Joe Sacco on Comics, the Arabs and the Jews

Joe Sacco can give you a headache. A cartoonist who is more often recognized as a journalist, he straddles so many fences that he makes you realize that life really isn't simply a choice between black and white. Ironic, considering that his comics are mostly in black and white, and that he spent much of his early years after graduating with a journo degree from the University of Oregon in 1981 trying to find a job writing legit investigations about matters of consequence. That went nowhere, so he turned to comics, which took him seriously, and then took him where he was looking to go all the time.

(Click to enlarge)

(Click to enlarge)

It is that type of reversible flux that marks his compelling work, usually delivered from embattled regions like Sarajevo, Gorazde, and the mother of all geopolitical clusterfucks, the Palestinian territories. Or Palestine, as he calls it in his American Book Award-winning collection of the same name, now receiving the deluxe-reissue treatment from comics powerhouse Fantagraphics. He was overdue for an upgrade: Sacco has created panels on subjects as different as indie rock and war crimes for Harper's, The Guardian, Harvey Pekar's American Splendor and other publications. Plus, Palestine is his Great American Novel, and is making the rounds not just at comics houses, but at universities, J-schools and more.

"It was originally published as a trade paperback," he told me recently. "The fact that it's getting the hardcover treatment means it's a book with long-term merit."

Merit? Palestine bleeds gravitas, even as it is populated by avatars leaning closer to caricature than photo-realism. And it's not a polemic, which is why it has stuck around so long and blown down so many doors. Sacco analyzes the Israelis and the Palestinians on equal time, giving their intractable, millennia-old tribal conflict the type of complexity you rarely experience elsewhere.

And given that complexity, it is miles away from a solution, according to Sacco. Even with the recent agreement by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to restart talks to build a Palestinian state by the end of Bush's second term, not to mention Bush's recent crazy-bold promise to deliver a peace treaty by the time he leaves office — or the fact that he has actually called Israel's iron grip on the region an "occupation."

But Sacco is less than convinced that a political solution is at hand, and he's not alone in that perspective, especially in the region itself: A Yediot Achronot survey taken after the summit, as well as one from Ha'aretz, found that a commanding majority of Israelis consider the meeting a failure. The Palestinians, surrounded by walls and searched and seized within inches of their lives, are equally suspicious of a detente. The reasons range from religious and political differences to water rights and birthrates.

Like I said, a headache. A splitting migraine.

L.A. WEEKLY: So Bush restarted the road map in Annapolis. Does he honestly believe he can broker a Palestinian state by the end of his term in office?
JOE SACCO: Nothing substantial came out of it. If Bush was serious about moving this issue, he'd demand settlement activity stop and roadblocks be removed. He'd give the Palestinians a reason to hope they are on the road to a nation and not a series of self-policing Bantustans.

You're siding with the region, which polled pretty negatively on the summit?
I don't think anyone's expectations were raised. Everyone's seen these talks about talking before. But it's a sorry spectacle to see a president of the United States using such a wretched conflict to get himself a Clintonesque photo on the front pages and three or four days of lukewarm press coverage. The man can't see further than next week.

What are your thoughts on the progress, or regress, of the regional relationship, this long after the publication of Palestine?
I'm rather pessimistic. Not only has the occupation continued, it has gotten worse. My first visit to the region came before the famous handshake between Arafat and Rabin on the White House lawn. But since that Oslo agreement, the number of Israeli settlers has doubled, the ability of Palestinians to move between towns has dramatically diminished, a wall is being used to carve off more of the West Bank, and the level of violence on both sides has reached higher plateaus.

Is there any light at the end of that tunnel?
My book is based on a time before suicide bombings and regular attacks by jets and tanks. Even if Gaza has been vacated by the Israelis, it is now locked in a vise, blockaded, strangled. But against the background of the war on terror, few people seem to notice. The two-state solution, whose main components once seemed clear, is becoming increasingly more difficult to achieve.

What is the alternative? A single democratic state?
That might be the best thing for everyone, but I don't see it happening. You'd have to bang a lot of heads together for an awfully long time. I can imagine a single state, but not a democratic one. Fifty years from now, the map of the region might be unrecognizable to us. And we shouldn't assume the U.S. will always be Israel's benefactor: The U.S. might not be able to take care of itself, much less Israel. At some point, demographic forces might take over. The Arab birthrate — not just in the occupied territories, but in Israel proper — is higher than the Jewish birthrate. That demographic fear could lead to radical moves. I can see a dozen ways things can go very wrong.