War's End: Profiles From Bosnia 1995-1996
War cartoonist Joe Sacco visits the Bosnian conflict to uncover the stories that are often ignored or uncovered by traditional media.
How does an artist reconcile being forced to go to the front line of a brutal conflict that will change his life and homeland forever? What happens when a reporter finally comes face-to-face with an evil war criminal? Before his groundbreaking graphic novels Safe Area Gorazde and The Fixer, Palestinian author Joe Sacco created two short stories with characters from each side of the crossfire. Collected for the first time in War's End: Profiles from Bosnia 1995–1996 are the acclaimed Soba and Christmas with Karadzic. In Soba, Sacco captures the internal torment of the romanticized Sarajevo artist-warrior who captivated the Western media with his guitar and hard-partying ways. In Christmas with Karadzic, Sacco gives the reader an inside peek at the darkly humorous news process that doesn't make the headlines back home as he chases after one of the most hated and sought-after Bosnian Serb leaders and war criminals.
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Community Reviews
This is no, Safe Area Goražde: The War in Eastern Bosnia, 1992-1995. That book was telling us about the war and events. About the suffering and genocides. About small battles and survival. Always new people to tell new stories. Maybe 30 people all in all from various towns.
This is a book with 2 stories. One is some overweight punk singer who was a soldier for a short while mainly digging up mines. The other story is a 6 min interview a friend did with Radovan Karadžić. We don't hear anything from the interview and it was worth $1000 when selling to one media channel as an exclusive deal. They see a hot Serb secretary. We only see her ass and legs. And that's a big conversation. They hate the French never explaining why. They hate the Bosnian Serb leadership yet freely interview them. We don't see the woman again and there is not too much to this story overall as the author doesn't even get to do the interview. It's still quite nice. We needed way more info on each person and how the leadership even worked.
The first story is weird. The singer is drawn as a creepy slob just drinking all day. And maybe that's the case? Yet it makes him seem like someone who ate very well during the war. The band is also weird why is half the chapter about his singing? Plenty of people are in bands. His military career is more engaging yet we only get a few panels on that. There is another soldier yet we don't even get his story. We just see him. So overall this lacks focus on info. The first chapter is frankly all over the place. The singer says he likes to sleep around yet we don't see him more than dance. Does he sleep around or just lie about his luck in this area? We never learn. The author is definitely not hooking up. Hence why he wouldn't even know much about what the other guys do either.
It's fine. I was engaged reading it, but it really needed waaaay more deep info about something. The war or reconstruction. We don't get a single story about a single building being fixed. Which frankly is a bit letdown. Take this for what it is a mini comic with 2 stories that make little sense and are historically totally irrelevant.
This is a book with 2 stories. One is some overweight punk singer who was a soldier for a short while mainly digging up mines. The other story is a 6 min interview a friend did with Radovan Karadžić. We don't hear anything from the interview and it was worth $1000 when selling to one media channel as an exclusive deal. They see a hot Serb secretary. We only see her ass and legs. And that's a big conversation. They hate the French never explaining why. They hate the Bosnian Serb leadership yet freely interview them. We don't see the woman again and there is not too much to this story overall as the author doesn't even get to do the interview. It's still quite nice. We needed way more info on each person and how the leadership even worked.
The first story is weird. The singer is drawn as a creepy slob just drinking all day. And maybe that's the case? Yet it makes him seem like someone who ate very well during the war. The band is also weird why is half the chapter about his singing? Plenty of people are in bands. His military career is more engaging yet we only get a few panels on that. There is another soldier yet we don't even get his story. We just see him. So overall this lacks focus on info. The first chapter is frankly all over the place. The singer says he likes to sleep around yet we don't see him more than dance. Does he sleep around or just lie about his luck in this area? We never learn. The author is definitely not hooking up. Hence why he wouldn't even know much about what the other guys do either.
It's fine. I was engaged reading it, but it really needed waaaay more deep info about something. The war or reconstruction. We don't get a single story about a single building being fixed. Which frankly is a bit letdown. Take this for what it is a mini comic with 2 stories that make little sense and are historically totally irrelevant.
