War on Gaza

Renowned cartoonist Joe Sacco recently published his latest book War on Gaza. Sacco is famous for his reporting on life in Gaza. He is well renowned for creating the reportage comic sub-genre. However, this book is less about war on Gaza or war in Gaza but more about "I hate the USA." Only two pages out of the book’s 37 pages is directed against Israel. Three explain why he wrote the book. The remainder express Sacco's hatred of the U.S. and it's leaders.

He mocks our politicians for creating a "kinder, gentler genocide" and drew a line drawing of Biden in a diaper with a dialogue box "patent is pending." Also, we see another drawing of Biden with a scarlet "G" on his forehead which I thought was cute. I like the scarlet letter analogy. In addition, he uses sarcasm to rewrite Biblical passages such as "O, Israel, let a monument be raised atop the flattened cities of Amalek so that future generations will never forget the Miracle of Joe Biden's Hallucination." Of course, the November 2024 presidential election choices are what a "rotting republic deserves."

Sacco describes himself as "our hero cartoonist" out for a stroll. He claims he was walking to a postal box to mail a check to the IRS but that the government stole the check from the box. He might be paranoid but I am inclined to believe that this actually happened. 

This comic is dripping in anger and hate with a ton of sarcasm on every page. I give the author credit for his cleverness but the anti-American attitude was too much for my taste.

Wrap Up of 2025 New Release Reading Challenge

The New Release Challenge is an easy challenge for me as most of the books that I read are new releasees.  When I signed up a year ago I selected the New Release Veteran level of participation which required me to read 61 - 100 books. My talley for the year was just 51 books though so I missed my goal. Oh well. Better luck next year. Below is a list of the books that I read as well as links to their respective reviews.

The Saint Laurent Muse by CW Gortner

The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis

The Vanishing Bookstore by Helen Phifer

The Pot Thief Who Studied Calvin by J Michael Orenduff

The Medici Return by Steve Berry

Sugar Shack by Lucy Knisley

High Tea and Misdemeanors by Laura Childs

The Bard's Trail by Andy Regan

The Rise and Fall of Miss Fannie's Biscuits by Wanda Brunstetter

The Amish Ballerina by Richelle Brunstetter

The Peacemaker by Wanda Brunstetter

Rising Sun Falling Rain by Trish Devine

Two Spinsters and a Madman by Eve Tarrington

War on Gaza by Joe Sacco

No Roast for the Weary by Cleo Coyle

The Sirens by Emilia Hart

Old Habits Die Hard by Melissa Westemeier 

The Chaiwallah by Tim Van Es

The Versailles Formula by Nancy Bilyeau

Knife Skills for the Beginner by Orlando Murrin

The Lost Girls by JM Cannon

The World's Fair Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini

The Retirement Plan by Sue Hincenbergs

The Secret of Secrets by Dan Brown

The List by Steve Berry

The Keeper of Lost Art by Laura Morelli

Six Days in Bombay by Alka Joshii

Lincoln's Lady Spymaster by Gerri Willis

Spent by Alison Bechtel

Entitled by Andrew Lonnie

Save Her Life by Carolyn Arnold

Bad Lands by Preston and Child

Into the Leopard's Den by Harini Nagendra

The Crash by Freida McFadden

The Intruder by Freida McFadden

Part of the Solution by Elana Michelson

Edge of Honor by Brad Thor

The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry

The Last Patient by Tudor Alexander

All the Words We Know by Bruce Nash

The Christmas House by Beverly Lewis

Muybridge by Guy DeLisle

Kill Your Darlings by Peter Swanson

Ginseng Roots by Craig Thompson

An Inside Job by Dan Silva

Pain Killers: A Year in the ER by Rachel Callaghan

The Master Jeweler by Reina Dai Randel

The Pretender by Wanda Brunstetter

The Patchwork Players by Jennifer Chiaverini

The Baker of Lost Memories by Shirley Wachtel

Deeds Left Undone by Ellen Crosby

Favorite Book:  The Retirement Plan

Second Favorite Book:  The Master Jeweler

Honorable Mentions:  No Roast for the Weary,  Bad Lands, The Keeper of Lost Art and Into the Leopard's Den

Least Favorite Book:  All the Words We Know

Wrap Up of the Graphic Novel and Manga Reading Challenge

The Graphic Novel/ Manga Challenge is another favorite challenge of mine. When I signed up I could not pick a level of participation, wavering between reading 24 or 52 books.  In the end I read 30 novels. There isn't an annual sign up for the challenge anymore. Participants  just continue to post our reviews every year in the Facebook group site. 

The following are links to my reviews for 2025. 

Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen

Sliced by Rafael Scavone

Squad by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

White Widow by Sarah Gailey

War on Gaza by Joe Sacco

Sacred Heart by Liz Suburbia

Budding Crisis #1 by MK Reed 

Dumb by Georgia Webber

Sugar Shack by Lucy Kindly

Black is the Color by Julia Gfrorer

Delver, Season One by Spike Trotman

40 Seconds by Jeremy Haun

Adora and the Distance by Marc Bernardin

Bad Mother by Christa Faust

Ms. Tree #1 by Max Allan Collins

Ms. Tree #2 by Max Allan Collins

Ms. Tree #3 by Max Allan Collins

The Dark by Mark Sable

Endless by Curt Pires

Alienated #1 by Taki Soma

Shang Chi by Gene Luen Yang

Spent by Alison Bechdel

Feral Volume 1 by Fleecs

Brownstone by Samual Teer

Feeding Ghosts by Tessa Hulls

Muybridge by Guy DeLisle

We Called Them Giants by Kieron Gillen

The Holy Roller by Andy Samburg

Ginseng Roots by Craig Thompson

Profane by Peter Mulligan

The Strange Tale of Oscar Zahn by Tai Vuong

Zodiac by Ai Weiwei

Favorite Book:  Ginseng Roots: A Memoir

Second Favorite Book:  Dumb

Least Favorite Book: Zodiac

Stacking the Shelves #34

I don't participate in this meme very often but would like to talk about two graphic novels. War in Gaza by Joe Sacco will probably upset me but it's written by Joe Sacco. He's an icon in the graphic novel world and is known for writing reportage comics. When I first heard about the book I decided not to read it, mainly because I knew it would make me angry. In the past Sacco has written other graphic novels about the Palestinians and he definitely takes their side. I, on the other side, have chosen the side of the Israelis. The Sacco effect has finally happened to me and I am waiting to receive the book in the mail. 

I am also waiting for Hammajang Luck by Makana Yamamoto. This story was just published three days ago. It's a science fiction crime thriller about being forced to find a new home and striving to build a better one. The main character, Edie, has just completed an eight year sentence in an icy prison planet located below the Kepler space station and has vowed to go straight. After her release her accomplice, Angel, offers Edie one last job that will make them rich. Bringing down the trillionaire tech giant that they failed to bring down before is their golden opportunity. As the publisher stated "What could possibly go all hammajang about this plan?" I am looking forward to figuring out what hammajang means.

The Once and Future Riot

This graphic novel investigates the 2013 Muzaffarnagar Riot that took place in India. Graphic journalist Joe Sacco examines the sectarian violence, crowd dynamics and competing narratives concerning the riot. The book was published in October 2025.

The publisher's summary: 

Compared to other episodes of lethal Indian communal violence, the clashes in Uttar Pradesh in 2013, the Muzaffarnagar Riot, were a relatively small-scale affair―some scores of people were killed and several tens of thousands displaced. It had happened before and will probably happen again: Hindus and Muslims, armed with guns and swords, riled up by vitriolic rhetoric and a tangle of accusations, turn on one another. The truth fragments along religious lines, both in the lead-up to the rampage and in its bloody aftermath.

In The Once and Future Riot, Joe Sacco immerses himself in Uttar Pradesh, speaking to government officials, political leaders, village chiefs, and especially the victims, who were mostly landless peasants, in a quest to understand this riot as an archetype of political violence. In the process, he probes the role of savagery in a democracy; the power of crowds, rather than leaders, to influence the course of events; the collision of competing narratives; and the accounts that perpetrators construct to explain away their participation in bloodshed.

Hailed as “the heir to R. Crumb and Art Spiegelman” (Economist), Sacco has chronicled the urgent histories that define the world around us, from the Great War to Gaza. Here, he turns his masterful visual reportage to a story that is specific to India but with implications and resonance for all precarious multiethnic, multiracial societies everywhere.

 After finishing the book I thought that one side had to be primarily at fault for the riot. I had some difficulty determinating which party held that fault so I re-read the book. I kept a cheat sheet detailing who did what in each village. It was an exercise in futility.

The root cause of all of the distrust between the Hindus and the Muslims was the Partition of 1947. The Partition forced Muslims to leave India and move to a new country, Pakistan, where they would be the majority population. Hindus no longer wanted Muslim neighbors even though Muslims were working on their farms. The economics of the Partition resulted in Hindu farm owners paying double the wages to anyone willing to work their farms. Muslims were too far away to labor for them. Before Partition Hindus and Muslims lived peacably side by side. Each faction respected the other. What a mistake it was.

The trigger of most of the clashes was mistreatment of women. The men would then kill the perpetrators but they would eventually be killed themselves in retaliation. The political and religious leaders were never able to prevent the violence and in many cases they did not want to stem the violence. Leaders on both sides fueled anger by spreading misinformation. Unfortunately, Muslims were forced to live in camps after Jat Hindus burned down their villages. The riot itself lasted a few days but violence seems to be a norm in Indian politics, hence the "future" riot. 

I enjoyed reading the book and learned alot about Indian politics. I felt the author's frustration as he traveled throughout the Uttar Pradesh region trying to obtain the truth. Very few people told him what really happened in their villages, preferring to tell him a narrative set by their personal politics. This was a difficult assignment for the author but he did well in telling the reader how he searched for answers on a daily basis.

5 out of 5 stars.