Webcomic Weekly: Joe Sacco’s ‘War On Gaza’

Another webcomics weekly now — the always misnamed, supposedly weekly trip around all things web and all things comics. Today, Joe Sacco returns to the subject of  Gaza…

With the ongoing conflict/war in Gaza between Israel and Palestine, the world can seemingly only stand by and watch the horrors unfold. I’ve covered it from a political cartoonists point of view on the Art of Politics feature since it began, but I’m very late to tell/show you this excellent War in Gaza ongoing webcomic by Joe Sacco, something I’m happy to rectify right now.

Sacco, as you should all know, has been a writer, an editor, and a cartoonist since the 1980s. He’s perhaps best known for his two books covering the events in Palestine, Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza. This new work, The War on Gaza is a completely new series of looks at the events in Gaza right now and is running over at The Comics Journal’s website here.

It started back in January of this year, with both an introduction from Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth and a statement from Fantagraphics denouncing the genocide and calling for a ceasefire.

Here’s a little of Groth’s introduction…

‘[Joe]  and I began discussing the unfolding events, which we viewed with growing dismay and horror, quickly recognizing it for the devastating catastrophe it has become. The media was also beginning to call us and ask questions about the publication of Palestine. It was taking up more space in our lives.

‘We both understood that in this context we inhabit a privileged world of heightened cultural responsibility—he as an artist, me as a publisher—that compelled us to do something, but we also felt a sense of futility and frustration. How should we best exercise this cultural responsibility? On December 26, I wrote Joe, “I decided that I cannot in good conscience watch what’s unfolding in Gaza without public comment.” A few days later, in an email to me, he wrote, “When I think of what can be done, your strength lies mainly in your position as a publisher and what you publish. And mine as a cartoonist and what I draw. I’ve been going back and forth a lot about what, if anything, I can contribute.”’

It’s a difficult subject of course, made more difficult by religion and entrenched positions on both sides of the argument, but there can be no uncertainty, I believe, that we can and should condemn the terrorism that led to Hamas taking Israeli civilians hostage and the massacre of innocent Israeli citizens by Hamas on 7 October 2023. We should also be mindful of understanding the distinction between the Jewish people and the Israeli government. And finally, we can absolutely condemn the response by Israel that has left so many innocent civilians in Gaza dead as an overreaction and as a war crime in itself.

And here, brilliant and incisive, and very important, is a glimpse Sacco’s The War in Gaza.