Bringing War Stories Home: Journalist and Graphic Novelist to Discuss His Craft
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 10, 2006
Kathleen McPartland
530-898-4260
Mary Abowd, Department of Journalism
530-899-9435
Bringing War Stories Home: Journalist and Graphic Novelist to Discuss His Craft
Award-winning comics journalist Joe Sacco will present "To Hell with Objectivity: How Comics Journalism Redefines Reporting," Thursday, April 20, 7-9 pm, in the Trinity Hall Main Gallery, California State University, Chico.
The lecture and slide presentation, sponsored by the Committee on Arts and Letters, will feature Sacco's work as a war correspondent in some of the world's most intractable conflict zones-the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the former Yugoslavia, and Iraq. A 1996 recipient of the American Book Award for his book "Palestine," Sacco will address the strengths of comics used as journalism to bring stories home to readers and will contrast comics journalism with other media.
Sacco has been hailed as a force behind the re-emergence of the graphic novel-a work that uses cartooning to take on social and political issues and, as Sacco has done, report internationally. Stories are most effectively told when readers are offered images, Sacco told Mother Jones magazine. "It's a visual world and people respond to visuals," he said.
Sacco is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship that funded work on war-torn Bosnia and was commissioned by Details magazine's comics editor, Art Spiegelman, to cover the Bosnian War Crimes Trials in The Hague, Netherlands. His comics have appeared in The Washington Monthly and he has been featured in the New York Times, Time, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Columbia Journalism Review, and on National Public Radio.
Sacco's graphic novels will be on sale at the event. In addition to "Palestine," they include "Notes from a Defeatist," "Safe Area Gorazde," "The Fixer," and his latest work, "War's End," an account of his quest for a meeting with Yugoslav war criminal Radovan Karadzic.
Co- sponsors of the event, with the Committee on Arts and Lectures, include the following departments and programs: Journalism, Religious Studies, English, Art, and Middle Eastern Studies. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Mary Abowd, Department of Journalism, 530-899-9435; or Loren Lybarger, Department of Religious Studies, 530-898-4165.
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