Cartoons



(click for larger photo) 		It became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in order to Save It!
       by Khalil Bendib

       Khalil Bendib is a Berkeley-based award-winning cartoonist published in 1,400 small and mid-sized newspapers across the country, as well as blackcommentator.com, Muslimobserver.com, and various other online publications. His hard-hitting, myth-shattering, platitude-ridiculing cartoons rarely shy away from the truth as they seek to counterbalance the infotainment offered by the mass media.


5 out of 5 stars You'll fall over from laughing
by a Reader from Washington, DC, posted on Tuesday, Sep 30, 2003

"Warning: Laughing too hard may be hazardous to your health" says the back cover. This political cartoon book by master cartoonist Khalil Bendib will make you fall over from laughing too hard. Tackling some of the most serious problems facing us today, this collection of cartoons is more than about having a good laugh. It will challenge you to open your brain and think. Nice reading for this election year.



(click for larger photo) 		Arab in America
       by Toufic El Rassi

      




(click for larger photo) 		Palestine
       by Joe Sacco

      


5 out of 5 stars Very Good Art, Accurate, Inspired, Like TinTin
by a Reader from Maryland, posted on Tuesday, Sep 30, 2003

I totally enjoyed reading "Palestine". At first, I didn't know what to expect from a cartoon book like this. However Sacco brilliantly displays his mastery of the cartoon medium, using it to convey very complex ideas and make it understandable and tangible. His characters look so realistic they are almost ready to jump out of the page. I have one Palestinian friend and from what I know the characters and setting are very accurate representations of the people and landscape. The events that take place are also an accurate portrayal of the events in the early 1990s, towards the end of the first Palestinian uprising (or Intifada) against Israeli domination.

One particularly memorable sketch is of that old man on p. 62 who describes how the Israelis destroyed his farm, kicked him out of his land, and uprooted his olive trees in order to make room for additional Jewish-only "settlements". "It was like watching my children being killed in front of my eyes" he says about the Olive trees, while in Sacco's sketch you can see the tear-ducts frozen in wrinkles on the man's face. I never appreciated the misery of Palestinians until I read this book.

I enjoyed this book so much I absolutely HAD to get Sacco's other books. Notes From a Defeatist represents his earlier works and as thus his skills as a cartoonist are not as well developed as here. The works contained there are generally shorter, too, preventing him from fully developing a topic. Still, it is an interesting and exciting reading, the part on the first war with Iraq is just as applicable today as 12 years ago. The other major Sacco work "Safe Area Gorazde" is truly another masterpiece. I never thought I would ever be able to understand the complexities of the Bosnian conflict until I read Sacco's book which not only told me with words but showed me with pictures what had happened.

The same is true with "Palestine", which takes perhaps a more important role now as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is STILL going on. If you like to understand what is happening there, and like to read a good enjoyable book, get it. It is money and time well-spent.

5 out of 5 stars What is it like being a Palestinian? Why should you care?
by a Reader from Washington, DC, posted on Tuesday, Sep 30, 2003

Starting with a typical attitude of "Who cares?" Sacco shows us how his visit to the West Bank and Gaza in the early 1990s transformed him completely. Palestinians have much against them in today's world, not least the stereotypes of "supporting terror" etc, etc that the Israeli propaganda machine heaps on them every day. These stereotypes create a formidable barrier between the Palestinian people and Americans. Americans do not feel like they should even pay attention to these "insignificant terrorists" - and that is precisely the goal of the propagandists in the first place: to silence the Palestinians and prevent their very humanity (let alone their message) from being recognized.

Enter Joe Sacco! With master strokes of a cartoonist's pencil, he succeeds Single-handedly in shattering those barriers. For the first time in an American publication, you actually see Palestinians as people, you enter their households, you talk to them, you listen to their problems, and you think about it. Well, so what?

If you always thought that the middle east problem is "too complicated" or "has been going on for too long" to be able to understand it, it is time to get out your credit card and buy this book now. In the most enjoyable cartoon style that makes it hard for you to let go of the book, you will see things like you've never witnessed them before. This is the raw human story, not the clinically sterilized CNN version of events, or the dry history book polemics. I guarantee that after reading Sacco's Palestine, something will click and you will finally understand what's been going on, more clearly than you ever have before.

WARNING: Not for the faint of heart!

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