, Stephan. I find Sacco's way of combining word and image masterful. I would agree that it can be very dense and demanding, but that's something I admire about it. I just have to remember that the default reading experience I expect to have when reading most comic books is not what I'm going to have when reading Sacco. He uses various tactics to slow the reading experience, to load or supercharge it, and to make the surface of the work very dense. I think this is consistent with his emphasis on making people take note of difficult topics that we ordinarily don't stop to take note of. In other words, I think he has a moral or ethical motive in mind for many of the techniques that you find difficult or distracting.
ReplyDeleteCheck out Owen's blog for another negative review of the work:
http://onnapnewo.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/palestine-by-joe-sacco/
You may find commonalities there. Me, I think you're both wrong. :)
I remember being struck by Sacco's odd way of cutting his narration into tiny, confetti-like captions, little strips that seem to float over or rain down on the page. He breaks the running text into what some have called lexias, that is, little textual scraps that don't necessarily correspond to grammatically complete units (sentences or clauses). The way he uses this technique to convey panic, or confusion, or clashing points of view, impresses me greatly, as does his way of arranging the fragments on the page to guide the eye (e.g. the very first page, "Cairo"). I admit that it can be quite dense, but I like the fact that he is trusting me enough to make the effort.
In class you hinted at other, moral or ethical reasons behind your distaste for the book. Can you explain?
I should read Hickman's The Nightly News. I have seen it, and wasn't taken by its approach at first glance. I note that that book is closer in approach to the illustrated prose chapter in Palestine, except that it uses computer fonts rather than hand-lettered text, something I see as less dynamic and less personal. Admittedly, I also reacted negatively to the paranoid/dystopic Fight Club-like vibe of the Hickman work, which to me is pretty tired territory--though I know many readers disagree.