More on Safe Area Gorazde...

I must admit that I am still somewhat undecided on how I feel about Safe Area Gorazde. Aesthetically, I think that Joe Sacco did a top-notch job showing the situation in Bosnia from a sympathetic point of view. I thought that his decision to use black panels to represent flash backs was not only helpful to the reader but also artistically sound and innovative. There were many episodes in the book that I found breathtaking in their subject matter as well as in Sacco's depiction of them. The panels on pages 92-93, which show Edin recalling the discovery of dead and decomposing bodies that belonged to some of his closest friends, are images that I will not soon forget. He employs his "floating" or cascading captions on these pages, but the drawings really do speak for themselves. In his interview with Gary Groth, Sacco says he uses this specific technique to "emphasize a scattered feeling", and it is one of my favorite things about his work. It really makes the reader pay attention to every little thing in the panel, and it definitely establishes a feeling of uncertainty and confusion.

All of that being said, there were several things about Safe Area Gorazde that I took issue with, most notably the character of Riki. Now, I may be reading too much into this, but it was nearly impossible for me to take him seriously. Riki is probably the most significant Bosnian soldier in the novel, and he is typically used as comic relief; we see him singing or making slightly suggestive comments in broken English. Though it is the sight of Riki walking toward the front line that causes Sacco to come "as close as I came in Bosnia to bursting into tears" (103.30), I could not get over the thought that he was being used as a stereotype. He was Sacco's funny, American-obsessed foreigner, the "wild and crazy guy" that we know all too well from movies, television shows, etc. There were scenes in the novel that reminded me of the scenes featuring Chin-Kee in American Born Chinese. However, instead of people being embarrassed by Riki they were egging him on. I am not sure that either of these reactions are correct, nor do I know what exactly the correct reaction is. I understand that Riki does have an enormous amount of depth to him, but I wish that Sacco had showed this more often. Perhaps he was trying to emphasize just how young and unprepared for battle the soldiers were, in which case he most definitely succeeded. I had hoped he would explain this a little more in the interview we read, but he made no reference to it. I read some more interviews about this book and was unable to find any information that satisfied my concerns. Again, I do realize that there is a large chance that I am reading too much into this. Perhaps I need to go back and read the Riki sections more closely to see more of the aforementioned depth that Riki possesses. But, seeing as I have already gone over these sections several times, I am afraid that I will just be disappointed.