Comic Books Go to War.

Stills from the documentary Comic Books Go to War. View full-length documentary here.

"For almost 100 years comic books provided fantasy, escape, and compensation for adolescents who often felt powerless and misunderstood in their daily lives. Fantasies of power are often violent, but the violence in comic books has no consequences. After all, it's just the stroke of a pen.

But what happens when the comic book meets real war? 'Comic Books Go to War' explores the journalistic, aesthetic and political implications of reporting the most violent and terrible of human experiences through 'comics'. Today cartoonists write from every corner of the world: reporting on war first hand and writing their own experiences.


Joe Sacco is a comic book journalist [who's] first book, 'Palestine', launched the genre in 1992. In 2005, when he was embedded with US Marines in Baghdad, the report he filed was an 8-page comic book carried by newspapers all over the world.

In 2001 cartoonist Ted Rall went to Afghanistan to witness the American invasion and wrote 'To Afghanistan and Back'.

'Persepolis', Marjane Satrapis book and Oscar nominated film, provide a window into childhood during the 1980 Iranian Revolution.

And four times a year 'Le Temps of Geneva' gives its first three pages to the comics journalism of Patrick Chappatte.


Readers who never thought of picking up a comic book get breaking news through text and drawings in a daily journal."