Having read Maus, I felt that I was better able to better understand the stylistic and storytelling techniques Sacco employed in Safe Area Gorazde. Spiegelman’s and Sacco’s approach to very serious events and often very horrifying scenes in world history are distinct and both are effective and provoking in their own ways. I think that the combination of the clarity and interaction of the words and images with his deliberate insertion of himself into this story brings this work to another level, in both a journalistic and graphic art sense. Rather than perpetuating the gap between readers (especially long-distance readers) through conventional journalistic techniques, which more often than not desensitize readers to important events occurring abroad, Sacco’s decision to insert himself into his art allows him to combat the sense of detachment and bring his stories to readers in a way that allows them to understand his message on a much deeper level.
Sacco has a different relationship with his characters and a different purpose with his story than Spiegelman does in Maus because although he gets personally invested in his research, he is also a journalist. Thus, through his artwork, Sacco does not only want his readers to understand the story and history and feel the emotions of the characters, he also wants his readers to experience what he and his “characters” see and feel as if they are right there when each event occurs. I believe this is why Sacco has placed so much time and effort into the detail and accuracy of the artwork, whether they are sceneries or people’s expressions. For example, on the 2-page splash on pages 14-15, one can see the clearness of the war-torn homes and the overall destruction through the intricateness of Sacco’s art; details that are not as needed in Maus where the focus was on the story of the Holocaust itself and the relationship between Spiegelman and his father. The thinness of the lines composing these scenes give off a photographic quality that adds to the accuracy Sacco is trying to capture (33). In addition, instead of having his characters wear masks, Sacco also spends a lot of time on facial expressions and shadowing. The panels on the second tier of page 129, especially the perspective, allows readers to see exactly what Sacco sees as he interviews the young woman, and he gives them the opportunity to really catch all the emotions going across her face as she explains her situation.
A more obvious example that may allow us to understand why Sacco chose to seemingly contradict his journalistic commitment to objectivity can be seen on pages 130-131, where Sacco offers a brief look into how other international journalists have approached the situation in Gorazde and they manner in which they reported what was going on. Sacco’s description of how these journalists operate highlights the detachment that seems to accompany journalistic objectivity. Sacco seems to argue that this approach downplays the importance of the Bosnian conflict and the tragedies that these people are facing. He hints at this several times, quoting President Bill Clinton and U.N. officials who state that news media have been underemphasizing (or denying) the level of destruction upon the Bosnian Muslims and Gorazde in general. I believe that Sacco is trying a different journalistic approach using art and text to provoke the emotions of readers to make them really try to understand the pain, fear, anxiety, loss, hope and hopelessness these people experienced and this becomes really effective as Sacco allows readers to step into his shoes. Yet he is still committed to his research, as pages 160-161 illustrates, as Sacco records how different people feel about living with the Serbs again. Moreover, in drawing himself, Sacco distinguishes himself from the his story by adding a more cartoonish feel to his own representation (8-11, 104) compared to his more realistic representation of his “characters” (155). In addition, by making himself a co-subject in addition to the accuracy and poignancy of his artwork and text, Sacco is able to add another level of depth similar to Spiegelman’s choice to also focus on his relationship with his dad. Sacco implicitly tells readers why he focuses more on certain people than others, and illustrates the limits of his scope (in interviews), which only strengthens the connection between readers to the story rather than desensitizing them and pushing them away.
Final Words: I must admit, the stylistic choices that Sacco made for Safe Area Gorazde had quite an affect on me. It was so painful to read and many times, I had to force myself to tear my eyes away from the pages because they were too difficult and horrifying to look at. The detail and precision jumps out at me and I became just as invested as Sacco was in these stories, these lives. Although the chronology can be disconcerting sometimes, I understood the message and the injustice of what Sacco was trying to say regarding the conduct and politics surrounding the U.N. and the Dayton Peace Treaty. I was shocked, I was hurt, and I was angry at how history always seems to be repeating itself and because I was painfully reminded that life isn’t fair. What still surprises me about historical memory is how easily people forget because life must go on.
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