Review
THE FIXER
by Joe Sacco
Drawn and Quarterly, 105 pp.
Joe Sacco’s cartoon journalism has become a groundbreaking genre unto itself over the past decade, despite his relatively meagre output. On the strength of two works, Palestine and Safe Area: Gorazde, he has been labelled a maverick pioneer, an influential comix artist and an important journalistic voice.
But with The Fixer, his latest book-length comic, Sacco is reaching for another label – that of the quintessential storyteller. Like Safe Area: Gorazde, The Fixer takes place in Bosnia after the Dayton peace agreement ended the conflict that raged throughout the Balkans in the ’90s, but this book is more of a complete and conscious story than his previous work. The non-fiction subject may be less harrowing than Safe Area: Gorazde’s ethnic cleansing or Palestine’s refugee camps, but The Fixer’s tale of a Sarajevo war vet-turned-war correspondent liaison shows Sacco pushing himself to create a more focused and – dare I say it – mature story.
Sacco seems to have become comfortable with his technical skills – and he should be, considering his pacing and layout are nearly unmatched in all of comix – and has turned his attention to seeing how far he can push his cartoon-journalism mutant. His voice remains strong because he keeps his diminutive pen-and-ink persona visible enough to create an entry-point for readers, while at the same time remaining subservient to the story, and his art continues to improve with each new book he creates.
Sacco has reportedly taken a break from his conflict-zone investigations to concentrate on creating new work, including a piece on the war in Chechnya. Let’s hope his time away from dodging mortars doesn’t make him complacent, because The Fixer shows an artist determined to push the very conventions he established.
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