Art Spiegelman, the author of Maus, once said "In a world where Photoshop has outed the photograph to be a liar, one can now allow artists to return to their original function — as reporters." And that’s what Joe Sacco is: an artist and a reporter. Joe Sacco spent five months in late 1994 and early 1995 in Bosnia interviewing people who’d survived the Bosnian War. The result was this book, Safe Area Gorazde, which is basically a written and visual documentation of what he experienced and learned there. If you don’t know, Gorazde is a town in eastern Bosnia that was a UN-designated “safe area” during the Bosnian War. But, as you’ll learn from this book, the Gorazde was anything but safe.

I think you should read this book if you’re interested in history and human nature. But this book is more than a history lesson, it’s a way to meet real people who survived a great human rights tragedy and to see the destruction wrought by the conflict.
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Tan buena como Palestina ( )

Wow. Just wow. This was amazing, and is up there with Maus as one of the best graphic novels I've read. ( )

Very informative. So glad it was in B&W. Journalist spending time with the civilians in one of the "safe" areas of Bosnia. It was difficult to read because war is so brutal. It left me feeling despair at how inhumane humankind can behave. ( )

This journalistic graphic novel was a revelation to me, that the medium could (and should) be used this way. Joe Sacco stayed in the supposed 'safe area Gorazde' and interviewed the inhabitants and survivors. This book gave me a better picture of the Yugoslavian war than I had known and included some truly horrific graphics -- all the worse because they were real. ( )