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03/07/2004 Archived Entry: "APE 2004 Swag Review: The Fixer"

2004 Alternative Press Expo Swag Review: The Fixer, published by Drawn & Quarterly, ISBN 1896597602

I have this odd problem with Joe Sacco's drawing: If I think about it, I don't like it. However, when I look at it, I like the dark, moody landscapes and interiors very much and the rest does the narrative job well enough. I'm sure this is just my problem and not the drawing and certainly not the story, which is truly amazing.

Originally, I thought I had something to say about "The Fixer", but then read this review at iComics and this review at PopMatters and realized that I have nothing to add to them. Although, having nothing to do with Sacco or his work, I do wonder why the defense of Sarajevo was left to what seem to my untrained eye to be sociopaths. But any port in a storm, I suppose. Serendipitously, this month's Current History has an article by John R. Lampe entitled "The Lessons of Bosnia and Kosovo for Iraq", wherein Mr. Lampe completely misses the point that the US could and is doing some good in Bosina and Kosovo because, unlike Iraq, we were not the original aggressor in those countries. In my quotidian life, Bosina, Kosovo, Iraq are just places on the map. However, reading "The Fixer" and looking at the bloodied bodies and blasted homes of the citizens of Sarajevo has made at least one of those places more real for me.

Now, who's going to tell Baghdad's story?
The Fixer

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